Yeah. I love this movie. After about a month in quarantine I needed something to cheer me up and this movie was it. I haven't watched it as much as I should have and I actually forgot how much I like it.
When the movie starts it follows Vers (played by Oscar winner Brie Larson), a solider of the Kree Empire with the power to shoot blasts from her hands. She thinks that her power was given to her by the Kree. She lives on Hala, the home planet of the Kree Empire and has no memories of her life on Earth. She has nightmares that are flashes, but nothing concrete. Her commander/friend Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) is the one that helps her with her insomnia and her struggles with her past.
The movie starts when after a few flashbacks in her sleep she goes to Yon-Rogg and asks him to train with her. In the middle of the night. His advices to her are terrible clichés. If you've read Captain Marvel comic you know that Yon-Rogg is the villain no matter what the trailers for the movie shows you and no matter how friendly he comes across at the start of the movie.
When Vers accidently blasts Yon-Rogg during this friendly training session she is sent to the Supreme Intelligence. The Supreme Intelligence in the movie looks like the person you admire the most. A person that Vers she doesn't remember. Gone is the ugly green head from the comics, and in comes Annette Bening who has a double role in the movie. When the Supreme Intelligence reminds Vers that the Skrulls, the race of shape shifting aliens, are threatening their Empire and the lives of their people, you know it is some powerful manipulation. Especially since the only thing Vers remembers from her past is being attacked by Skrulls. Despite her struggles with her past and her emotions the Supreme Intelligence tells Vers that she can continue to serve the Kree.
Vers is on a mission with her team, the Starforce. Which includes Djimon Hounsou who plays Korath, here and in Guardians of the Galaxy. Gemma Chan has a tiny role as Minn-Erva, no wonder she got a bigger role in the Eternals, her rising star in Hollywood requires something more. The rest of the Starforce crew barley have anything to do in the movie. They arrive on a planet called Torfa for a rescue mission and land underwater. Vers' hair in the helmet is a clear wink at her comic book iconic hairstyle, the mohawk. Kelly Sue DeConnick, the comic book writer, who cameos in this movies, created this hairstyle for the character.
The rescue mission goes wrong. The Starforce crew find themselves surround by Skrulls and the person that they came to rescue is revealed to also be a Skrull. Vers finds this out when she tries to rescue her fellow Kree in the middle of a dangerous conflict. She is that kind of an awesome and yet irresponsible character. Which is why she ends up being captured by the Skrulls.
When Vers wakes up she is trapped inside a machine that pocks at her memories. A machine that looks a lot like the Psycho-probe that the Super-Skrull used in order to download Mar-Vell's memories in Captain Marvel #3, 1986. Well, she is stuck upside down in the machine, but it still looks like a similar design. When the Skrulls are looking at her memories, she sees the woman that the Supreme Intelligence becomes in her mind, Dr. Wendy Lawson. Yes, they gender bended Walter Lawson, the first Captain Marvel. Well, the first Timely Comics (which later became Marvel comics) Captain Marvel. Obviously I don't care. This just takes out the possibility that we will ever see Walter Lawson on the big screen and I doubt that Bening will be interested in a solo movie, or more cameos. I think Monica Rambeau is the future direction for a different Captain Marvel, or she will just become her own superheroine. But, back in the movie, the Skrull's are looking for Lawson's light speed engine.
Vers is confused by the situation she has found herself in, but she makes a fast recovery. She breaks free from the shackles of the machine and escapes from the Skrulls' ship. After accidently destroying it, because her powers broke the ship. Oops.
She escape in a pod which falls apart. She lands on Earth. Well, more correctly she crashes into a Blockbuster store. You can't get any more 90s than that. She manages to transform a phone into an inter-space communicator and calls Yon-Rogg. Then S.H.I.E.L.D finds her. Well more correctly Nick Fury and rocky Coulson find her. They are both de-aged pretty good I think. Unless you look at pictures of them in the 90s, which you won't think about while you're watching the movie. While Vers tells them about the Skrulls, one shows up and attacks her. And a really cool chase/fight scene starts. When she fights with the grandmother on the train because she realizes it's a Skrull, it is hilarious. Also, all the people try and stop her, and they can't. They just see someone hitting a really athletic elderly lady. But the Skrull escapes, after leaving Vers a clue. While that is happening Fury finds out that a Skrull is impersonating Coulson and is sitting next to him. That's an awkward moment.
Vers searches for the location in the clue, in an internet-café. Which is so 90s. Everything looks so 90s. The computer, the keyboard, getting disconnected, even the dialing sound, everything taking so much time to upload or search. She even takes out a giant map to look at the location. When she heads outside some random guy asks her to smile for him, which she obviously doesn't. But she does take a cue from what he says, he calls her lady in a scuba-suit. So obviously she steals some new clothe. Along with his bike. A very Terminator 2 look for her.
On her new location she meets Fury who agrees to help find Pegasus after a really funny exchange between them. When they find the secret project that Lawson was working on, they found out that it failed. Vers sneakily finds out that she was a pilot that crushed during the testing of Lawson's plane and that her name is Carol Danvers and not Vers. Fury also finds a cat walking around the halls, Goose. Now I know that I am nitpicking, but in Danvers' memories Lawson calls the cat she, and Fury call the cat he. I don't know which of them is wrong, but it bugs me. But still, that cat is sooooo cute.
Fury is not cute. He calls in for backup. We already know that his boss is a Skrull, but he only finds that out when they get into an elevator together. The Skrull calls him Nicolas instead of Fury. How awkward. Fury and Danvers escape on a plane which she flies, with Goose tagging along.
They fly to visit Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch). The last person who saw Lawson and the mystery nor so mystery pilot. Danvers finds out that Rambeau is actually her long lost friend which she sees in her short flashbacks. This entire plot reminds me of the Rogue and Ms. Marvel plot from the comics. Only here Danvers doesn't lose her powers, just her memories. But like in the comics, she doesn't have any feeling of attachment to the memories that she does have. Rambeau is shocked, but with the help of Rambeau's daughter Monica Rambeau (Akira Akbar) they reconnect. Sort of.
That's when Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) shows up in Rambeau's house. While listening to the black box of the crash, Danvers remembers all of the details of her accident. She remembers being attacked by aliens while flying with Lawson to test her plane. She remembers getting hit and crashing. And now instead of a Skrull, she remembers that it was Yon-Rogg who killed Lawson. In order to prevent Yon-Rogg from obtaining the light speed engine Danvers shoots the damaged plane and it explodes. Instead of absorbing the powers of Lawson through the Psyche-Magnitron, like she did in the comics, now she indirectly absorbs the powers of the Tesseract. She is now a weapon so Yon-Rogg takes her back with him to Hala. She realizes that she has been manipulated and she is not happy about it.
She is more confused than ever about her identity. But Maria Rambeau reminds Danvers who she really is underneath the flashes of memories. That didn't work so well in the comics, trying to talk to Danvers about her past, but it appears to have worked here. Or maybe not considering the fact that Danvers never really returned to Earth. But young Monica helps Danvers adjust the colors of her costume to something more appropriate so that now she no longer looks like she is on the side of the Kree in this war.
Then Maria, Carol, Fury and Talos head off to space to try and find Lawson's lab. Along with Goose. You can't forget that lovable furry kitty. They find the lab in orbit around Earth and the Tesseract is on it. They also find more Skrulls and Talos' family. Unfortunately, the Starforce arrive and arrest everyone. Danvers is being sent to a treatment with Supreme Intelligence. The Supreme Intelligence tries to tell Danvers that she is nothing without the meaning that they gave her and the powers that they gave her. The Supreme Intelligence brings back all of her painful human memories of failure and rejection, but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and Danvers, like always, gets back up. She realizes that her powers are her own and breaks the inhibitor on her neck, which didn't give her powers, but stopped them. And in my favorite scene in the movie, she goes Binary as she unleashes her full powers. The breaks the hold of the Supreme Intelligence and she is totally glowing with her hair rising up.
Then she fights the members of the Starforce while the Skrulls try and make their escape. With the help of Goose who eats up the Tesseract along with some Kree soldiers. Danvers wins. Obviously. Maria flies away with the Skrulls but Minerva flies after them. Because she is such a badass who uses the territory she knows so well in her favor Maria blows up Minerva's ship.
Danvers ends up with her big fight against Yon-Rogg and the accusers that show up. But they have nothing on her. While Yon-Rogg flies away, she gets blasted into space and she learns how to fly. So she shoots down Yon-Rogg's plane. When the accusers arrive, she pushes away their missiles, blasts their fighting planes, everything except for their main ship is destroyed basically. They leave. She is too powerful and intimidating for them to handle. Although Ronan is interested in acquiring Danvers and refers to her as a weapon. Secret Invasion with Kree instead of Skrulls as the bad guys maybe coming in the future?
In the end it is only her and Yon-Rogg on Earth. He tells her that he is proud of her and that she should fight him without her powers in order to prove herself to him. She shoots him and tell him in a very iconic way that she has nothing to prove to him. Damn.
In the end Danvers leaves with the Skrulls to help them find a new home. In a way it makes sense. Despite her new formed bond with Maria, she spent most of the life that she remembers in space and that is where she wants to return to. But, if you watched other Marvel movies, you know that the Skrulls part doesn't make any sense.
I am not sure that Fury calling the Avengers after Danvers' airplane name makes sense either. But in a way it does. She was the first super powered person that he encountered. But in other movies he says that he had no idea about aliens and other threats until Thor. So I am not sure how much it all makes sense. But Fury is a good liar so maybe it does. And the way Fury lost his eye. Come on, give me a break. It's so not what everyone expected after Winter Soldier.
Goose puking the Tesseract like it's a fur ball in the post credit scene was hilarious.
The script was a bit not so great. I mean it felt more like a Marvel phase 1 movie than phase 3, and you defiantly did not have to watch it in order to understand Endgame. This can easily be explained by everyone who worked on the movie. The directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck came from TV and they didn't do anything too impressive there, the writer Geneva Robertson-Dworet wrote Tomb Raider before this movie. A movie which I enjoyed, but not because of its script. All of these mediocre behind the scenes people were fired from the sequel.
But it was one heck of a fun movie. All the cat gags worked. Totally. The 90s vibe worked. The score and the soundtrack were awesome. Fury was brilliant. It feels like the movie took a lot of elements from Rogue vs. Ms. Marvel comic book storyline and it totally worked. Origin movies can be boring, but not this one. It was a super fun movie and I enjoy it every time I watch it.
Image source: Poster and Binary
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