Captain Marvel (2019)

Initial reactions by others were unpromising: The movie opened with a lower IMDb score than any other Marvel Cinematic Universe entry currently holds. Thankfully, this was a rare occasion that the score went up in the weeks afterward. Even if it hadn't, I'd probably have checked CM out, partly because I've never regretted an MCU viewing and partly to determine whether the naysayers were having a knee-jerk reaction to what they perceived as bad feminism.

As superhero flicks go, it gets off to a pretty confusing start. A woman (Brie Larson) initially known only as Vers (pronounced "Veers") can't remember anything from more than six years ago, when Starforce commander Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) found her, gave her a transfusion of his Kree alien blood to grant her superpowers, and began training her to use them in a space war against the shapeshifting Skrulls. Skrull commander Talos (Ben Mendelssohn) takes her prisoner and unearths, if you will, memories she didn't know she had, hinting at her hailing from Earth -- and the existence of a valuable experimental engine there. A damaged escape pod lands her in L.A. in what soon proves to be 1995. With help from S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Nick Fury (a youngish-looking Samuel L. Jackson), she hopes to reach the engine before anyone can misuse it, but she also has a priority to learn more about herself, the Skrulls, and the Kree.

It didn't take me long to sense that the makers had taken more than one cue from Wonder Woman. Not only have they finally met the demand for a female lead, but the story's set long before most in the series, the protagonist never actually goes by the title name, she faces men who don't expect much of her abilities, she proves more powerful than even she thought, she's unclear on some details of her origin, and she's a fish out of water. OK, that last factor doesn't come into play very much, as most of what she encounters used to be familiar to her.

(I suspect that Marvel Comics has been trying to give DC Comics a black eye in other ways. They could have kept the old name, "Ms. Marvel," and let DC's Captain Marvel stay that way, but thanks to a sloppy legal situation, the latter has switched to "Shazam." In fairness, DC seems to have ripped off the heroine's terrestrial name, "Carol Danvers," in renaming Supergirl "Kara Danvers.")

Vers has great athletic abilities, but her most blatant powers involve firing energy blasts from her hands and occasionally flying. Some viewers think she's too powerful, but I'd say she's about on par with Iron Man overall. Perhaps what they mean is that she doesn't struggle enough in this picture. Granted, her failures are mostly toward the beginning, especially in flashbacks where she gets insulted in implicitly sexist ways (a point not as hammered home as I was led to expect). The climax doesn't feel much like a climax. Still, that needn't make the action or the character dull or obnoxious.

I guess the heroine's greatest distress is in discovering how wrong she's been about things, which has little to do with any flaws on her own part. I don't want to spoil, but if you recognize Korath (Djimon Hounsou), you may figure something out. The matter is decently emotional. It's hard to say whether Vers truly grows as a person, but while I don't agree with all her moves, that's par for the course among Avengers.

This has to be the first time Fury ever got second billing on the big screen, and indeed, he gets even more screen time than in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Unfortunately, he still doesn't get to show the kind of badassery that has allowed him to headline comic books. Instead, he provides more comic relief than on-and-off partner Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg). Part of that comes from Fury not believing in aliens until now. He and Vers play off each other rather well. And as you may have seen in the trailer, he shows another side of himself by going gaga over a feline, to whom there's more than meets the eye. Speaking of eyes, we learn how Fury came to need an eyepatch.

Like in Guardians of the Galaxy, there are many trappings of the past, not least in the soundtrack. Alas, I for one don't have much nostalgia for the hits of the mid-'90s. I also think it was a mistake to include Hole's "Celebrity Skin," which I correctly remembered as debuting in '98. (It plays at the start of the end credits, leading into a present-day sequence, but it still feels out of place.)

The next WW it isn't, but neither is CM the least among MCU fare. It delivers in the ways I'd hoped. I predict the heroine won't drag down the upcoming Endgame.