There’s been a lot said about the latest Marvel to drop into theaters this past week, The Marvels. People complained about the film featuring too much Kamala Khan fawning over Carol Danvers. People were complaining that the movie just wasn’t good. People said that this was the film that would kill the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Somehow, none of these people were even close to telling the truth.
While The Marvels isn’t a strong film, it’s also not a tremendously awful or weak one. When we have movies like Thor: The Dark World or Ant-Man: Quantummania that really was bad and weak, saying The Marvels belongs with them is just wrong. Director Nia DaCosta didn’t do herself any favors by bailing on the film with a month remaining to direct another feature. But her debut Marvel film didn’t even come close to the trainwreck the internet said it was. With all that out of the way, what did and didn’t work about The Marvels? Let’s dive in. I’ll do my best to explain what I loved and hated about this film.
Let’s start with the elephant in the room, which is the supposed fact that Kamala Khan played by Iman Vellani was supposed to have fawned over Carol Danvers way too often in this film. If I were to put her fawning up there with Peter Parker’s fawning over Tony Stark or Ant-Man’s fawning over Captain America, it looks almost the same. This is a young woman meeting her hero as a teenager, one should expect some fawning. With the way people complained, I was expecting something egregious and awful. Instead, I saw a normal teenager geeking out over their hero in a pretty normal way, one that had already been used in the MCU twice before with male characters fawning over other male characters and that was fine.
If we’re being real, the biggest problem with the film was the film’s “villain,” Dar-Benn, played by Zawe Ashton. I hate being this blunt about an actor’s efforts, but Zawe Ashton brought absolutely nothing to this film. Her acting was awful. Her fight scenes bordered on hilarious and she generally ruined every scene she was in. I had wondered why Marvel hadn’t bothered to tell us who the villain for this film was in the run-up to the movie’s release, but after seeing her acting, I no longer wondered why. I am relieved she won’t be returning to the franchise after seeing her in this, no joke.
As a vehicle for the MCU, The Marvels is going to be pretty important to the MCU. I will not spoil the film or the post-credit scenes, but I think fans are going to be pretty damn excited about where this is headed. If you’ve been keeping up with the rumors and leaks, nothing that happens in this film should be all that new to you, but the execution is tremendous and I can’t wait to see it play out. This might be the most important set of post-credit scenes to take place in an MCU film in some time.
The movie picks up where Captain Marvel left off. She destroys the Supreme Intelligence on Hala and all that is left for them is a small source of power via a bangle similar to the one on Kamala Khan’s wrist. Dar-Benn then sets about grabbing different things from different planets using the bangle. She steals the atmosphere of one planet and the water from another. It’s her attempt to steal the Sun from our solar system that sees our heroes come into conflict with her. The B-Plot of the film sees Fury dealing with a ton of eggs popping up all over the S.A.B.E.R. station because Goose is pregnant. It’s as adorable as it sounds.
Teyonah Parris got a chance to shine as Monica Rambeau in her first feature outing and she nailed it. I think Marvel did a fantastic job of casting her as Photon and I’m genuinely excited to see more of her in the MCU. She understood the assignment and genuinely seemed to embrace playing this iconic character. I was impressed by the ease with which she’s taken to this role. She never seems out of place or odd using her powers and suggesting ideas to solve problems. Now if they could only settle on a name for her.
On the whole, this was a decent hour-and-a-half romp. I wasn’t expecting Avengers: Endgame-level writing or stakes. The film did what it needed to do and set up the next stage of these films with grace and ease. Iman Vellani, Brie Larson, and Teyonah Parris did a solid job playing some of my favorite Marvel characters in the entire franchise. I definitely think this film could have done more, but it also did what it needed to do. Don’t listen to the internet, go see the film and decide for yourself.
BSO Rating: 7-out-of-10
