Captain Marvel

Our Review

The amnesia picture. Carol Danvers crashes into a Blockbuster Video in 1995 with no memory, powers she can’t explain, and a Kree handler telling her to control her emotions, and the movie spends its first hour as a sci-fi detective story about which side of an alien war is lying to her. Brie Larson plays the confusion with a flinty reserve that softens exactly once the script allows her to remember who she is.

The de aged Samuel L. Jackson is the film’s secret weapon, a young Nick Fury who hasn’t yet built the wall, cuddling a cat and getting scratched half blind. The Nineties setting is more than set dressing: the grunge soundtrack and dial up jokes give the film a texture the franchise’s cosmic entries usually skip. The Skrull twist, revealing the refugee species as the wronged party, lands as a genuine surprise and gives Ben Mendelsohn’s Talis the movie’s best arc.

Jude Law’s mentor character is the flattest thing in it, a twist everyone calls an hour early. The “higher, further, faster” energy only fully ignites in the last twenty minutes, when Carol cuts loose and the movie stops holding her power back, the No Doubt needle drop blazing behind her.

A solid mid entry that coasts on its leads’ charm. Our score: 6/10.