the marvels

For months now, a particularly dubious subsect of comic book fandom has been sharpening its knives to an absolute razor point in anticipation of The Marvels, sensing blood in the water. Regardless of contentious motives, there’s little question that the film has - fairly or unfairly - become a symbolic distillation of everything that’s gone awry with Marvel’s post-Endgame landscape… with its calamitous box office performance sending industry alarm bells clanging. The Marvel ship has been listing for some time now, but The Marvels, unfortunately, is the project that finally grazed the iceberg.    

There are basically two ways you can choose to look at this movie. The first is as an enjoyably loose-limbed and aggressively silly comic book jaunt that leans heavily on the chemistry of its three leads - Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), and Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani). When the trio’s light-based powers become entangled (for reasons I don’t feel particularly inclined to try and summarize here), they have no choice but to temporarily team up… especially given that using said powers now causes them to inconveniently swap places, regardless of where they happen to be in the known universe. Carol is in hot pursuit of Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), a Kree warlord who’s siphoning off resources from other planets in an attempt to restore her ruined home world of Hala (she initially targets the atmosphere of a planet housing a Skrull refugee colony, which - if we’re being technical - bears more than a little resemblance to the plot of Spaceballs). Director Nia DaCosta (who helmed the recent Candyman remake) seems determined to keep the tone as resolutely tongue-in-cheek as possible; she’s like a kid who keeps cracking up and making silly faces on school picture day. In some respects, the approach is refreshing. Vellani - who transcended her somewhat hit-or-miss Disney Plus series - is the obvious standout here, with her infectiously wide-eyed, kid-in-a-candy-store enthusiasm (the fact that she’s effectively a real-life Kamala Khan - an MCU fangirl who became part of the MCU - feels like a joyous case of life imitating art). But it’s also worth noting that Larson - who’s been unfairly vilified as some sort of humorless scold within certain Marvel circles (all because she, like… advocates for female empowerment, or something equally terrifying) - seems wholly at ease with the film’s goofiness. She, Parris and Vellani have authentic rapport - their comedic banter easily outpaces the grating self-satisfaction of something like Thor: Love and Thunder.      

The second way to look at The Marvels, unfortunately, is the rather shabby movie the three leads find themselves occupying - a cinematic straw house that’s all-too-easily blown down by the figurative wolf. Dar-Benn, in spite of Ashton’s best efforts, is a pale wisp of a villainess… she drives a rudimentary plot that feels as if it comes with a tin twist key. The climax is so weak, it lays bare the sheer insufficiency of the film as a whole. Certain sequences probably sounded a lot better in theory than they come across in execution - most notably a planet in which everyone communicates in song, or a literal cat-herding set piece scored to a needle drop of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Memory.” DaCosta will likely be left bruised by the experience, though she probably shouldn’t be - the film was clearly wrenched from her grasp in post-production. She showcases a certain sense of staging, rhythm, and spatial awareness with the action set pieces - selling stock in her career moving forward would be premature. ​

The real issue with The Marvels, however, is how reluctant the film seems to engage with even the most basic of character beats. I hate to say it, but it’s not clear why the film needs Monica at all - she and Carol have baggage (easily resolved, and which Carol seems barely cognizant of in the first place), but the real dramatic juice is between Carol and Kamala. Unfortunately, the script wants nothing to do with any of it… whether that be Carol, stressed over babysitting duty, lashing out at Kamala for “cosplaying as a hero,” or Kamala being forced to reckon with the realization that your idols aren’t flawless. One senses a vague mandate from the Marvel hierarchy to keep the inter-team drama casual and the character conflict barb-free. Any potential edges are affixed with bumper rails. It speaks to a larger issue within the MCU, which is the increasing lack of consequences (Carol’s guilt - which stems from events that took place entirely off-screen since Captain Marvel (which is a whole OTHER issue) - is almost effortlessly resolved via a single climactic act). Character deaths have zero impact now that the multiverse can unwind virtually any plot stroke. It would be foolish to try and claim The Marvels is the nadir of the entire MCU enterprise - there have been too many indifferent sequels, too many boilerplate origin pics - but it’s probably time to admit that the post-Endgame issues are less a bug in the system and more of a problematic feature.