After 10 years of solo superhero films all starring men, Marvel Studios finally released their first female hero solo film: “Captain Marvel.” Conveniently released on international women’s day, “Captain Marvel” tells the story of the first female superhero in the MCU. “Captain Marvel” takes place in the mid 1990s, roughly 10 years before the events of the first Marvel Movie, “Iron Man,” and has already hit $1 billion at the international box office.
In the beginning of the movie, Captain Marvel, played by Academy Award winner Brie Larson, is referred to as Vers, a name she was given when brought to a Kree planet from Earth. The film starts off with Vers experiencing flashbacks while dreaming to her previous life on Earth; however, she doesn’t know or understand why she is having these flashbacks because she has no memory of her life before being brought to the Kree planet.
After experiencing these flashes of different memories, Vers seeks out her mentor, Yon-Rogg, played by Jude Law. Yon-Rogg is a fellow Kree warrior who is trying to help Vers ignore her emotions while fighting. They spar for a bit which concludes with Vers losing her temper and firing a photon blast at Yon-Rogg. This is the first glimpse of Vers’s powers that the audience gets to see.
The CGI used to create Vers’s powers, the Kree planet, and the multiple battle scenes involving any type of blast is quite impressive. Marvel has always had a strong track record when it comes to their use of CGI, especially when it comes to creating different planets and scenes in outer space. This movie is no exception.
I went into the movie expecting something great out of it, and I’m happy to say that I was not disappointed. It was a good mix of comedy, action, and a little bit of drama and suspense. As someone who wasn’t entirely sure about the decision in casting Larson as Captain Marvel, I came out of the movie without a doubt in my mind that no one could have played the character better than she did.
Larson may have been great, but her two co-stars really stole the show. Samuel L. Jackson as a young Nick Fury and Vers’s cat from her previous life, Goose, are no doubt the reasons why the movie did as well as it did. Vers teams up with a de-aged Nick Fury, created by the magic of CGI, to stop the oncoming invasion of Skrulls (who *spoiler alert* turn out to be the good guys) and to figure out who she really is.
Through their adventures in the midwest while tracking down the people who could explain Vers’s past, they discover that her real name is Carol Danvers and that she was an Airforce pilot who had apparently died in a test flight gone wrong. Clearly, that was not the case. This crash turns out to be what caused Danvers to gain her unbelievable powers and when she was first taken to the Kree planet by Yon-Rogg. At this point in the movie, I was raging about the fact that her mentor had actually been the bad guy the entire time and I hadn’t figured it out until then. But I got over it quickly.
The best part of the movie was, without a doubt, Danvers’ old cat, Goose. He is the most adorable, and the most frightening, cat I’ve ever laid eyes on. Audiences soon learn that Goose is not actually a cat, but a part of some weird alien race called the Flerken, who the Skrulls are absolutely terrified of.
Watching this adorable little orange pet turn into some bizarre mix between an octopus and a cat was both entertaining and a little creepy at first. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Goose stole the show and now lives in the hearts of Marvel fans everywhere.
As for whether or not I think that people should go see this movie, they should. Please go see it. Right now.
But if you aren’t a fan of Marvel (or women in general) then this movie probably isn’t for you. To the majority of people whose opinions on Marvel and women I still respect, this movie is definitely up your alley.
