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Captain Marvel, 2019
On a distant planet, Vers (Brie Larson) trains under her mentor, Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) in a larger battle against a shapeshiting race that seeks to infiltrate and invade their planet. During a mission, Vers is captured by the alien race and taken to Earth where she escapes and encounters a young Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). Together they work to uncover the truth behind the interplanetary war that has endured so long.
Very much cut from the generic Marvel cloth, this film makes little use of its late 90s setting, nor its talented cast.
Every piece of this movie is a tale of something that could have been cool done in a way that just makes you ask, why? For example, the setting of the movie in the 90s yields little more than name-dropping Blockbuster Video and flashing some very clunky pre-cell-phone technology. Young Nick Fury sounds really fun, until you see that they've used CGI to de-age Jackson so that he looks like a video game version of himself.
The writing is also aggressively average. The actors are all people who have shown themselves capable of comic timing, and yet they really have to fight the dialogue. Worse off is hands down Jude Law, whose first 10 or 12 lines of dialogue sound like he's just reading off of motivational posters just out of our sight. "Emotion is the warrior's greatest enemy." "You need to fight here *points at head* instead of here *points at fists*". He actually, ACTUALLY says at one point: "I want to help you be the best version of yourself." He sounds less like an intergalactic military specialist and more like a guy who should be shilling self-confidence seminars in hotel conference rooms. The other actors fare a bit better, but the moments of genuinely good lines are few and far between.
The action is okay, though it's heavily dominated by effects and I wish that there was more than just a bit more primary color in the palette to distinguish them from every other Marvel fight.
Another one to put in the Meh-vel pile.
Captain Marvel, 2019
On a distant planet, Vers (Brie Larson) trains under her mentor, Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) in a larger battle against a shapeshiting race that seeks to infiltrate and invade their planet. During a mission, Vers is captured by the alien race and taken to Earth where she escapes and encounters a young Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). Together they work to uncover the truth behind the interplanetary war that has endured so long.
Very much cut from the generic Marvel cloth, this film makes little use of its late 90s setting, nor its talented cast.
Every piece of this movie is a tale of something that could have been cool done in a way that just makes you ask, why? For example, the setting of the movie in the 90s yields little more than name-dropping Blockbuster Video and flashing some very clunky pre-cell-phone technology. Young Nick Fury sounds really fun, until you see that they've used CGI to de-age Jackson so that he looks like a video game version of himself.
The writing is also aggressively average. The actors are all people who have shown themselves capable of comic timing, and yet they really have to fight the dialogue. Worse off is hands down Jude Law, whose first 10 or 12 lines of dialogue sound like he's just reading off of motivational posters just out of our sight. "Emotion is the warrior's greatest enemy." "You need to fight here *points at head* instead of here *points at fists*". He actually, ACTUALLY says at one point: "I want to help you be the best version of yourself." He sounds less like an intergalactic military specialist and more like a guy who should be shilling self-confidence seminars in hotel conference rooms. The other actors fare a bit better, but the moments of genuinely good lines are few and far between.
The action is okay, though it's heavily dominated by effects and I wish that there was more than just a bit more primary color in the palette to distinguish them from every other Marvel fight.
Another one to put in the Meh-vel pile.