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Author Topic: Captain Marvel
Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001


 - posted 03-11-2019 11:30 PM      Profile for Bobby Henderson   Email Bobby Henderson   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Cinema: AMC Patriot 13, Lawton, OK
Screen: #7, IMAX Digital, Seats K14 & K15
Format: Dual 2K Projection, 5.1 audio
Presentation Problems: Idiot customers entering the theater LATE to finally sit their tardy, disruptive asses in their reserved seats. Dickheads.
Movie Rating: 3 out of 4

A Kree Warrior who can't remember her past finally does remember and...well I'll let Sam Graham say it.

If you have enjoyed some or all of the previous Marvel (or is it Mar-Vell?) movies then Captain Marvel will deliver the usual, dependable formula of humor, action and humanity that has made so many of the other movies click pretty well. To look at it at another angle the movie is yet another example of prerequisite viewing ahead of Avengers: Endgame. There's a reason why Disney/Marvel is tying the story line of all these movies together...

Some in the Sunday afternoon audience clapped at the customized Marvel Studios animated logo. This time, instead of super heroes being animated on the returns of the "MARVEL" letters it was all imagery of the late Stan Lee. Sitting next to me, Cynthia went, "aww" and got a little teary. She loved the Stan Lee cameos. There's a good one in this movie.

I can't really describe too many of the details in this movie without spoiling some of the plot developments. Oscar-winner Brie Larson is very good at "Vers" a Kree Warrior helping her comrades defend their planet against the evil Skrulls. She has questions about her mission and her past. Fragments of memories keep coming back about a life she might have had on Earth, or rather "planet C-53." Like most Marvel movies, this one has a great supporting cast. Samuel Jackson is a younger Nick Fury (via makeup and CGI). He has has both eyes. We get to see the same visual tricks applied to Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson. Ben Mendelsohn stole many of his scenes as the proto-villain Talos. Jude Law is great as usual. A couple actors from Guardians of the Galaxy reprise their roles in this movie, Djimon Hounsou as Korath and Lee Pace (from Chickasha, OK) as Ronan. There is a cat in this movie. The plot developments around it are obviously for comedic effect, especially in the end credits.

About the only fault I have with the movie is Vers turns out to be so freaking powerful a hero that the final battle comes off as being kind of easy. At that point, I was already won over by her character anyway. There is a montage, which I seem to remember being in one of the trailers, of Vers getting knocked down again and again as a child, a teen, an air force pilot candidate, but getting up again every time. She's not going to give up. Still, when you sit through all the in-credits and post-credits scenes, you're still going to be left wondering how anyone is going to stop that fucking asshole Thanos. And maybe that's the real dramatic conflict. Vers is able to crush any conventional bad guy or make him tuck tail and run. But what is she going to do when coming up against a guy weilding a gauntlet encrusted with all of the infinity stones?

This movie is set in the late 1990's. Anyone who can remember the experience of using personal computers from that time will love the computing jokes in this movie. There is a lot of 1990's references to alternative, grunge & industrial music from that era. I'm a big Nine Inch Nails fan, so obviously I dig Brie Larson sporting a NIN t-shirt. Obviously Disney had to edit a bit of Celebrity Skin (a hit by Hole) in the end title music.

I kept wanting Annette Benning's "Supreme Intelligence" computerized character to show up in the movie, just once, as the "I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E." character from Team America: World Police. "We have no intelligence!"

For dedicated comic book nerds, the year 2019 is a real humdinger for Marvel vs DC conflict. Just look up the controversy between Shazam and Captain Marvel. Oh, and Captain Marvel way back in the day 40+ years ago was a dude. I have a couple issues of those old comics. There are some pretty good Easter eggs regarding the Captain Marvel saga in this movie to show they're aware of all the different, non-continuous story lines.

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Sam Graham
AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues.

Posts: 1431
From: Waukee, IA
Registered: Dec 2004


 - posted 03-28-2019 06:47 PM      Profile for Sam Graham   Author's Homepage   Email Sam Graham   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
CINEMA: Regal Warren Moore 17 & IMAX, Moore, OK
AUDITORIUM: 7
PRESENTATION: Warren GRAND Auditorium slope floor seating with Regal Orange is the New Crown Roller Coaster Vision
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: Oddly loud climate control
RATING: Two and one half stars (out of four)

THE PLOT: Girls can’t do anything. Wackiness ensues.

“Vers” (pronounced “Veirs” like indie folk rock goddess Laura Veirs), later to be revealed as Carol Danvers (no relation to Kara Danvers...you know, Supergirl) can clearly kick ass but has a history of being held back because she’s a girl. Seriously, they overplay the shit out of this, including a scene where a fellow pilot tells her “there’s a reason it’s called a COCKpit.” I spent a lot of time glaring at the screen over this nonsense. This wasn’t set that far back in time (1995 if you’re making wagers.)

Vers is on the good guy team trying to take out the bad guys...or IS she? Between manipulation and her own memory issues, who knows. At the point they twist the plot, if I were her, I’d have said “Screw you all, I don’t trust any of you”, locked myself in my home, taken meals via delivery, and binge watched my shows for the rest of my life. Not even the cat can be trusted in this movie, a fact that is probably the most obvious to see coming.

As Bobby notes, the end battle seems a bit simple, but there’s a reason for this...it’s because she’s “not being held back anymore.” Not by those who held her back for being a girl, and not by those who manipulated her into this situation. It’s not quite Neo at the end of the first Matrix movie simple, but you get the idea.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99


 - posted 03-29-2019 12:14 AM      Profile for Mike Blakesley   Author's Homepage   Email Mike Blakesley   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote: Bobby Henderson
you're still going to be left wondering how anyone is going to stop that fucking asshole Thanos. And maybe that's the real dramatic conflict. Vers is able to crush any conventional bad guy or make him tuck tail and run. But what is she going to do when coming up against a guy weilding a gauntlet encrusted with all of the infinity stones?
Maybe she'll talk Thanos into stepping into a magical phone booth and then the lights will come on outside instead and he'll be rendered powerless. Wait, that's been done.

I feel sorry for anybody sitting through these Marvel movies who, like me, isn't solidly geeked out on them. After seeing it twice, I still have no bloody clue what the hell was or is going on, except I realize that Vers, I mean Carol, I mean Captain Marvel, no wait it's Carol, because they never call her Captain Marvel in the whole movie, won out in the end and she's probably going to wind up saving the whole universe/galaxy/planet/whatever in the upcoming Avengers epic, and then there will be an uproar from fan-boys because Marvel has jumped on the same bandwagon as everyone else and made a girl the big hero, which is cool and all, but I mean geez (the fanboys will say), don't guys get to save the day anymore?

No wait, forget the one-girl-hero thing -- they will play up the whole "we all have to work together" angle big time, because that's the way it is today, you can't have one hero, you have to have a bunch of them in all different shapes, sizes, genders (or lack thereof) and colors, and throw in a few animals and a tree trunk too, because it takes a village (and a three-hour running time) to save the universe.

The action scenes were fun to watch, and I did dig the '90s references and humor (one thing Marvel does well is smartass humor), and the sound was good, and the two hours did zip by so maybe I was more entertained than I thought but I may have fallen asleep a couple times too. Every time I watch one of these movies I just have a headache and feel exhausted by the time it's over.

2 out of 5 stars from me, but almost everyone who saw it here came out just gushing with enthusiasm for Endgame, so who's complaining?

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