Captain Marvel — A Totally UN-Controversial Review Roundup!

Captain Marvel is the first Marvel movie with a solo female lead. It took 10 whole years, so was it worth the wait?

Well, before we get to the critics, let’s address the controversy real quick. *sigh*

Yes, once again some damn man-babies have shoved their awful sexist takes at a movie for daring to have a female lead. Ugh.

As with the Ghostbusters remake, it seems to be a small number (but not nearly small enough) using the Internet to scream their disapproval very loudly. And just like with Black Panther, there are attempts to actively harm the film’s success. No, really. For instance Rotten Tomatoes decided to completely remove their option to rate films before they come out due to trolls organizing to tank the score!

Also, and boy do we wish we were joking about this, there is a movement by the alt right to attack the film’s box office. Seriously, they started a viral campaign called the #AlitaChallenge where they’re asking supporters to go see Alita: Battle Angel instead to “send a message.”

Do they know that film also has a female lead? Or is it OK because she’s a CG robot and therefore inhuman?

This is actually supposedly in response to star Brie Larson saying she thought there should be more minority voices represented in the world of film criticism (which they clearly take as anti white male — you know, the way pointing out racism is called out as racism).

Related: Trump Calls Spike Lee’s Oscar Speech A ‘Racist Hit’

Though after the SAME GUYS attacked Star Wars and got James Gunn fired from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, it’s starting to look like they have something against Disney in particular…

OK, all this is to set the stage to say the following:

Thankfully, the controversy doesn’t seem to have affected the criticism. The reviews for Captain Marvel are, in fact, the least controversial thing about the movie. They’re nuanced and extremely fair. The negative reviews concede there’s a lot of fun to be had, and the positive reviews also damn the film with faint praise. “Not terrible” is not exactly a thumb way up.

In short, they’re MOVIE REVIEWS! Some good, some bad.

OK, so now with all that behind us, what are critics actually SAYING?? Ch-ch-check out our as always SPOILER-FREE review roundup (below)!

Stephanie Zacharek, TIME

“Captain Marvel isn’t a terrible movie… Larson does get a few opportunities in Captain Marvel to be that regular, flawed-but-strong human—there just aren’t enough of them, and they’re hardly the focus of the movie… I wasn’t thinking, Wow! Instead, I heard the voice of my own inner superhero, Peggy Lee, whispering in my ear: Is that all there is? The most heinous supervillain of all is Boredom.”

Kenneth Turan, The Los Angeles Times

“With a luminous and powerful Brie Larson starring as a woman with a knockout punch that would have daunted Muhammad Ali, the news is not that this pre-sold property about a superhero coming into her own will sell a ton of tickets, it’s that it is actually good.”

Rosie Knight, Nerdist

“In the end, though, Captain Marvel is a fun, fresh take on the superhero movie and hints at an interesting future for the MCU. It’s a sci-fi heavy actioner, which is at its best when it’s being sincere and is a good first step to rectifying some of the problems of the franchise’s past. But coming after groundbreaking films like Black Panther, Thor: Ragnarok, and even Wonder Woman means that sometimes Captain Marvel’s impact feels like it would have been bigger had it come out closer to the era it was set.”

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

“As shaky and unfocused as “Captain Marvel” often seems, it manages to reach its destination with confidence. In the end, Larson sticks the landing, albeit with something more muted than absolute triumph.”

April Wolfe, The Wrap

“Captain Marvel, the first Marvel adaptation both to star a woman and to be co-directed by a woman, is an obvious, crude, and transparent film. And it’s also quite enjoyable and evocative — most of the time.”

Helen O’Hara, Empire

“There’s a lot to absorb — a few pauses in the first act might have been welcome — and the film is so anxious to emphasise Danvers’ toughness that it sometimes forgets to allow us to glimpse her inner life and (presumable) insecurities; it’s a good thing that Larson is both gifted and charismatic, or she’d be a little dull.”

David Sims, The Atlantic

“The 21st entry in Marvel’s galactic film empire, and the first focused on a female superhero (played by Brie Larson), is a perfectly fun time at the movies that deftly lays out the stakes of its new character for many future appearances. But more often than not, it feels a little routine… More of a solid building block for future endeavors than a must-see solo adventure.”

Barbara VanDenburgh

“Its mid-’90s setting gives the film retro flair, and its girl-power soundtrack, blasting Garbage and Hole, will win over any ’90s girl’s heart… It’s all so refreshing. So why isn’t “Captain Marvel” more fun? For all its thematic and behind-the-scenes innovations, cinematically “Captain Marvel” feels like a step backward for the MCU. Fresh off the heels of the all-or-nothing bombast of “Avengers: Infinity War,” the righteous representation of “Black Panther” and the giddy lunacy of “Thor: Ragnarok,” “Captain Marvel” is a retreat into a bland formula.”

David Ehrlich, IndieWire

“As generic and retrograde as Black Panther was specific and revolutionary, Captain Marvel is a frustrating disappointment at a time when every inclusive blockbuster is fought over as though it could be the decisive battle in our never-ending culture wars… Neither a blast from the past, nor an inspiring glimpse into the future, at the end of the day it’s just another Marvel movie. And not a particularly good one, at that.”

Shana O’Neil, The Verge

“It rises to the occasion with strong performances and with its directors’ willingness to slow down and take their story seriously, balancing humor, action, and exposition in a carefully calibrated package.”

Mara Reinstein, Us Weekly

“Sometimes when you have sky-high expectations for a film, there’s nowhere to go but down. Even when the focus is a superhero — scratch that, superheroine — that flies. Enter Captain Marvel, the first female to get above-the-title treatment in the Marvel Comic Universe. That is no small deal. Her film, alas, is no epic… It succeeds more as an amusing fill-in-the-blanks Marvel backstory provider than a confident, stand-alone tale of a woman discovering her fierceness.”

Brian Lowry, CNN

“After a solid stretch for superhero fare — including Black Panther’s groundbreaking bid in the Oscar race — Captain Marvel ultimately feels more obligatory than inspired, a movie that basically gets the job done and little more.”

Allison Shoemaker, Consequence of Sound

“It might seem like damning with faint praise to say that the most exciting thing about Captain Marvel is the anticipation it inspires for what’s coming next. It’s not. An origin story is supposed to do just that… That doesn’t mean it’s unreasonable to wish that Captain Marvel felt a little more original and substantial.”

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times

“Ah, but when the wonderful Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel crash-lands in a Blockbuster store on planet Earth in the year 1995, that’s when the real fun begins — and that’s where this girl-power/woman-power adventure finds its heart and its stride and its super-cool whiz-bang sense of humor. This isn’t the greatest Marvel movie ever made, but it’s definitely one of the funniest — and one of the sweetest.”

Katie Walsh, Tribune News

“Captain Marvel is a plucky and pleasing, if predictable, excursion that burns brightly, if briefly. Captain Marvel hits every beat like clockwork, pulls every required emotional string, cues every favorite song, slides in all the quick burns and fan-serving asides. But it feels like formulaic, box-checking filmmaking.”

Brian Truitt, USA Today

“While the retro action-adventure gets a little lost in its own nerdy nostalgia, the 1995-set prequel of sorts to the rest of the Marvel saga still manages to be a blast with plenty of sci-fi satisfaction and entertaining characters.”

Darren Franich, Entertainment Weekly

“Co-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck can’t really find a coherent tone, going on kinetic autopilot as the fights veer back-and-forth through the stratosphere. In pure MCU terms, this is a step down from the demented toonscapes of Guardians of the Galaxy or Thor: Ragnarok, but a step up from the tech-corridor blandeur of something like Ant-Man and the Wasp or any movie where various Avengers hang out in offices.”

Susana Polo, Polygon

“In Captain Marvel, Marvel Studios brings to bear the familiar formula of its best origin story movies: character development, good casting, quips, decent-but-rarely-groundbreaking special effects, and a soupçon of political allegory and science-fiction invention. This sounds like a criticism, but I mean it with sincerity: Marvel Studios rarely makes a truly bad movie, or even a mediocre one. The studio has mastered the building blocks of heroic narratives, and it’s no surprise that Kevin Feige, with directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Half Nelson) stuck to the blueprints while constructing its first heroic narrative about a woman (a prospect so daunting it apparently took over 10 years for the studio to work up the courage).”

[Image via Marvel/YouTube.]

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