Captain Marvel (2019)

Film: Captain Marvel (2019)
Stars: Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Djimon Hounsou, Lee Pace, Gemma Chan, Annette Bening, Clark Gregg, Jude Law
Director: Anna Boden, Ryan K. Fleck
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I'm having mixed feelings about the upcoming Avengers: Endgame cinematic event, and they could not be better encapsulated than in watching Captain Marvel this past weekend with my Marvel-going movie buddy.  The 21st film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the movie itself works as a weird diversion before we go into the literal end game of a saga that has been on our big-screens for over ten years.  Watching the film, I was struck by how much of my opinion of this film, which should theoretically work as a standalone product, felt like an episode of a television series toward the end of its run rather than a single movie.  Perhaps more damning and interesting for the movies post-Avengers, I feel like the movie doesn't necessarily work as a stand-alone film anymore, which is going to be bad if (as expected) most of the original Avengers are about to be replaced by a new class of superheroes in a non-ending tale.

(Spoilers Ahead) But before we get into that discussion, let's talk about the movie at-hand.  The film centers around Vers (Larson), who is really Carol Danvers, being trained as a soldier in the Kree Empire, and has unusual powers that her trainer Yon-Rogg (Law) is trying to help her control and master.  Through a series of fights, she is brought to Earth in the 1990's (we know this because she crashes into a Blockbuster Video), and meets up with a pre-Avengers Initiative Nick Fury (Jackson), whom she convinces to help her in finding Wendy Lawson (Bening), who was once a mentor of Carol's when she was on Earth, and has discovered a way to travel at the speed of light.  Carol eventually realizes that the Kree are the bad guys, and she's been brainwashed, eventually joining sides with Earth & the Skrulls (their leader played by Mendelsohn), defeating Yon-Rogg.

This is all well-done, and a fine action film.  Larson has been one of the more promising actors of her generation so far, with brilliant work in Room and Short-Term 12, and fits into the mold of action-hero movie star like a glove.  She's charming, has great chemistry with Jackson, and underlines the feminist importance of her character without it every feeling like she's exploiting the historical nature of the film (both the first Marvel movie to feature a female lead, as well as the first Marvel movie directed by a woman).  The supporting cast is good-Law is great in villain mode, I love the instant gravitas that Bening's character demands (which is needed even if the character would've felt "too much" in the hands of a lesser actress), and Jackson hasn't been this good in a while, showing that underneath the "I'll take anyone that clears my asking price" nature of the past twenty years, he's still got the talent that launched him into this stratosphere twenty years ago.  It's a 3 star, maybe 3.5-star, movie if you take it on its merits.

The problem, though, is that this is being framed entirely against the Avengers movies.  Many of the jokes in the picture don't work without acknowledging it against other films (particularly those surrounding a young Nick Fury).  And let's be real here-the moment all of the fans were most excited about in this film is the end credits sequence, where an uncredited Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, & Mark Ruffalo appear as their Avengers counterparts in "modern day" post-Thanos world, summoning Captain Marvel through Nick Fury's pager.  This is a problem because Avengers: Endgame is not the end of the movie series-if it was, this would be a really cool episode, much like "Across the Sea" in Lost, showing us where our final savior came from.  Instead, it's hard not to wonder how a constantly stretched and molded story without proper stakes (if a story never ends, there's always the chance that characters will return) should be judged as a singular entity.  Marvel has, with its last couple of movies, so made this a "previously on..." type of story that you almost have to judge it as a whole, in which case Captain Marvel might not be particularly good if it doesn't work to the end of the larger story.  I've made no qualms about not liking the "TV-ization" of films, but as a critic I have to state that it's getting harder to judge any of these style of movies without knowing how they'll end.  And if they never end, at what point does this become a franchise like Modern Family or The Simpsons that would have been a lot better if they'd stopped while they were ahead?  Something to consider if, as I suspect, this story doesn't end with Avengers: Endgame but just tries to re-up the stakes over-and-over again to lessening effect.

Two thoughts before I go.  First, I loved the ode to Stan Lee's cameos over the opening credits, and Brie Larson's little wink at Lee felt so sweet considering his recent death.  This was a well-done moment, and while I haven't checked to see how many more movies Lee filmed his cameos for, if this is the last one, what a fitting tribute.  Secondly, I want to talk about the de-aging of Clark Gregg & Samuel L. Jackson.  I have not been a fan of this for a couple of reasons, namely that it feels like actors shortsightedly (and narcissistically) signing their own death warrants (in many ways it feels like a travel agent giving you a link to Travelocity), but mostly because it never looks realistic.  Previous instances of this in the Avengers series have looked washed out, as iconic stars like Michael Douglas, Kurt Russell, and Michelle Pfeiffer looked plastic and "off."  One could argue this is the best instance of de-aging we've seen so far, and the most aggressive (Jackson is de-aged the entire film), but let's be real here-this is good on a scale, not good.  You see scenes where Jackson stands next to Brie Larson, and you instantly can see the tells between the two characters.  This isn't a Gollum or Paddington situation where they're supposed to look different-they're supposed to look the same, but Larson's face has freckles and feeling that is simply lacking in Jackson's character.  You can tell the directors realized this considering the way the film is edited (frequently close-ups of Jackson are done with no other actors in the shot to avoid comparison), making the editing slightly choppy.  Jackson's really good work here makes you want to dismiss criticism (I think it's his best MCU performance to date), but it has to be said-if this is the future of film, I hope at least the technology gets better.