Captain Marvel (Dir Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck, 2h 4m)

...Male geeks, and in particular male comic book fans need to grow up. Comic books, like
videogames, fantasy novels, and frankly any aspect of geek culture have never been an exclusively male preserve since forever, 50% of the population of the planet is female, and to be surprised that that 50% would like more than just the token female member of the team or the damsel in distress to represent them, in 2019, is frankly burying not just your head in the sand but dropping a bloody rock to disappear under on top of your head. Grow up, stop acting like women somehow don't belong in your series, or as creators in a medium, stop treating them like foreign invaders that need to be tested on every element of series stretching back to before your fathers were born, stop needlessly gatekeeping and learn to bloody share geek culture-it's not only embarrassing but depressing that we need to say this in 2019.  There, I said it, on with the review.

Captain Marvel is not alone in gaining the ire of the virulently vocal minority that seem to label anything they don't like as some form of insidious left wing conspiracy, but it's certainly come in for some somewhat bizarre critique including a (given the film merrily sits on $160 million on its opening weekend, somewhat futile) review bombing on Internet review site Rotten Tomatoes, a weirdly misguided attempt to get people to watch Battle Angel Alita (which despite both being about tough, strong, and likable female protagonists struggling for an identity, is somehow the right kind of female protagonist for cinema goers to like) instead, and the general gnashing of teeth from the sort of people who think we need another guy called Chris in Marvel more than a female hero who's not benched, killed off, or shoved into skin-hugging outfits at the drop of a hat.

Focusing upon Carol Danvers/Vers/Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), a footsoldier for multi-species warrior race, the Krees (first introduced in the form of Lee Pace's enjoyable meglomaniac, Ronan the Accuser, who makes a brief appearance in all his blue glory here), who finds herself on Earth following a mission gone wrong, the film plays as a nice mix of alien invasion movie (with more than a little hint of Invasion of the Body Snatchers thrown in), detective story, as Carol slowly uncovers her true identity, and begins to realise she may be more than she realises, and Marvel superhero flick at its best

Indeed, Carol is something we've not had in the MCU to date-a seemingly all-powerful, all good hero-we quickly see her develop as a heroine from a mere pawn of the Krees, into something altogether more powerful, and it is refreshing that she is every inch as complex and nuanced, in a series which still, to many, struggles with independent female heroes, as her male counterparts. We root for her because she is the underdog given power, indefatigable, determined and brave Larson makes this film-her Carol is at once a funny, tough, resourceful but intensely human heroine-she struggles, as her memories come back to her, with her identity, her reunion with her close friend is emotionally charged, and her final showdown with her mentor is the culmination of a series of excellently wrought scenes between the two of them.

But more than that, as T'challa was undoubtedly a hero for, and created by, Afro-Americans, so one can argue that Carol is herself, to a lesser extent, a heroine for American women, and through her interaction with some of the men throughout this film, even in her mentor Yon-Rogg (an excellent Jude Law), there is a sense that in the 20 years between Captain Marvel's 1990s setting and today, nothing has changed for women-they're still told to smile, still told that they're too emotional, still playing bit-parts in male-created and male-dominated worlds. Much like Patty Jenkins' equally well wrought Wonder Woman, with which Captain Marvel  has undeniable if incidental similarities, there is something daring in the very nature of twisting the superhero genre on its axis and placing a woman as hero-whether it makes either film feminist is up to debate, but both have a pitch-perfect ethos on mercy and female empowerment at the heart of their denouement.

Around Carol are some of the best friends and foes in a standalone Marvel film, and chief of those are Samuel L Jackson as stalwart Nick Fury-even if we never get a solo film for the head of SHIELD, this is as good as it-from how he lost his one good eye, to how SHIELD got themselves involved in the superheroing business, to even how the Avengers iniative started in the first place. This is an altogether fresher, greener Fury than we're used to, all thanks to some impressive de-aging to Sam Jackson, with a younger (again, digitally de-aged) Agent Coulson in tow. The other standouts are Ben Mendelson's Skrull leader, Talos, who the film quickly imbues as an honourable, and surprisingly sympathetic warrior and Carol's close friend, Maria, (Lashana Lynch) acts as her key link to the life she has forgotten, as well as an excellent comic foil to Larson.

Is Captain Marvel a perfect film? No-the film's slightly gung-ho love for the USAF, slightly divorced from the military-industrial, "America F*ck Yeah!" context for us Brits, reads in places like a slightly more aware version of Top Gun, the film slathers on 90s nostalgia more than it's entirely necessary, complete with flannel, NIN t-shirt, Nirvana and Hole on the soundtrack, and enough early 90s clutter to fill a kid's bedroom, and things do resolve in the typical Marvel-Third-Act way.

Yet, Captain Marvel feels like a definite step forward-it's not the first female superhero film, that's for sure, but it feels as vital, as important to its cinematic universe's growth as Wonder Woman did. And with Carol's introduction, and with it her nigh limitless powers and potential, culminating in the grandest of battles and epicness of shots that rival the wild ambition of any adaption of Superman as Carol defends her refound home from invaders, so the final piece of this part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe falls into place, ready for Endgame. It's a much-needed spark of hope between the bleakness of Infinity War and the inevitable end of an era that Endgame represents

But more than this, at its simplest, Captain Marvel is Marvel at last giving, despite the voices that threaten to drown those of female comic fans and female comic creators out, despite the entitled mess that in areas now runs through comic fandom and through fandom in general like a canker, a rot, that female voices and presence threatens, in their opinion, the ivory towers of white male nerdom, despite the review bombing and calls of SJW and other pearl-grasped terms against this film. More than that, Captain Marvel is giving its female fans someone to look up to, to emulate, to want to be. Captain Marvel is a heroine, and a film, for a time where girls and women need a hero of their own.

Highly Recommended.