All right, this is going to be one of those movies that’s difficult to review. Unfortunately, before we talk about the movie we have to have a difficult discussion first. So basically, Captain Marvel has had some bad press surrounding it that has tainted the movie for some people. Without dancing around it, basically Brie Larson (the star of the movie) made some political comments that winded up pissing off some people, myself included. In a call to promote diversity in movie reviews, she said that when it comes to certain movies she doesn’t care what an old white guy has to say about it, because the movie “wasn’t made for them.” This left a sour taste in my mouth, since it comes off as very racist, and if I’m being honest I now like Brie Larson a lot less for it.

In general, though, this winded up angering a lot of the anti-SJW types, because people are tired of having political agendas forced into everything. I agree with this, because to me it taints the fun escapism that movies can provide in general. I’ve always been drawn to superheroes because of their larger-than-life nature, and so I go into these movies to have fun. So, I find it unfortunate that we now have to politicize these movies too. Some of us may remember a time when a movie like Blade could come out and be about a black superhero without making a big deal that it was a movie about a black superhero. We were able to just enjoy the movie and not make it about race. I hope that one day we can get back to this, because I’ve always loved a variety of movies and have been keen on seeing diverse movies without pushing forward how terrible straight white males are in the process.

With all this being said, I told myself that I wasn’t going to let these political controversies surrounding the movie dictate my enjoyment of the movie. If the movie was going to force a political agenda into it then I would judge it on that, but if it’s just an actress involved that’s doing it on her own then I don’t want to hold that against the movie. I want to judge this on the movie’s merits alone, and in the end I was able to do that. With that, let’s dispense of the obligatory political discussion and talk about the actual Captain Marvel movie.

Okay, so much like many of the Marvel properties that come out nowadays, I’d be surprised if many casual audiences actually knew who Captain Marvel was before the movie. She has a long, complicated history that I’m not going to get into here, but essentially she’s one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel universe, having been equated to a Marvel version of Superman in some respects. Since she’s never gotten a movie about her before and this will be an introduction to the character for many, this movie is essentially an origin story for Captain Marvel, which we haven’t really had since Doctor Strange. Anyway, though, in the movie we get to see Captain Marvel’s origins as she crash-lands on Earth and begins to discover that she might have been there before, having lost many of her earlier memories. I don’t want to get into too many particulars about the plot here since I don’t want to spoil anything, but if you’ve seen a Marvel movie before then you can probably figure out where everything is going as it’s happening. It’s a pretty cookie-cutter movie, and that’s basically the big problem here.

This leads me to my biggest problem with the film. So, I’ve historically never given a movie in the MCU a score below a 4/5, which is really impressive when you consider there’s been 20 movies before this. So, this is the lowest score I’ve ever given to an MCU movie, and yet I don’t inherently consider this to be the worst movie in the MCU. This is another one of those “difficult discussion” moments, so let’s talk about this a bit more in-depth.

The big problem is that Captain Marvel feels like a “Phase 1” MCU movie. Don’t get me wrong, I loved all of the Phase 1 movies when they first came out, but that was 10 years ago now, and honestly some of them don’t hold up as well as they did when they first came out. This is mostly a testament to how impressive the MCU is, but I really do think that these movies have gotten better and better as they’ve gone along, especially in recent years. The level of storytelling and depth that’s gone into recent Marvel movies has been really impressive, and so when I watched Captain Marvel it just felt like a huge step backwards. It felt like I was watching one of the older MCU movies, which is just really unfortunate to me. If this movie had come out 10 years ago I probably would have loved it, but I just feel like we’ve come so far, and so Captain Marvel just doesn’t stack up to the level of quality that I’ve come to expect from these movies now. Again, I don’t inherently think this is the worst MCU movie, but I judge these movies according to when they came out, and so Captain Marvel is just so much less impressive in 2019 than Iron Man was in 2008.

The other big problem with the movie is Brie Larson. I think it’s unfortunate that I had to bring up the controversy at the start of the review, because I don’t want anyone to think that I hated her just because of that. I’m able to separate the performance from the person, but if I’m being honest her performance was just really awful in this. Luckily, the movie is saved by some other great performances from people like Samuel Jackson, but Brie Larson herself just looks so bored in the movie. She doesn’t deliver her lines with any real emotion, and so it became hard for me to form any kind of emotional attachment to her character. There were times where she’d make a joke, but I wouldn’t laugh because she would deliver it so blandly. I’ve heard people say the opposite, where they think Brie Larson was great but her material wasn’t, but I think it’s the other way around. It’s a shame to see such a cool character embodied by someone who doesn’t look interested in what she’s doing.

Those are my only two big complaints, because otherwise I actually really liked the movie. I liked it in the same way I like Marvel movie, where it’s just a fun time. It really helps that the movie is set in 1995, because this allows the filmmakers to represent a time period that many of us are nostalgic for. I’ve heard some people say that the 90s references felt forced and overdone, but I personally disagree with this. I thought it was done just right, and that it helped give the movie a distinct personality from its other contemporaries.

I do think there’s a lot to enjoy here, and so I wouldn’t begrudge anyone for enjoying the movie more than I did. I think it’s a solid movie, it just didn’t impress me as much as other Marvel movies have. For me, the movie is kind of the opposite of Wonder Woman. That movie had a really strong first two acts and then a weak third act, where Captain Marvel has a weak first act and then gets a lot better. I definitely enjoyed the movie more and more as it went on, but it’s a bit of a slog in the beginning, and this kind of set me off on the wrong foot.

Captain Marvel definitely isn’t as bad as some people have made it out to be, but it’s also not the best in the genre. This has nothing to do with any political issue for me either, because I loved both Wonder Woman and Black Panther, which were also heavily politicized by the public. I think this is a really solid movie, it’s just a bit rough around the edges, has a bad leading character, and ultimately doesn’t soar to the heights I’ve come to expect from these movies. This definitely isn’t a movie that I’d advise people to stay away from. In fact, it’s the kind of movie where I really think you should see it and judge it for yourself. I’ve seen people that both loved it and hated it way more than I did, so I don’t think anyone’s opinions should carry the most weight on this one. My best advice is to not pay attention to any of the political controversy surrounding the movie and just judge it for yourself. Maybe you’ll like it a bit more than I did. While I definitely found some entertainment in the movie, it’s ultimately one of the weakest entries in the MCU for me.

3.5/5