Marvellous Larson delivers at the helm
It opens with real poignancy, with the entire opening credit sequence devoted to a compendium of the late Stan Lee’s cameo appearances across this now – incredibly – 21-film series. And from there, briefly,
Captain Marvel gets off to an undeniably clumsy opening.
All films, and fantasies especially, need a little exposition as to where we are and why we should care. But Captain Marvel kicks off with a tranche of expository dialogue of such toecurling obviousness it really made me fear that we were about to see a rare clunker in this mostly very reliable franchise.
I needn’t have worried. The reason for the screeds of fill-in become obvious a few scenes later, as a plot that relies very much on a woman remembering a totally different life from the one she thought she had lived hoves into view.
Captain Marvel opens on a world a long way from ours. Two apparently technologically advanced civilisations are at war. The seeming good guys Kree are being invaded and terrorised by the shapeshifting Skrull.
Human/Kree fighter ‘‘Vers’’ (Brie Larson) finishes up alone on Earth, circa 1990, via a sequence of events too complicated to recount. We figure the Kree are good because they are uniformly attractive and friendly.
Also, they are the mob that took our hero in, under the murkiest of circumstances, six years before. The Skrull meanwhile, look like a race of Old Testament demons who have inexplicably been carved out of watermelons. It’s a look only a mother could love.
Jude Law is at his most Jude Law-est as the Kree leader, and Australia’s actual greatest export Ben Mendelsohn is having all sorts of fun as the head Skrull. Mendelsohn isn’t always cast for it, but he has comedy chops to die for and they’re fully deployed here.
But the central act in Captain Marvel is the buddy comedy happening between Larson and Samuel L Jackson, who throws down a virtual greatest hits collection of mannerisms and delivery that manages to send up his Nick Fury character at the same time he is pouring the foundations of everything we know will come after.
And Larson is just flat-out perfect as Vers/Carol Danvers – her name on Earth. Any actor who can still project warmth, humour and believability through the storm of effects and the sheer predictability of superhero plotting deserves a lot of respect. Larson does it all, at least as well as her new workmates Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, et al. This Captain Marvel is the franchise at its best.
There’s a looseness and goofiness at play here, as well as a determination to make the story reach out and bring in an audience who might usually enjoy superhero movies about as much as I enjoy musicals and root-canals.
I don’t like the words ‘‘inclusive’’ and ‘‘diverse’’. The sentiments are great, but the terms are too easily twisted by cynics. But I am enjoying just how much more interesting these films – actually, how much more interesting the entire world becomes – when we stop the default relegation of everyone who isn’t white, male and conventionally attractive to only occupy the roles of side-kick, cheerleader or villain.
Captain Marvel arrives with a lot of nga¯ kau and an apparent absence of cynicism. I’ll put it up there with Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor: Ragnarok and the first Captain America as one of most purely enjoyable films in the Marvel universe.
With the inevitable posturing of Avengers: Endgame to come, this is a great way to remember just how much fun a comic-book movie could and should still be. Also, the cat is fantastic. Please bring him back for every Marvel film, ever.