The Marvels

THE MARVELS is here and it's a mashed up film that is totally all over the place. It feels as if this film was edited and chopped into pieces during post and it shows.

Couple things I enjoyed, I did like seeing Carol Danvers and Monica Rambeau resolve and acknowledge their relationship, but due to the nature of their characters being straight arrows, it allows Iman Vellani's Kamala Khan to be the audience just as Tom Holland's Peter Parker was in CIVIL WAR. I did not particularly enjoy the MS. MARVEL series, but I can see her being the shoutout for many.

I think the script just touched on the surface of Brie Larson's Captain Marvel herself, so diving into her more is a plus, however the story did her no favors once again and I did feel like she was given like four or five pieces of direction to portray her character compared to the more one-note performance in the first film. Teyonah Parris is commendable. She was the more science-y of the trio.

Samuel L. Jackson just feels inconsistent especially after SECRET INVASION. Feels like this Nick Fury is a variant. He's simply passing through in this film.

Another thing I liked was the incursions (also briefly touched on in DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS). We all complained about the lack of planting seeds for the future leading into KANG DYNASTY and SECRET WARS. Finally, this film it at least preps and teases what's to come down the line.

The MCU's villain problem is a long known fact, but here it only cements their problem even further. Now I'm a fan of Lee Pace's over the top performance as Ronan, but Dar-Benn played by Zawe Ashton is literally a copy and paste of Ronan, but female. Nothing new about it. Definitely up there as one of the worst villains in the MCU.

The power swaps were kinda cool so I can give it that. Nia DaCosta does a good job executing the fight scenes, but again as one should expect, VFX is meh. Now if you cringed during the musical note duel between the two Doctor Strange, then wait till you see one segment of the film where it feels like a misplaced musical. Lots of quirky and annoying humor like one should expect in an MCU film.

The Skrulls are in the film and as a fan we always think we can write the better film after watching it, but I just DO NOT understand why this sequel couldn't have been SECRET INVASION(one of the worst MCU Disney+ shows). SECRET INVASION honestly should have been an Avengers film or at the very least a Captain Marvel sequel co-starring some Avengers, kinda like CIVIL WAR. I personally feel like that dilemma could have furthered Captain Marvel's development due to her involvement with them and how she's equally to blame for not helping them out when she and Fury promised to find them a home. But instead she's stuck with this material.

The mid-credit scene is arguably the best part. Once again teasing things to come. It's stuff that like that, that will maybe still garner interest in the MCU despite its current fall from grace. The end-credit scene is alright. Not particularly jazzed about that promise down the line.

On that note, the recent Variety article published about Marvel Studios talked about their behind the scenes trouble. It was said that Kevin Feige and his creative committee partook in their yearly Palm Springs retreat to regroup and refocus, so here's hoping to next year being more consistent with quality. Seemed like he was spread too thin with the mandate to have more quantity than quality.

THE MARVELS is a season 1.5 for MS. MARVEL and a CAPTAIN MARVEL sequel that we never saw due to the flashbacks and exposition to explain things. And let's be clear, at this point everything feels like homework. That was going to be inevitable moving forward after INFINITY WAR and ENDGAMGE, but especially when Disney+ was announced making Kevin Feige spread out too thin. But it only feels like homework because everything that has been released is below the standard of what Marvel set up for us.

So to sum it up, while I did find it slightly more appealing than the first CAPTAIN MARVEL and QUANTUMANIA, that isn't saying much. Low expectations definitely helped. Is THE MARVELS one of the worst? No, but it definitely belongs way down below the list.

5/10.

Anyone who heard the news about this project knows that the production was a nightmare, and it shows in the final product here. It's like they couldn't figure out what direction to go, so they made 4 versions, and blended them together. Which would explain the high budget, the 5 delays, and the reshoots. Kamala's character was probably the best part of the movie. I promise you, the script did her no favors, but she stood out. Her acting was in line with her character. This was probably an exciting opportunity for her, and she wasn't going to let a bad script, and production problems stop her from giving a great effort. However, the story, the dialogue, the musical gimmick, the weak villain. It just didn't work. I don't think the blame lies solely with the actors, or even the director, who did lack the experience for helming a movie with a budget this size. I think Disney interfered heavily with the production, which almost always yields bad results. I think it was doomed to fail. They put so much pressure on this being successful, they forgot to make it coherent, unique, or interesting.

Unfortunately if you haven't got Disney plus and you don't keep to speed with the tv series, then you this movie won't make much sense as it relies on you knowing what's going on in that universe so far, which I'm not up to date with and involves the Miss Marvels characters which haven't been introduced in the movies. Confusing.

I had hoped that following Guardians 3 it could've get much worse for the Marvel universe, at least Guardians has Rocket😂

It's hard to find any plot to this movie. Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel) does throw a lot of people through the roof but the plot is a quantum entanglement mess. The movie is blissfully short but feels longer as it's so bad and some people walked out of the theatre. I was so pleasantly when it ended.

I think it's about to retire the whole Marvel superhero franchise as this phase is going badly.

Carol Danvers is attempting to save the universe, but her incredible powers become entangled with those of Kamala Khan and Monica Rambeau, they must unite to save the world.

Ouch, what can you say, this is surely one of Marvel's lowest points, I honestly don't know who the target audience is, or who this is going to appeal to, young teens only maybe? Anyhow, this was an absolute mess.

The writing was clearly problematic, it doesn't gel, it is genuinely all over the place. I do very much wonder if huge sections of this film cut? It can be the only answer, it just doesn't flow at all, and that short run time...

Special effects, some were pretty good, some were poor, I just wish there was a greater focus on plot, it just seemed like 100 minutes of CGI, noise and random events.

Brie Larson, I'm not sure about you, but to me she looked totally disinterested and bored by the whole thing, what I didn't see, was someone committed to the role. I thought Samuel Jackson was rather good, but again poorly served by the script.

It didn't look great from the trailers, and in reality, it's another clunker from Marvel Studios.

4/10.

This film felt like a "Filler Movie" to just create some potential future storylines. I am the exact type of fan that Marvel studios loves, because I go to every single movie (often 2-3 times per film), subscribe to all platforms, and I spend money on ALL of it. As a fan I would typically rate any Marvel film higher on IMDB because I want to see Marvel and the films succeed, but this one I rated a 4... I probably should have rated it a 3. If you went to see this movie and haven't kept up with all of the movies and Disney plus series, you will be scratching your head wondering what is going on. The Marvels is cringey in every possible way... the only part I enjoyed was the post credit scene. Marvel, please do better! As a fan I look forward to the blockbuster films and they have progressively gotten worse over the past 2 years. I wanted to love this movie and I truly was let down.