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Captain Marvel: 5 Areas Where the Film Falls Short


Last week, the Marvel Cinematic Universe finally added a female-led solo film to its arsenal with Captain Marvel.

To say that this movie has already exceeded expectations would be an understatement. In fact, in its opening weekend alone, Captain Marvel grossed an impressive $153 million domestically and $455 million globally, which places it in the top 10 worldwide box office openings of all-time. (The only other MCU film in this elite club is Avengers: Infinity War, which holds the number one spot.)

Nevertheless, for all the areas in which Captain Marvel soars, there are some areas where the film is sadly lacking. Thankfully, none of these nitpicks are enough to detract from the overall enjoyment of the final product too severely, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t address the five areas where Captain Marvel falls short:

  1. Disproportionate CGI

    Marvel Studios’ wizardry when it comes to digitally de-aging its stars has reached terrifyingly amazing (or amazingly terrifying) new heights. In the past, we’ve seen actors such as Robert Downey Jr. and Michael Douglas restored to their youthful selves, but Captain Marvel is the first MCU installment to feature not one but two de-aged characters – Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury and Clark Gregg’s Phil Coulson – with the former appearing as his younger self for the entirety of the film.

    That being said, the CGI in other sections of the movie is sometimes spotty, which begs the question of whether Marvel blew too much of its effects budget to give viewers a young Nick Fury at the expense of, say, Goose the cat’s Flerken abilities.

    To the film’s credit, though, it didn’t fall victim to the “CGI-heavy third act battle” trope that plagues so many modern superhero movies. The overall quality of the effects just felt disproportionate at times.

  2. The Quips and Jokes Often Miss Their Landing

    Pre-Justice League, one of the major distinctions between the MCU and the DCEU was that MCU films were heavy on the humor, while DC opted for a grittier approach. This has since changed, with varying degrees of success, but Marvel films remain synonymous with jokes. Unfortunately, in Captain Marvel, it feels as though fewer of those jokes actually land.

    For example, early on in the film, when Starforce is attempting to rescue an undercover Kree operative, one of the Skrulls snarls at Carol – an act she promptly reciprocates. Then, during one of the flashback sequences to Carol’s days in the U.S. Air Force, one of the male pilots makes a quip about “cockpits.” Both of these moments were meant to elicit laughs, but – at least in the theater this writer attended – they were met with relative silence.

    To be fair, humor is 100 percent subjective in nature, so maybe these moments worked for you. Overall, though, the attempts at quippy dialogue in Captain Marvel feel largely out of place.

  3. It’s Formulaic

    Here’s where we move on to some of the bigger problems with Captain Marvel. In the film, we’re introduced to an already established powerhouse who finds herself stranded on Earth in a classic fish-out-of-water scenario. Hijinks ensue, but eventually, she unlocks her full potential, saves the day and then parts ways with her newfound Earth friends.

    While this is an extremely truncated version of Captain Marvel’s plot, if you change the female pronouns to male, it’s also the plot of the first Thor movie.

    What’s more, as Forbes points out, Carol Danvers is a character that was essentially abducted by bad guys who maintain the façade that they’re good guys. Eventually, though, she realizes she’s fighting for the wrong side and joins the opposition, essentially setting the stage for her to fight alongside the Avengers. The same can also be said about Gamora, and – save for the part about being abducted – Black Widow, Wasp and Scarlet Witch.

    Paint by numbers, cookie cutter, plug-and-play: regardless of which term you use, Captain Marvel is very much a film that adheres to a specific formula Marvel has been using for the past decade.

  4. It Struggles with Characterization

    Piggybacking off the aforementioned Thor comparison, when we first meet Carol Danvers, she already has her powers, and while she does become more powerful later on in the film, she doesn’t change a whole lot as a character.

    Not every introductory superhero solo film needs to be a traditional origin story, and in Captain Marvel’s defense, the flashback sequences do help fill in some of the gaps. However, aside from besting Yon-Rogg, we never really witness Carol grow. Now that she’s an established character, though, that should change in future installments, much like it did with Thor.

  5. It Falls Into Some Unfortunate Tropes

    We’ve already touched upon this somewhat, but Captain Marvel is a film that falls victim to several tropes. However, it’s not just those specific to the MCU and the greater superhero genre.

    Stereotypically, women are depicted as the more emotional of the two sexes. That being said, it’s a bit disheartening that the only real character flaw Carol suffers from is that, as she’s told several times throughout the film, she’s too emotional. Granted, she overcomes this obstacle with flying colors when she blasts Yon-Rogg in the chest and says, “I have nothing to prove to you,” but it’s still a cliché that’s hard to ignore.

    Despite its flaws, though, Captain Marvel is a monumental achievement for the MCU, the superhero genre and Hollywood as a whole. No amount of nitpicks can take away from that, but we can still hope Marvel manages to iron some of these issues out when Carol Danvers inevitably returns for her next solo outing. 

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