2023, Nia DaCosta (Candyman) -- cinema
Wow! A rare date-night movie outing for Toast and the Peanut Gallery (aka Marmalade aka Marmy) and there couldn't have been a better choice -- the first MCU movie I have been actually looking forwards to in a long time. And it didn't disappoint being fun, a whole lot of fun.
This movie is technically Captain Marvel 2, the sequel to the 2019 movie, but also a culmination of other MCU properties that touched upon the character, including the fabulous Ms Marvel TV show and the Wandavision TV show that gave now adult Monica Rambeau, from the Captain Marvel movie, a reason to gain superpowers. But its less of a sequel where we would expect to expand on the Carol Danvers character and more a fun romp through the properties' characters and how they connect via more than the Captain Marvel moniker.
In the comics, Monica Rambeau was actually the second Captain Marvel and Carol Danvers was all the way down the line at 7, having originally been called Ms Marvel before assuming the Captain rank, leaving Marvel to resurrect the Ms with the brilliant Kamal Khan comic series.
For the 30 years since the first Captain Marvel movie, Danvers has been busy dismantling the Kree Empire. But has she? I mean, they were pretty active, and acting terrible in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, so it must have been some time after that phase of the MCU that she killed their Supreme Intelligence. This movie implies the destruction of the AI was responsible for the downfall of the Kree Empire, but in current times, they still exist. Maybe the failure by Ronan was a last straw for them? Either way, some Kree hold her responsible, giving us a Bad Guy for this movie -- Dar-Benn, who has just found one of the bangles that Kamala Khan wears.
It immediately has an impact on all three women, who "quantum-ly entangled". Rambeau is working for Fury's latest space agency and poking around at rifts in space/time. Danvers is investigating something at Fury's request, another rift in space/time, one of the jump points that is not closing naturally. Meanwhile Kamala is being a teenager, when BING they start changing places: Kamala is suddenly in a space suit near Fury's satellite, Rambeau lands on the planet Danvers was investigating and Captain Marvel herself goes smashing through Kamala's closet door.
Hijinx! Well, actually first they all have to fight off some Kree mooks.
This begins a romp through the universe as they try to track down Dar-Benn by determining her goals/motives and stop her before she destroys more planets. You see, the Kree homeworld has lost its atmosphere and water, and sun, so Dar-Benn is using jump gates to suck said resources and drop them onto the planet. I am sure astrophysicists would tell her that won't do much. Whatever condition destroyed the water and the atmosphere, and sun, is still present and would just do it again. No matter, I am sure if they brought it up, she would smoosh them with her hammer. She's not a forward thinking Bad Guy.
The fun of the movie comes from the actual hijinx as the three women have to figure out how to use their powers concurrently so they can turn the quantum popping in & out to their favour. Montage scenes!! And, of course, anything to do with Goose, the cat/flerkin. KITTY !!
Eventually they all come to Earth for a big MCU fisticuffs battle.
I have been writing too many snarky Hallmarkie writeups of late, and it came through in this writeup. I really did enjoy the movie much more than the paragraphs above let on. But I did see the cracks and the seams present from the meddling of Purple Suits, so much that the director did kinda sort maybe walk away from it.
And thus...
If I was criticize anything about the movie, it was that it felt like a movie glued together by the MCU purple suited agenda (and reading Kent's post, all I can say is fuuuuuuuuck). It filled in some blanks left behind by other movies and TV shows, furthered story lines setup in those previous productions that I would gather many viewers would not have seen. But it also let a bunch of things just hang out there, almost forgotten about. A single line from a character about how "we fixed things" is not enough to address literal world-breaking plot points. And because of this desire to touch on so many things, the movie often felt rushed. Fuck the purple suits.
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