• Release year: 2024
• Director: Nia DaCosta.
• Producers: Kevin Feige.
• Screenplay by: Nia DaCosta, Megan McDonnell and Elissa Karasik.
• Cinematographer: Sean Bobbitt.
• Music by: Laura Karpman.

Shotgun Commentary: another pointless Marvel film that didn’t need to exist.

Review

The Marvels makes Marvel look like that orange you squeezed too hard to get the juice from, and now it barely looks like a fruit at all. The unnecessary creation of this film is apparent from minute one to the last post-credits scene.

If you want to announce new additions to the MCU, just do so. Share it on social media, or at the end of a Marvel product worth watching, but don’t make people watch an hour and three quarters of unoriginal, boring, senseless story that reeks of writer’s block and Disney’s grubby hands just to do so.

Feminism as bait for sales

While it is always amazing to watch a movie where female empowerment is a given, this is not a free pass to create anything with feminism as an excuse. Moreover, when a story that is supposed to be empowering turns out to be absolute rubbish, you are just contributing to the stereotype that women are incapable, less than.

In a world where equality is nowhere near achieved, making stories about inspiring, powerful and independent women is a responsibility, not a marketing strategy. However, it seems that Marvel is too interested on the second to realise that they were already doing great female characters and, in their rush to create something that sells, they forgot that a character is only as good as its story, and that, while making female superheroes is a necessary course of action, giving them engaging stories worth investing in as an audience, is just as important.

Just because

In The Marvels, Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), her niece Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), and Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), are connected by their powers, which causes them to switch places every time they use them at the same time. Why? Because their powers are light-based… Yeah, that’s the whole explanation. Don’t think about any other superheroes with light-related powers (Thor?) because they won’t appear.

The “scientific” explanation is skimmed through in about twenty seconds, and then they move on to the next illogical thing written in the script. And before you ask, yes, the whole story is stupid if you stop to think about it for two seconds. Luckily, its fast pace and a timely invasion of kittens will distract you enough to watch the whole thing without thinking about the irrationality of the events that just transpired until the credits.

Walt… is it you?

Surprisingly, the climax of this madness is not the kittens with tentacles for a mouth, but the Princess Marvel moment. Apparently, the adorable sidekick, quirky jokes and inability to kill a relevant character for good are no longer enough for Disney. This time, the Marvels travel to a planet where people only sing. They can’t understand you if you talk. Is this planet called Disney World? Should be.

So, not only you get an out-of-nowhere musical number that you definitely didn’t need, but you actually get your newest Disney Princess: Princess Carol, Princess Danvers? Captain Princess? Anyway, you get the gist of it.

The difference between heroes and villains was…?

In case this wasn’t awkward enough, this great team of supposedly amazing super heroines let the population of not one, but two planets, perish while they bugger off without looking back. What happened to the whole “I’m not leaving this rock with one civilian on it” and “I didn’t say we should leave. There’s worst ways to go. Where else am I gonna get a view like this?”? Did they learn nothing from Steve and Natasha (Avengers: Age of Ultron, 2015)? Are the views not good enough on those planets, or is it just because they aren’t Earth? Are the Marvels…racist?

A trio of disappointments

Moving on from this very shady situation, it’s time to talk about the main characters and their development…cliché as it might be. Captain America, Spider-Man and Bucky, I mean… Captain Marvel, Ms Marvel and Monica Rambeau offer absolutely nothing new to the MCU.

Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel, is a woman with incredible abilities and great charisma who is somehow incapable of making friends and turns into a whiny, spoiled child when she deals with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). She is a hero who tries to make things right, but who is incapable of facing her own mistakes. Surprise, surprise, guess how the whole problem of the film could have been avoided. If your answer has something to do with facing one’s own mistakes, you are on the money.

Monica Rambeau is the closest person to Carol, and yet they haven’t seen each other in years. This causes her to be angry at Danvers, but her love for her eventually supersedes any of Carol’s wrong interpersonal behaviour. As for Kamala, aka Ms Marvel, she’s just the kid who is happy to be there. She’s a fangirl who, thanks to her powers and a desperate situation, gets to meet her hero and potentially join the Avengers. Spiderwho, again?

Samuel can’t save you from this

None of the characters are likeable in this feature, regardless of their past appearances in other Marvel products. Nick Fury is the only person with some charisma and personality in a sea of boring, clichés who merely repeat the arcs of other superheroes before them. Even the villain looks remarkably like the super forgettable half-villain-ish woman from Ant-Man and The Wasp (2018), only her problems are not nearly half as interesting.

All in all, this film is proof that, even with a very decent cast, enormous resources, incredibly talented people in charge of the technical aspects, and already developed superheroes, if the story is terrible, less than two hours can feel like over two weeks.

Advice to take from this movie:

• A film can not base its success merely on looks.
• Even if a character has been created and developed before, it needs to evolve and grow in its own way, not just following others’ storylines.
• Sadly, a horde of kittens cannot save a horrible film.

What’s your take? Have you watched The Marvels? What do you think of it? Did you like it? If you did, can you please tell me why? I might have missed something…

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