spiderslash- Expect nothing, and even less.

Captain Marvel is the 21st movie in Marvel’s cinematic universe and the final stop before Avengers: Endgame and heaven help me I have never felt more exhausted typing out a sentence in my life.

At this point I’m more or less seeing these movies out of personal obligation just because I’m so far in. I kind of know what to expect from Marvel movies. Witty comedy, personal but small stakes, witty comedy, CGI reliant special effects, witty comedy, a weak villain, and above all else, witty comedy. Now that’s not to say that this is a bad thing, each of these movies (sometimes) have a personal amount of flair to them and just enough style to differentiate themselves from each other. So how does Captain Marvel fare?

…Eh. It’s fine I guess.

Quality wise there’s nothing really wrong with it, it has a decent set up with some fun characters, some great performances (ESPECIALLY from Brie Larson and Samuel L. Jackson), and of course….witty comedy. With that said though this is probably one of the driest Marvel movies I’ve seen as it follows the tropes set by the other movies a little TOO well.

The story for Captain Marvel is probably as basic as it can get for an amnesia story, with some really predictable twists and turns that won’t really surprise you outside of one, but even then it will only really hit you if you’ve followed the comics the character appears in. Captain Marvel herself is a fine hero and everything and does have a solid foundation for a character but that’s really all it is, a foundation. The movie never really tried to build on her frustrations with who she really is and it..just kind of solved itself with an OVERLY detailed audio recording that pretty much explains exactly what happened to her. Not necessarily saying she’s bad or anything because she does have a strong and funny personality, which is only elevated by Brie Larson’s excellent acting, but she never goes beyond being a “super hero”. These problems more or less translate to the rest of the cast as well outside of Nick Fury, but even then that’s only for his comedic scenes. The slightly generic story and characters also translate into the writing as well with many characters giving exposition dumps and speeches you would have heard in a 90’s movie, which is funny considering the time period the film is set it. It gets to a point where there moments that just come off as cheesy, but I wouldn’t really call that a bad thing. What I CAN say is bad is the majority of the special effects in this movie because…woof.

I’ve noticed that with each passing Marvel movie that isn’t Avengers related the special effects have been starting to get more flawed and distracting. Because of the type of movie Captain Marvel is it’s very reliant on special effects which makes it all the more baffling as to why it looks the way it does. There are several shots in this movie that were so obviously green screened that it hurts. The way the movie was lit was also noticeable to me, mainly with the beginning scene that was on an alien planet. Everything was lit so dark and there were so little sources of light that when the action eventually started happening it became really difficult to follow, especially with the constant shaky cam and cuts, which DEFINITELY persists throughout the entire film. I am aware that these can be considered nitpicks, but stuff like that really bothers me in action movies and it’s kind of weird to see Marvel do something like these when they, for the most part have well shot fight sequences and decent special effects.

Like I said earlier, Captain Marvel is just…okay. If you have 2 hours to spend or if you’re too deep in the Marvel movie rabbit hole to stop then it’s worth a watch but at the end of the day…it’s just another Marvel movie.

Not bad.

But no great.