This review may contain spoilers
Unsurprisingly, Captain Marvel is a film about oppression.
Carol Danvers entire life is marked by being ‘oppressed’ by white men. From the playground to the Air Force those nasty white men have tried to stand in her way. Have tried to put her back in her place, which I’m assuming to Carol meant the kitchen…or something. Even her commander and mentor Yon-Rogg (played by Jude Law) is revealed to be just another in a long line of nasty white males who want to keep this shining beacon of light in the dark.
The only people who have given Carol encouragement have been other minorities…those, who like Carol, have felt the biting sting of the white man’s whip. Dr. Wendy Larson who mentored her in the Air Force. Her brown-skinned friend Maria Rambeau who gives a riveting (or some might argue uninspired and vomit inducing) speech about just how great Carol is when she needs it the most and if you think that Carol Danvers was going to entrust the powerful Tesseract with anyone other than a person of color (Nick Fury played by Samuel L. Jackson) you must be out of your damn mind.
The Skrulls (the colored folk), of course turn out to be misunderstood and quite noble while the real bad guys, who can easily be construed as ‘The Patriarchy” are revealed to be the Kree. Ben Mendelsohn’s character (Keller) starts off quite horrific and quite white but once he sheds this obscene visage in favor of a more palatable green (Talos) he becomes a good guy, a fellow oppressed human. He dindu nuffin to warrant that Kree hate.
Some might view this…take on the Skrulls as a little odd given that their history in the comics has essentially been that of notorious evil doers. Their description on the Marvel fandom wiki supports this assertion:
They are a ferocious warrior race and maybe the most devious race in the cosmos who carved for themselves the oldest interstellar empire in the universe’s history. The Skrulls conquered or colonized every suitable world in the Andromeda Galaxy and conquered almost a 1000 races.
Oppressed and misunderstood indeed.
This blatant and egregious interjection of SJW narratives is fairly horrendous in and of itself but it is made more so by the fact that the film is extraordinarily…dull. The jokes lack the wit that one comes to expect from your standard Marvel film. Lines you would think could only be delivered with biting irony are in fact mind numbingly earnest leaving room for uncomfortable silences where crickets are given their cue chirp.
The action was…generic and not particularly innovative. You would think that watching someone with those types of powers get down would be exciting and interesting and yet they somehow managed to make it seem perfunctory and rote. It takes a lot of skill to make a photon blast boring…congrats. Of course we shouldn’t be too hard on the film, after all, their attention was focused on more important matters like making a statement about the plight of women and people of color to worry about making a superhero movie exciting and entertaining. Important things like making sure the bulk of the songs in the film were sung by feminine voices TLC, Hole, Shirley Manson (Garbage), and Gwen Stefani (No Doubt). There is a moment in the film where the song Just a Girl breaks out during another lackluster battle and it is at this point if not any other that a sane person fully understands why no one wants an SJW to be in charge of entertainment.
Brie Larson as Captain Marvel has absolutely no charisma. Her disgusting politics aside, I tried to embrace her character and see if there was anything, anything at all to latch onto, I failed miserably. Where we saw the wonder and adventurousness in Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman and the fiery intensity and earnestness in Rosa Salazar’s Alita, Brie Larson simply comes across as cold and hollow. Her jokes are curt and uninvested, her scenes of anguish feel…forced.
In this film she does smile…but the smiles never reach her eyes.
2 out of 5 stars
Say something nice!
The only truly good thing I can say about this film is that I did not contribute any money towards it. In the end, this should be something that everyone should be able to say.
Propaganda Rating
This film is riddled with it…toxic, do not eat!
Summary
The only people who should be complaining about oppression are the ones forced to watch this film.
