The Marvels

I still have some very special memories from the local comic book store in my hometown back in the 80´s. Me and my school friends used to go on our bicycles down there to read comic books, buy some of them while talking to the owner about different superheroes. I especially remember that the owner loved to collect Spider-Man comic books and he had a lot of them. Some of the very early numbers could be found as well, unfortunately i can´t remember which his oldest comic book numbers was but i do remember seeing a couple comic books from the early 1970´s. The owner already knew i was a big fan of The Hulk at that time so he would tell me when he was getting new The Hulk comics coming out. This was usually where i bought my The Hulk comics and i would bring them with me to school to show my friends. Either way, hanging a local comic book shop like this in the 80´s was a great place to be as a kid. We stayed away from drugs and we also met smiliar people who liked comic books as well. He did even sell certain films on VHS if you were lucky but his store was basically focused on comic books. Sometimes we would talk about films made based on comic book characters and i especially remember in 1990 after we all have seen the 1989 action film Batman with Michael Keaton and Kim Basinger where we all were really hyped up over what we all have experienced. This was a really fun comic book adaptation of the classic superhero Batman from director Tim Burton and we all especially loved legendary actor Jack Nicholson as The Joker. I remember the owner did buy a poster of the film and put it on his wall above a comic book section where Batman comic books could be found. Speaking of superhero movies we have had a lot of films over the years especially from Marvel Studios with everything from Thor, The Avengers, Captain America, Doctor Strange, Guardians Of The Galaxy and many more. I actually really enjoyed the film Captain Marvel even though i know some people were divided on this film. Well, Captain Marvel is actually back in the film known as The Marvels with other comic book characters. A film that did really bad at the box office and proved that the audience wasn´t interested in superhero films anymore. I decided to give the film The Marvels a chance on Disney + to give you my own opinion. Is this actually better than i expected or should Marvel Studios stop making superhero movies in the future?

Carol Danvers ( Brie Larson ) destroys the Supreme Intelligence, the artificial intelligence thhat leads the Kree empire. This leads to a civil war on Planet Hala, the Kree home world, rendering the planet barren as losen its air, water, and sunlight over the next 30 years. The Kree´s new leader Dar-Benn ( Zawe Ashton ) discovers one of the two legendary Quantum Bands. She uses the Band to forcibly open a new jump point that connects to the network. Captain Monica Rambeau ( Teyonah Parris ) discovers that Kamala Khan ( Iman Vellani ) is the one who have the second Quantum Band. Nick Fury ( Samuel L Jackson ) and Rambeau visit Kamala on Earth. Rambeau surmises that their light-based powers are linked through quantum entanglement. With their combined powers they are forced to use them facing pure evil.

I have not seen every single Marvel Studios film so far simply because i felt that they have been making too many Marvel films in the last 10 years. I might watch some of them at some point but the biggest reason why i watched The Marvels was to see actress Brie Larson back as Captain Marvel to be honest. Ok, so i do have some issues with this film but let me be clear, i am all for strong female characters in films as long as they are done in a positive, inspiring way. I have no problem with female superheroes at all because there are some good ones out there ( i am especially thinking about actress Gal Galdot as Wonder Woman ) that works really good on screen. One of the biggest issues with The Marvels is that these so called female superheroes are not as cool as we would have liked them to be. With all their super powers and their attitudes you might think that the action scenes are quite enjoyable, but it all turns out to be way too predictable and don´t leave many surprises at all. In fact in some action scenes it just feels like they created those scenes just to fill in content but without any bigger reason. If you are going to make superheroes fight against evil at least make the story telling effective, and also make an effort to make the action scenes powerful. There are moments in The Marvels where i wonder if they really worked that hard on this film to make it look good, but instead it feels like we are left with an unfinished product that could have been enjoyable. Regarding the female actors i will say that actress Brie Larson is not all terrible, it´s just that she doesn´t do as good as she did in Captain Marvel where her performance was stronger. Even Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury have done stronger performances in the past as this character, and he is actually one of the few highlights in The Marvels so that clearly shows this film is struggling with several issues. So anything positive about to say about The Marvels? There might be a few scenes where i at least found some smaller enjoyable moments, but other than that i am not that impressed with this film. Oh, and the scenes that´s supposed to be funny falls flat to the ground. Director Nia DaCosta have proved in the past she is a good director with Little Woods and the Candyman remake ( a film i actually enjoyed ). Unfortunately it doesn´t feel like she put that much effort into The Marvels to make it a solid superhero film and i am honestly quite bored most of the time. Not as bad as director Albert Pyun´s 1990 version of Captain America, but i am not sure if many people will remember The Marvels in the future.

Rating: DD