Captain Marvel - The Interesting Origin Story of One of the Strongest Avenger

As a movie that had been long anticipated due to the ending of Avengers: Infinity War, surely this one would be a definite must see film for me and my wife. But since its premiere date fell on an even date, it was challenging for us to see it in my favorite Dolby Atmos theater due to the even-odd plate number restriction. So we decided to see it on the following day which happened to be a public holiday. Well let us go on directly to this movie now.

Brief Story Line

Vers (Brie Larson - Kong: Skull Island, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World etc) was a warrior in Kree planet who seemed to be having memory problem. Sometimes she would have dreams that she could not understand which involved a mysterious woman (Annette Bening - Being Julia, The Kids Are All Right etc). While on a mission with her team leader & trainer Yon-Rogg (Jude Law - Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Cold Mountain etc), Vers was separated and reached the earth where he met with S.H.I.E.L.D agent Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson - too many films to his credits).


Fury was instructed by his boss Keller (Ben Mendelsohn - Robin Hood 2018 version, Ready Player One etc) to check on Vers identity and also find out the truth about alien threat to earth. Their investigations would lead them to a pilot named Maria (Lashana Lynch) who seemed to know about Vers past. With Skruls on her trail, could Vers find out the reason for Skrulls mission to earth? And could she be reunited with Yon-Rogg and the rest of the team that included Korath (Djimon Hounsou - The Legend of Tarzan, Gladiator etc) and Minn-erva (Gemma Chan - Crazy Rich Asians, Mary Queen of Scots etc) among others?

Find them all in this interesting enough superhero origin movie. 

End of Brief Story Line

Ok so before I conclude this highly anticipated first female superhero movie from Marvel comics, I would like to just say a few words on certain points. The movie had some nice humor but it was not the kind of very funny like in Guardians of the Galaxy movies. The way the mysterious past of Vers unfolded was one of the good part of this film. It had quite a steady pace, not too slow but not that fast either and it was not a full action movie, though its action sequence were greatly done, especially during Captain Marvel's fight scenes which showed some good moves from Brie Larson.

I thought that Brie was wonderful as Captain Marvel and the chemistry between her and young Nick Fury (as it was set in the year 1995) was also nice to see. She was able to portray a strong personality and her character development was pretty good. We could also see a lot of Samuel L. Jackson being a lot more than just the agent Fury from S.H.I.E.L.D. The appearance of rookie agent Coulson (Clark Gregg - Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D TV series) was definitely a nice touch. And do not miss one of Stan Lee's final cameo appearance in here as well. Oh, the special makeup effects were truly amazing as they were able to make Fury & Coulson looked real young.

One thing that I felt a bit lacking in here was the originality.  The early part of the story in Kree planet and the mission somehow seemed like it was coming from one of Star Trek series episodes. There were also some supposedly surprising twists but they were a bit predictable as my wife and I plus the audience next to us could have guessed. The finale was pretty spectacular but funnily enough it kind of reminded me of a major superhero from Marvel's competitor due to her special capability. There was also another scene during the finale that felt a lot like Star Wars movies. Perhaps it was a case of the movie makers truly inspired by those movies.

The 1990s setting were not fully maximized as it was only shown by the use of pager, phone booth, or video store plus 1 or 2 songs from that period. Although there was 1 scene about very slow "loading" which was pretty amusing. Not too sure why but the movie did not have a strong 90s feel, probably because some scenes were shown in space/another planet. Now I am a fan of Star Trek/Star Wars or most sci-fi stories, but I think that was the reason why I had a feel the movie was not up to the best standard Marvel had set in their previous movies. The Vers past and how she became Captain Marvel was great, but the villain was not villainous enough. The ending was also good but the climax even though was fantastic, did not make me in total awe.

For a movie with a high budget, this one was indeed successful in creating great special effects. The costume (and one of its capability was very cool which my wife was truly amazed by it). The cast were quite large but some of them did not really stand out and were either having too little screen time or were not interesting enough to leave an impression. The sound effects were definitely an amazing part of this movie. The Dolby Atmos effect was perfect for this kind of movie. And just like any other Marvel's movies, this one did have two end credit scenes, in the middle and in the very end. One of them was definitely a very important one.

Overall as an origin superhero movie, it was quite spot on. It gave us a rather complete story of how Vers became Captain Marvel and even the Avengers back story. I was quite satisfied with the way it was told, but the whole movie did not feel as spectacular & amazing as I would have hoped for. It was fun & entertaining, had some wonderful action, great special effects but you could not help wonder if it could have been better somehow, perhaps with faster pace or giving more screen time for the villains? But this was definitely a good enough movie & certainly a must see to ensure a mouth-watering grand finale in the next Avengers: End Game.

Happy watching!

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars