Review: The Marvels (2023)

The Marvels

Rating

Director

Nia DaCosta

Screenplay

Nia DaCosta, Megan McDonnell, Elissa Karasik

Length

1h 45m

Starring

Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, Iman Vellani, Samuel L. Jackson, Zawe Ashton, Gary Lewis, Seo-Jun Park, Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, Saagar Shaikh, Leila Farzad, Abraham Popoola, Daniel Ings

MPAA Rating

PG-13

Original Preview

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Review

After more than a decade of Disney superhero dominance, the bloom is off the rose, but is that really fair to one of the longest runs of inventive and original pieces to come out of the studio? The Marvels makes the case for a more entertaining direction for the franchise, but will it be too far afield of the formula to please Disney or its fans?

After defeating the Kree in Captain Marvel, and between movies, Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) as the titular superhero destroys the Supreme Intelligence that ruled over that people. This sets off a chain of events that leads to civil war and destruction of Hala’s (the Kree home world) natural resources. Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton) embarks on a quest to locate a mystical artifact that can help her people rip through the cosmos and bring much needed resources to Hala. This runs counter to Carol’s goals and leads to the conflict that drives the film.

Filling out the rest of the three-woman team are Monica Rambeau (Tayonah Parris) from the first film returns alongside Ms. Marvel Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), who is a fan of Carol’s superhero persona. While you don’t need to see Rambeau in WandaVision, you most certainly need to see Kamala Khan in Ms. Marvel. The foundations of the character are much better explored in the Disney+ series than in the film and it adds some depth to Vellani’s performance other than just obsessed fangirl.

That is perhaps the biggest flaw with The Marvels in general and the Marvel Cinematic Universe in specific. You have to be so well versed in past films that it makes it difficult for a layperson to enjoy them. Thankfully, much of that exposition is handled fairly well in the screenplay by director Nia DaCosta and co-writers Megan McDonnell and Elissa Karasik. Since the impetus for the film itself isn’t in any prior production, you get the quick explanation here and it makes enough sense to carry the film. There are moments when the logic is lost, much like the population-destroying Thanos, but logical consistency doesn’t always enable the best villains. Not that Dar-Benn is a very good villain, rather two-dimensional, but close enough to get the job done.

It seems like Larson has largely lost interest in this role and while she’s been wonderful in it, you can see the fatigue settling into this performance. It’s nowhere near as commanding or compelling as in the first film. She doesn’t phone it in and she’s convincing enough to make it work, but the film is carried by Parris to a lesser extent and Vellani to a larger extent. Vellani was charming and effervescent in her series debut and she more than proves our interest in her career justified. It may be the same character, but it also shows a large amount of growth having to balance cultural needs, thematic needs, comedy, and pathos. She’s a star in the making and I’m curious to see if the Young Avengers comes out of this success.

This is perhaps the most entertaining Marvel movie to come out of the Disney machine in some years. While it doesn’t quite have the zest of Thor: Ragnarok, it’s certainly the most fun since that film came out six years ago. That sense of fun is DaCosta’s contribution to the effort. Her ability for balancing comedy and drama with the action events surrounding them is infectious. A late-film use of the song “Memory” from Cats (the Barbra Streisand cover) is one of the most hilarious segments in the MCU. The juxtaposition of the song’s raw emotion and subtext with the events transpiring on screen is blissful. It might be a fluff segment, but it’s a perfectly executed fluff segment.

The Marvels is a movie that families can enjoy without feeling overwhelmed by the backlog of MCU titles. It’s an engaging, entertaining effort that many will enjoy. That it takes the cultural paradigm built into Ms. Marvel and carries it into the larger MCU is admirable and with an anchoring performance like Vellani’s, it would be a shame if it didn’t become a cult sensation in future years.