__To Paraphrase Brie Larson:__ "**This Movie wasn't Made for Marvel Fans**. Am I saying I __hate__ Marvel Fans? No, I am not. What I am saying is if you make a Comic Book Movie that is a love letter to women, there is an insanely low chance a woman will see your movie, and review your movie.”

I don’t hate Captain Marvel the movie. My 4/10 rating indicates a score as an MCU movie, but also because of the inherent deception of the marketing and story/writing.

Captain Marvel the character is entirely CG, and they could quietly replace the actor. If you go into this movie thinking it will introduce Captain Marvel in the MCU, it didn’t achieve that. They don’t even call her Captain Marvel.

Much like Edward Norton’s ”Incredible Hulk”, it’s the woeful and unlikeable storyline/direction that makes the movie hard to enjoy, not Edward Norton. People will argue for the next 5-10 years about Edward Norton or being MisCast, or wether CM should have been made, or wether to recast Captain Marvel.

Just like how people argue for the Film versions of Daredevil and/or Elektra to be part of the MCU for some reason. The Director team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, and Kevin Feige as Producer on the entire MCU to this point, is going to take the bullet on this one, not the “Dream Team” of disposable screenplay and Indie Directors that are more likely to be responsible. Most MCU fans forget that The Incredible Hulk is part of the MCU, because of the successful recasting.

Phase 4, which begins in July 2019 with Spiderman 2 Far From Home, will likely be the point at which they choose another Captain Marvel, or set up a replacement/apprentice character for the main actor to retire the role.

I find CM to be damaged and disappointing because the potential to make “Superwoman” in the MCU, building a character that has the potential to explore amazing new stories, pulling apart the flaws of other superheroes, learning from the mistakes and pitfalls of others, is going to happen in another movie. Just not this Captain Marvel.

The worst aspect of Captain Marvel is realising how the after-effects of this movie, will bleed into 2020 and the next few Marvel movies. Namely, that WOKE marketing worked this time, despite efforts to mislead. There is feminism in the film, but it’s insulting parody to call this a feminist film.

They successfully highlighted the unlikeable Brie Larson, and used her to keep the cycle of attention and outrage, while presenting the movie as a female led story. This might not work for other movies, especially if the Actor(s) are sensitive to being leveraged, or their careers destroyed. Much like Solo: A Star Wars Story, or Ghostbusters 2016 tried to use Pansexuality, blaming the fans for not liking a bad movie.

It’s also becoming harder to ignore the spectacle of outsourcing 19+ companies with 900 different CG artists that modern movies are reliant on, disguising a rotten core with spectacular imagery. When you just look at the story being told, or try to remember what the story is… That’s what matters. Not the explosions or the delights made by artisans. Because, you’ll forget them after a few days.

The Biggest Flaw of Captain Marvel is that it **fails at being an origin story**

Beyond all of the other tiny flaws, average scenes, disconnected plot moments, the absurdly mishandled retcons, and the attempts at activism and humour that prematurely die due to a lack of talent in the writing and directing teams, among a litany of small and large problems that mount up,

Carol/Captain Marvel is given superpowers and is not changed or motivated to do anything different. The convolution of the “Amnesia soldier” trope and the convoluted surprises during the film, hide the fact that Captain Marvel is underwhelming and disappointing. The use of the Star Trek Insurrection plotline in Act 3, isn’t the issue.

Nothing can be done to fix or remediate this, because the movie can’t or won’t go in the direction needed to tell the story that the audience wants to experience. Instead, the writers and directors show us an afternoon for Carol Danvers in which she snarkily destroys things with a smile on her face, but looks bored most of the time.

Removing the Feminism isn’t effective. Re-casting Carol Danvers for another actor won’t modify the screenplay or change the directors. Swapping Brie Larson for ANYONE, can’t make people care about the character, because the character is unchanged from the beginning to the end. We never see Carol evolve, her challenges don’t change the character or make her heroic.

To summarise

• It’s not the worst MCU movie.
• It is the most disappointing though.
• Avengers: Endgame is ~6 weeks away or so, by then, everyone will have forgotten CM.
• Yes, it is a film with Feminism - It’s treated as a joke or punchline by the writers.
• Going into 2019, expect movie critics to attack fans when they lose “Access” for bad PR.
• Goose the Cat should kill Captain Marvel, and the entire Avengers team during the mid-credits break on Endgame, as they’re celebrating their success, to end Phase 4.
• The retcon of Fury’s Eye being lost is a deep insult to MCU fans, or, it’s a light-hearted nod to the fact that this is a comic book story franchise, that has made $18 Billion US Dollars, and is going to go on for 20 more years. You decide.
• Captain Marvel will defeat Thanos, by bringing up his sexist tweets from 2009 in Avengers:Endgame
• Goose the Cat is going to kill Thanos in Endgame, because someone at Disney will find it funny.

The Good

• The CG team did a fantastic job in making Captain Marvel.
• DC’s Captain Marvel trailer, looks fantastic…
• Great work was done by ILM & 20+ CG studios to make the Suit/Mohawk/Breather work and not look out of place.
• The Mohawk does not look silly. The “Tesseract Fire” and “Photon Blasts” are messy.
• The De-aging on SLJ works, Coulson’s is a bit more jarring as you struggle to recognise his face at certain angles.
• Every character in the movie is more interesting to watch than Brie Larson.
• Ben Mendelsohn’s Australian Accent is Superb, elevates the movie and has subtlety, it makes you notice by contrast how mediocre Brie Larson’s delivery is.
• The Cat, is pointless.
• 11-year old Monica “Lieutenant Trouble” Rambeau, isn’t terrible, but the age will be a problem. Expect “Trouble” to show up in SHIELD, 25 years later as another RetCon.
• The overt activism present in the movie, does not detract from the movie’s plot, but it shifts tone and leads to disconnected moments.

The Bad

• There is a continual dissonance when Brie is playing Air Force Carol, Starforce Soldier Veers or pyrotechnician Captain Marvel, or regular casual Carol. It never feels like a character, not even when the costumes change.
• Usually there’s a few moments of crossover, where you might get Robert Downey Jr instead of Iron Man, etc, you never get the sense that Brie Larson is a pilot, kree soldier, Superhero, or human character within the story unless her clothing changes.
• Your experience might vary, but Brie Larson is unlikeable at times. “noble warrior heroes” isn’t supposed to sound condescending or sarcastic.
• The levity, backstory and character moments in Act 2, do not help make Brie Likeable.
• The moments of Levity and snark, which work on other characters, and female characters, feel wooden, rehearsed and sociopathic when Brie Larson is reciting them.
• The scenes as Full Powered Super-Saiyan Captain Marvel, feel out of place because there’s no teasing or sense of context. She goes from fist-fighting Kree and Skrulls to flying length-way through a starship to destroy it as an invulnerable missile.
• The visual Look & Focus of Captain Marvel when using the tesseract-given power, perhaps due to storyboarding of combat to look like flight or aerial combat maneuvering, needs improvement or better storyboarding to follow the danger and action.
• The plot is intentionally convoluted, and does not actually fit together, because the screenplay is intentionally patchworked together to bring characters to action scenes.
• Unravelling the timeline of the movie, shows a few plot holes with the character of Dr Lawson / the Kree Scientist Mar-Vell who has been hiding on earth during the early 80s or earlier.
• Rather that uncovering world-building, Mar-Vell hiding on earth unpacks a larger set of questions about how Yon-Rogg finds & kills Mar-Vell, and the “Engine Prototype”, which is the Tesseract-Lite.
• Hala, the Kree Homeworld, looks good, but it feels like a badly made CGI city because the writers don’t seem to understand EVERYTHING needs to be fleshed out and named for these films.
• The setup of the Skrulls as the Kree’s public Enemy is hammy & executes badly.
• Nobody calls Carol Danvers… Captain Marvel.
• Act 1 is very similar to Battle Angel Alita, but also Ghost in the Shell 2017.
• Act 2 is occasionally interesting. It’s supposed to be the point where you learn more about Carol Danvers and her personality, But you end up being more interested in the other Actors
• Act 3 ‘s Star Trek Insurrection reference, the Skrulls are “ILLEGAL ALIEN” Refugees, And Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) was scanning Carol Danver’s memories to locate MarVell and find his family.
• The Skrull, and the Kree are turned into 2D villains that RetCon earlier and later versions of those characters in the MCU.
• Turning the Skrull into “Illegal Aliens” and Refugees, is stupid on several levels and I wish that this story was removed from the movie,
• The Cat is pointless.
• Once you get home from the cinema, or get up from the couch, the clock starts ticking before your enjoyment wanes.
• The screenwriting team of Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck, Nicole Perlman (GOTG, Detective Pikachu), Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Tomb Raider), Meg LeFauve (Inside Out, Good Dinosaur), but also uncredited work from Liz Flahive & Carly Mensch (Nurse Jackie, GLOW) are more likely to be the cardinal dilemma, of how not to write a superhero origin story.

The Ugly

• We get Brie Larson, Cosplaying as Carol Danvers in a Captain Marvel suit.
• I don’t believe it’s Mis-Casting alone, the writing and direction is to blame for a lot of faults.
• They broke the Marvel Formula, by failing to make an Origin Story.
• I’m not sure the writers understood the Marvel Formula, but Kevin Feige should have. It’s his franchise to ruin, and he’s certainly put this movie in the best possible spot to be forgotten. That’s not going to work Kevin.
• The montage of “Rise Up” scenes are parody.
• The way that the “Women Rise Up” Feminist agenda moments happen in the movie, it takes you out of the nostalgia of the 90s when it occurs.
• There’s a Ghostbusters 2016 moment with a biker parking nearby, telling CM to “Smile More”, next scene, you see her riding his bike.
• There’s a Dick Measuring scene. 6 Female Screenplay writers, Go figure.
• Fight scenes are choppy & hard to follow due to frequent cuts.
• Due to the absurd dropping of all tension once Talos reveals that he’s a refugee, at least 20 minutes earlier, his team was shooting at Danvers & fighting with Fury.
• Music and Foley / sound is occasionally all-over the place. Layering and separation was messy at times with the music. I get that it’s bombastic to hear No Doubt “Just a Girl” at 95db, but there’s also dialogue and combat going on. Possibly a result of flattening the Atmos audio to regular audio levels.
• Captain Marvel is a Mary Sue insert, it’s hard to empathise with a perfect character or predict what they’ll do.
• Maria Rambeau, who plays Carol’s BFF. That relationship is hostile at times, Maria doesn’t react appropriately, and there’s a lack of emotion expressed.
• I Like the Cat, but the RetCon with Fury is not a “funny joke moment” and it makes the movie worse in context. This is a “throwing the lightsaber away for a joke” moment in the MCU, that should have been stopped by Feige and others.
• I Hope that Endgame does not balance on the personality of Captain Marvel’s choices or powers.