Movie Review: ‘The Marvels’ Proves that Reports of the MCU’s Death are Premature

Rating: 91/100. I took a moment off from the Denver Film Festival to duck into a screening of a movie I’ve been looking forward to for years: The Marvels. But before we begin with the review of the film, I have a confession to make: I’m a big MCU fangirl. Always only a passing fan of comic books, I’ve been an avid fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since its inception because, somehow, I have an easier time following the story of the cinematic universe than the comics universe. And I admit that I come into this review with a bone to pick with other critics because those predicting the demise of the MCU are starting to annoy me with their overblown assumptions.

There’s been a lot of talk about the Multiverse Saga—the latest story arc in the MCU that began after the resolution of the Infinity Saga that culminated in Infinity Wars and Endgame—being a step down from the Infinity Saga due to over-saturation with too many TV shows and films. The Mutiverse Saga kicked off with Phase Four, the first entry being the outstanding Disney+ series WandaVision which set the stage to establish that the Multiverse Saga would give women a bigger place in it than they had in the Infinity Saga, something that hasn’t sat right with the more toxic center of the fandom.

Following WandaVision, every dud that’s come out from the MCU has been accompanied by something outstanding. The Eternals was boring, but how could one fault the MCU Phase Four when it produced Spider-Man: No Way Home and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever which were both masterpieces? The television shows have, similarly, been pretty phenomenal, and the incel-based hatred for anything with a femme lead—most notably the unfairly despised She-Hulk: Attorney at Law—has been a bit out of control.

I admit, Ms. Marvel wasn’t my favorite series, but while its villain and story fell flat, the characterization of Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan (Iman Villani), is absolutely spot-on from the comics, which is all the more amazing when you consider that Vellani had no acting credits whatsoever before being cast in this role. Additionally, the treatment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first Muslim character was handled with the perfect level of respect.

Which leads us to The Marvels, the 33rd film in the MCU. The Marvels was never going to be a hit with the more closed-minded members of the fandom, especially after so many toxic male “fans” tried to review bomb the first Captain Marvel film before it even came out simply because it was the first Marvel film with a woman in the lead role. Despite their best efforts, Captain Marvel became a hit sand one of the most feminist entries into the entire MCU. It wore its feminist heart on its sleeve throughout the whole movie and, while doing things like having a fight scene to the tune of No Doubt’s “I’m Just a Girl” were hardly subtle, I don’t particularly care.

Combine the toxic hatred of women with the fact that The Marvels unites Captain Marvel with two powerful BIPOC women including one who is a Muslim, and a lot of tiny men are having some not-so-tiny meltdowns about this movie. So with the stage set for The Marvels to be a referendum on the future of the MCU as well as women’s place in superhero movies—neither of which are really fair to put on this movie—there’s a lot riding on this film. Did it manage to pull off everything it hoped to achieve?

In the MCU, 30 years have passed since the events of Captain Marvel and Carol Danvers’ (Brie Larson) destruction of the Supreme Intelligence has led to a massive civil war amongst the Kree people. A number of Kree worlds didn’t handle the civil war so well, most notably the world of Hala, which has become barely habitable, devoid of air, water, and sunlight. Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), the new Kree leader, is determined to return Hala to its former glory by stealing all the resources she needs from existing planets, particularly ones that hold special meaning to Danvers as revenge for the destruction of the Supreme Intelligence.

Dar-Benn uncovers a weapon called a Quantum Band, the twin of the band that Ms. Marvel wears that gives her her powers. By unearthing one of the Quantum Bands, Dar-Benn unintentionally creates a link between Captain Marvel, her old friend’s daughter Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), and Kamala Khan—who become linked because they all have light-based powers—causing the three of them to switch places in the universe when they try to use their powers. With the three of them basically unable to separate themselves from each other, they inevitably form a superhero team which Kamala names The Marvels, the only thing standing between Dar-Benn and the destruction of entire worlds that Danvers holds dear.

The Marvels is the MCU’s best film in a while. The three leads have effortless chemistry that only grows stronger as the film goes on. It helps to know that Iman Vellani is every bit as much of a Marvel fangirl as her character and so you get the impression that Khan’s awe over getting to meet Carol Danvers and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) isn’t even acting. And the film has just as much awesome girl power as the first one. This is a scenario where the strongest people on screen at any point are consistently women, and that’s just fun to watch as a woman. Truly, this film seems like it was designed for women comic book fans first and foremost, and that’s a welcome shift after the masculine-heavy Infinity Saga.

Of course, the film isn’t perfect. The plot is a touch too complicated and a bit convoluted. Additionally, Dar-Benn isn’t exactly the most terrifying villain the MCU has ever created. She’s powerful, but to make it believable that she could hold her own against Captain Marvel—who’s already established to be one of the MCU’s strongest heroes—They really needed to build up her character more to make her even more formidable and terrifying. As the film has a much shorter run time than most Marvel films, there was plenty of time to spend making Dar-Benn into a scarier villain.

But then, nobody’s eyes were on the villain in this film, as this was definitely the story of Danvers, Rambeau, and Khan and their newfound relationship. The joy of this film really comes from the relationships between those three. The post-credits sequences start to hint at some of the big things brewing in the MCU, most notably that they finally seem to be opening the door for the full crossover between the MCU and the X-Men movie universe, something that fans were expecting from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and never got. So The Marvels gives us, not only some outstanding chemistry and badass girl power, but also some key events at what is almost the exact midpoint of the Multiverse Saga. And, while bad timing and a lot of nay sayers seem likely to tank this film at the box office, in no way is The Marvels one of the weaker installments of the MCU.

The Marvels is now playing in theaters everywhere.

Photo courtesy of Disney.