Captain Marvel Review: Best Superhero Origin Film!

I have tried to have zero spoilers in this article. Nothing I’ve said will reveal the plotline or mess up your experience when you finally watch the film. But if you don’t want to know anything about the film, don’t read this…

If you follow my rumbles on Twitter, you already know I said this is the best superhero origin film I’ve ever watched. I liked Black Panther’s origin. I also liked Star Lord’s. But the approach with this film is kinda different. We, the audience, gets to discover things as she does. We are essentially in a journey together with Carol. There’s a lot of memories, a lot of unexplained stuff, and a lot of lies. We get to ask questions and get answers together with her as the film progresses.

Like probably many other Marvel Films, you can forget what you’ve seen in the trailers. Not because these scenes are not in the film, but because they really don’t tell you that much about this story. Which is a great thing especially if you, like me, love experiencing a film while completely blank. It wouldn’t be as captivating if the trailers revealed the plot of the film.

The film opens up in the Kree planet Hala. We see Carol as a warrior who’s completely committed to her duty: protecting Kree interests. We see her dedication, and are made to understand that the Kree warriors saved her and that their Supreme Intelligence gave her her powers.

These first scenes are pretty important to the whole storyline. We experience Carol’s confusion with dreams and memories she doesn’t understand or remember. And then the storyline quickly picks up and boom, we are on Earth with Agents Fury and Phil Coulson, plus Skrulls.

Marvel movies always have good graphics, and this is no exception. All fight scenes are exceptionally well done. You know the way Thor’s thunder scenes are always very spectacular? Giving people chills? Well, this movie has a couple of such scenes. If I were to rank one particular scene here with all other powerful scenes in the MCU, I would rank it second behind Thor’s Wakanda entry (with Rocket and Groot). Thor’s Ragnarok (“What were you the god of again?”) would come third. It is that good. You feel her strength and power, and you are sort of immersed in the beauty of the graphics.

I like how they de-aged Fury and Coulson, but I should have expected that after what they did with Ego Star Lord’s father in Guardians of the Galaxy. I like the feeling of the 90s from the soundtack to the streets, vehicles, tech and even Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Being essentially (chronologically) the first story in the Marvel Universe (edit: After Captain America’s 1940’s set), I like that we get to see how things begun. How earth knew nothing about Aliens before. How probably there are many Skrulls living on earth. We get tiny explanations to things we don’t know currently. We see how Nicholas Joseph Fury (yes that’s his name) lost his eye, we see the Tesseract, we see the real Mar-vell, we see Ronan the Accuser, we see what inspired Fury to start the Avenger’s Initiative, but above all we see why Carol Danvers really is Earth’s Mightiest Hero.

She is strong. She is extremely powerful, and has the attitude to match. She is fire. And it now makes sense why in Avenger’s Infinity War, Fury had a pager calling her.

This is the best origin story for any superhero. But not only that, this is the best female superhero film. DC’s Wonder Woman felt like a forced origin with no steady storyline. This one is way better. A thousand times better. I particularly love two scenes: one where Carol’s strength and will power is shown to be because she’s only human, and the other where after being taunted to prove herself, she casually blasts him off, and tells him she’s has nothing to prove to him, showing him she is truly superior.

Earth has a hero. And she’s really, really powerful.

It is a great film, and will definitely be one of those classic movies to watch in years to come. I was totally drawn into the story that it felt way shorter than 2hrs. There’s two post-credit scenes: one in the present day with the remaining Avengers trying to reach out for help, before help finally arrives (this is the most clapped for scene in any MCU movie I’ve ever watched), and one where Fury’s favourite cat is coughing. Also, from the usual opening Marvel Logo, you see that this film is dedicated to Stan Lee. He still has his usual cameo. You will just know it is him when his scene arrives.

Go watch this movie if you’re a Marvel fan.

Worth noting is I’ve not mentioned “Captain Marvel” anywhere in this review because she’s Carol Danvers still. No one refers to her anywhere as Captain Marvel. Her Fighter Jet however has the inscription: Captain Carol ‘Avenger’ Danvers.