Films for Breakfast

After 2019’s Captain Marvel made a splash at the global box-office with a whopping $1.131 billion, something that is virtually unheard of for an origin story where the lead character had no prior debut in the franchise, it seemed like a no-brainer that Carol Danvers would get another chance to shine in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In 2023’s The Marvels, we find Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) after the events of Avengers: Endgame, isolating herself deep in space – she has successfully reclaimed her identity from the Kree empire and kept her promise to take down the Supreme Intelligence. After Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) requests for her help to investigate a wormhole linked to a Kree revolutionary, her powers become entangled with that of Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) and her estranged niece Captain Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) – forcing this unlikely duo to learn to work together as a team.

Much like other Marvel sequels such as Thor: Ragnarok which found the titular character paired with Bruce Banner/The Hulk or Captain America: The Winter Soldier where Captain America joined forces with The Falcon and Black Widow, a lot of the appeal for The Marvels spawns from the sheer entertainment value of watching these characters interact with one-another. The plot device of having their powers entangled with one-another is a clever one, and it gives the film a solid excuse to not only pair them together but throw them in wacky, colorful situations. A highlight moment from the beginning of the film is a fight sequence where the three lead characters are trying to figure out the entanglement and they constantly switch between three different set-pieces in three different parts of the galaxy as they fight baddies. It’s in moments like these that director Nia DaCosta’s vision feels fully realized and like there is an actual voice behind the camera who has a passion for what she’s creating.

It’s those moments full of pure passion and energy that remind you how exciting these movies can be when there’s an interesting director behind the camera. Unfortunately for The Marvels, there are several other sections of the film that don’t feel quite as cohesive but instead feel drenched in the feeling of having gone through several batches of re-writes and reshoots. From the moment the film enters its second act, it loses its footing on a narrative level and never quite recovers; making the entire film void of a thematic through-line. This can be exhibited through many different parts of the film, but the best example is that of the villain Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton) – a character who it feels as if the film completely forgets and abandons at the halfway point, barely giving her any semblance of an arc or much background into what she’s trying to accomplish and why she’s so driven aside from some brief exposition at the very beginning of the film. For my money? This is the worst villain that the MCU has ever put out.

The film feels like it completely rides off of a handful of set-pieces that DaCosta was passionate about as a filmmaker, and a few of them are genuinely really wacky ideas that I’m surprised made it out of the writers room. One of which, and you’ll know it when you see it firmly halfway through the film, is a bit that tries incredibly hard to be funny and subversive but comes off as jarring and awkward; and it’s all the more difficult to watch as the film doubles down on this comedic bit several times before they most past it. However, there are also a handful of sequences that are actually pretty clever and inventive. While nothing mind-blowing, the film has an admirable sense of ambition and drive to deliver something fresh that you have to admire it for taking those swings, even if not all of them work.

Like I previously said, a lot of the joy from The Marvels spawns from the lead characters interacting with one-another – especially seeing Kamala and Carol bonding over the course of the film. Brie Larson, Iman Vellani, and Teyonah Parris are all delightful in the film and their chemistry is something that feels genuinely endearing from the moment the three of them share a frame together. Vellani in particular delivers an absolutely perfect and endearing performance; radiating the core of who Kamala is while also helping audiences fall instantly in-love with her, regardless of whether or not they watched her Disney+ show.

It’s fun to see these characters interacting with one-another and their chemistry feels genuine, plus DaCosta’s direction often drives the entire film pacing wise. Unfortunately, the film is a bit too-much of a mess for me to give it a full recommendation, as it largely feels like it had to overcome so many obstacles of re-shoots and re-edits to make even a semblance of a cohesive narrative where Carol’s arc gets completely lost in everything else they’re trying to accomplish. In short, the film is far from the same level of disaster that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania or Secret Invasion were due to some clear care put into the film both in-front-of and behind the camera with a truly palpable chemistry from its leads. It just feels like it could’ve achieved for much, much more considering how fun the premise is.

2.5/5