The Marvels (2023 | USA | 105 minutes | Nia DaCosta)
The once indefatigable Marvel Cinematic Universe has been a bit of a late-period over-extended empire doldrums of late, having churned out a bunch of television shows onto Disney+ to keep pandemic-era shut-ins entertained, while hamhandedly bogging down the once-premium films with what felt like sponsored content to advertise or launch future streaming television shows. So it was with some trepidation (and exhaustion) that I approached the Marvels, the follow-up to the oft-overlooked 2019 box office smash Captain Marvel (one of ten MCU films to gross enough worldwide for membership in the three comma club). I’ve had issues with many of the films in the current phase, but by the end of this one I’d formed a new theorem for my enjoyment of Marvel output: if it has a Spider-Man or a super pet, it’s going to be good. And from the jump, I was happy to be reminded that the Marvels features Goose (OK sure, a highly dangerous space tentacle monster, but one who’s ably portrayed by two charming orange tabby cats Tango and Nemo). Like this year’s phenomenal Into the Spider-Verse (so many Spider-Men) and amazingly affecting Guardians of the Galaxy volume 3 (Laika, a very very good dog), the Marvels is also pretty darn good. Q.E.D.
Although I’d forgotten almost all of the events of the previous film and am way behind (have mostly given up) on the television shows, It was an incredibly pleasant surprise to find this sequel required almost no “homework” to enjoy its sprightly hour and forty-five minute runtime. I have no doubt that fans who enjoyed Ms. Marvel (apparently quite good) on Disney+ might get even more out of seeing Iman Vellani’s big screen debut as Kamala Khan, but I was happy to meet her for the first time here. Conversely, I will also be unsurprised if the hardest core terminally online fanboys are mad online at this movie for not being more aggressively interconnected to whatever larger plots are being outlined for the upcoming grand multiversal saga. Not to damn with faint praise, but for me it was just right.
As for the plot: as the film opens, Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel / Carol Danvers has seemingly been hanging out on her lonely spaceship with only the aforementioned space cat Goose for company, keeping peace in the Galaxy (or whatever else it is that she does, being too superpowered to really fit in with the rest of the Avengers). She still keeps in touch with Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury via SpaceZoom, where he’s overseeing Space Operations (sorry, I didn’t watch Secret Invasion either) on a satellite base where her niece Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) is stationed. In the first movie, Monica was a kid, Captain Marvel was her aunt (via longtime friendship with her mother); due something about how spacetime and alien energy powers work, Monica’s now a super genius and captain herself who has also picked up superpowers by running through a witch hex (remember WandaVision? Vaguely.) Back on Earth, Jersey City teen superhero Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel, whose powers a whimsical comic introduction tells us include “hard light”) daydreams about getting a call-up to the big leagues instead of doing her homework. Some nefarious interplanetary stuff by a Kree revolutionary (Zawe Ashton as Dar-Benn, who just mentally referred to as “oh, is this New Lee Pace”) involving a bracelet and a glowing hammer disrupts the interstellar transit system. (Here, one struggles to remember that amnesiac Captain Marvel used to be a Kree special agent on a planet ruled by an AI in the shape of Annette Bening; and that these human-looking fashion victims are in an ongoing civil war that’s scattered the Yoda-faced shapeshifter Skrull diaspora into hiding places across the galaxy).
While separately investigating it this cosmic disturbance, Rambeau, Captain, and (for reasons unclear) Ms Marvel become quantum-entangled, switching places across the vast distances of space whenever they simultaneously use their powers. Does this entirely make sense? I don’t know, probably not. But does it makes for some madcap interspace comedy as the three unexpectedly leap across the universe at inopportune times? Indeed, and that’s good enough to roll with it. It really is a lot, and it’s a credit to the filmmaking that you can basically figure all of this out without having watched a dozen explainer videos.
Soon enough, after some daring rescues and unintentional escapades, they’re all united in the same physical place: the recently wrecked home of Khan’s delightful Pakistani-American family. It’s a bit awkward because Kamala is a Captain Marvel superfan and Monica hasn’t seen Aunt Carol since the 90s when she took off for a quick superhero errand and never came back. Because of all the pesky teleportation, the three reluctantly team up and head to the stars to work through their issues while trying to save a couple of planets from impending doom. This involves a plot line that clumsily reckons with environmental collapse, forcibly displaced populations, existential resource wars, troublesome accents, unintentional consequences of poorly-informed hasty intragalactic intervention adventures, and a primary antagonist that’s not written or developed nearly well enough to make a mark (the fewer parallels drawn to current global catastrophies, the better). But on the flipside, there are some very fun getting-to-know training montages where our heroes slowly become a team, problem solve their entanglement, and learn to use it to their advantage. Along the way there’s a visit to a truly weird, colorful world with a hugely popular Korean star (Seo-Jun Park); I loved the big swing even if their customs made me cringe.
Ultimately the success of the movie relies on its primary cast. Although she’s hardly the most charismatic Avenger, Brie Larson navigates the complexity of making this godlike standoffish superhero remain connected with the humanity that was taken from her decades ago. She lets just enough personality shine through to communicate that she’s a hero worth believing in. Teyonah Parris is in a trickier situation. Although she makes the role work, it feels the least developed: hers is a character “blipped” by Thanos, returned to find her mother long since dead, and whose new-ish super abilities seem to morph according to the needs of the script. What really elevates the whole endeavor, though, is the presence of Iman Vellani. Often the television tie-ins or “new kids” in recent Marvel films feel painfully shoehorned. Here, it’s impossible to overstate the value of having an actor who’s inhabited a role through an entire series of television diving into the cast. She’s a sparkling character, believably awestruck, yet grounded in her own beliefs, abilities, and ambitions. The same can be said for the cast who play her family (the wonderful Zenobia Shroff as her mother, Mohan Kapur as her anxious father, and Saagar Shaikh as her older brother) who serve as both comic relief, an emotional core, and an avatar for the audience to experience a normal person’s reaction to being thrust onto a galactic stage. Vellani’s Ms. Marvel may not be quite ready to headline a solo film, but she’s among a small handful of newcomers who I can see building a next phase around.
Importantly director Nia DaCosta (Candyman) grew up reading comics and it shows by her willingness not to get stuck in the mud of sprawling backstories. There’s a lot going on in this movie and a rocky production that could’ve sunk it. Just like in comic books, the plot might get choppy and convoluted, but as long as you’re willing to go with the flow, keep it fun, and charge ahead it’s a imminently enjoyable entertainment that’ll easily devour two hours of your time. Not everything about this worked perfectly, but it was a pretty good hang with a bunch of endearing performances, self-contained enough to fly by, and wasn’t too heavy on on the usual incoherent bombastic video game fight sequence finales. It also has perhaps the MCU’s first Andrew Lloyd Weber needle drop as part of a laugh-out-loud finale sequence. Did I mention the cat? An opinionated orange tabby riding through space on a super hero’s shoulder, devouring bad guys, vomiting up random objects, and being a cute little jerk really does make everything better. Zipping around the galaxy while never losing track of geography or character motivations is no small feat. While the details and mechanics of the plot occasionally strain, the film’s efforts are spent on developing characters and relationships, committing to quite a bit of authentically funny business, and propelling the core story forward across multiple worlds. For my money, Marvels needs more entries like these between the grand operatics to keep me aboard what’s become an unsteady ship.
The Marvels arrives in theaters on November 10th