With everyone preparing for Avengers: Endgame, there is still there a matter of introducing us to the latest member in the form of Captain Marvel.
With a lot of the general audience were trying to work out who Nick Fury sent a message to on his pager in the post-credit scene of Avengers: Infinity War, hardcore fans were instantly excited for what was to come.
With the casting of the brilliant Brie Larson, I was certainly up for a new origins story within the MCU, a franchise that continues to go from strength and strength and further affirming themselves as the leading franchise within the entertainment industry.
One thing is for sure, MCU films will always entertain the masses and this one is no different. The whole film had a feeling of a first phase film about it. From its structure, to its character arch's and to the strength of its villain.
For some people, that may be seen as a weak installment to the franchise and maybe a step backward. But to me, this was nothing but a solid piece of entertainment that filled a nice space in introducing us to another important character that sets us up nicely for the main event.
There were some well drawn-out and topical themes at work here, with some well executed twists and merging of a couple of genres that I felt worked well.
As expected, Brie Larson does good job and for me gave us a believable character that I feel is a welcomed addition to The Avengers. I especially liked her comradery with Samuel L. Jackson, who does what we all know he can do, and that is be cool and be a bad ass. This was also probably his funniest portrayal of Nick Fury throughout the franchise. Seeing their chemistry certainly felt similar to a Lethal Weapon or 48hrs film.
Ben Mendehlson is in this, and his back catalogue is basically playing the pantomime bad guy. While he does show signs in this, it was great to see his range being tested and Mendehlson ended up one of the best aspects of the supporting cast. But the one that stole the show was a cat. Call me crazy, but when you watch it, you will agree with me.
Lashana Lynch was someone I've not encountered on the big screen before and I felt her contribution was deserving and she made great use of what was given for her character in the story.
I also have to give props to the seasoned vets that were part of the cast who all kept the film moving nicely such as Jude Law, the always great Annette Benning and MCU alumni Clark Gregg.
As expected, the visual effects are great. I have to give particular praise to the aging-technology to Samuel L. Jackson and Clark Gregg's characters. It was pretty scary how authentic it all looked. It's as if they went back in time and took brought back their younger selves. We really have move forward since the efforts in Tron: Legacy.
As previously mentioned, I felt the writing was solid, the action was well executed and there was a good amount of comedy to keep the laugh counter up. The strengths were pretty much all the same ones you expect in an MCU film, which is definitely not a bad thing.
But sadly in some ways it can also be a negative, depending on how you approach this film. A lot of the recent stand-alone films in the franchise have tried to go outside of the formula. We've had a high-school film, a space opera comedy, a heist caper and a story set in Africa with a predominantly black cast.
This one just felt very ordinary if I was being cruel about it. While there was nothing wrong with the film, the lack of originally and the strengths not being strong enough will most likely see this be forgotten and be low down many peoples rankings of MCU films.
Don't worry everyone, I did enjoy it and that means there is still not an MCU film that I did not like. Everything about it is done well, it moves along at a solid pace, the performances are good and it certainly gave me plenty of content to understand the origins of the character. If anything else, it's definitely worth watching just for the cat alone.
To the people that did not like this. Not every MCU film needs to have high stakes. That's why I feel Ant-Man And The Wasp was an ideal next film after Avengers: Infinity War and it ended up being for me one of the most fun films of the franchise.
As usual, there are credits scenes. In case, there are two. The mid-credits scene is a nice little appetiser before Avengers: Endgame. The post-credit scenes were certainly expected from me, and while it is nothing special, it ends a minor characters story arch from the film itself fairly well.
Rating: 7/10
