The Marvels

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Victoria's Statewide Mornings program on November 16, 2023.

(M) ★★★½

Director: Nia DiCosta.

Cast: Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, Iman Vellani, Samuel L. Jackson, Zawe Ashton, Gary Lewis, Park Seo-joon, Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, Saagar Shaikh.

Hanging out in kids' bedrooms? Not cool, Captain Marvel.

All the headlines around The Marvels have been about its poor box office performance, which totally ignores how fun and entertaining this film is.

The reasons for the flop out of the gates are many, but the main one is surely a lack of promotion thanks to the actors' strike, which dulled the buzz of this worthy addition to the MCU. Had Larson, Parris and Vellani been able to hit the junket tour and showcase the great chemistry they share on screen, then maybe we'd have a different set of headlines.

Or maybe it's that now-legendary "superhero fatigue", a term that's been thrown around for the past decade, only to get quickly forgotten when the next amazing superhero movie rolls around.

But who cares? Despite its flaws, The Marvels is a hoot, and the kind of good-time superpowered jawn that hopefully stirs up some belated word-of-mouth buzz.

It centres on Carol Danvers AKA Captain Marvel (Larson), Ms Marvel (Vellani) and the steadfastly un-nicknamed Monica Rambeau (Parris - but she's Photon right? Or Spectrum?), who find their powers entangled after a run-in with a wormhole phenomena created by alien warrior Dar-Benn. As they investigate further, they discover they're in a race against time to stop Dar-Benn repairing her damaged homeworld at the expense of numerous other worlds, including Earth.

The Marvels ain't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it's fun, riding high on the interactions of its stars. If you haven't caught Disney+'s Ms Marvel series then you've been missing out on the bubbly delight that is Vellani, who brings her fan girl enthusiasm to all the best lines in the film. Combined with Larson and Parris, the trio make for a welcome delight.

Oddly, the film's villain is disappointing despite coming from the wonderful moral grey zone Marvel does so well. Like so many other MCU Big Bad, Dar-Benn believes what she is doing is the right thing (see also Namor, the High Evolutionary, Thanos etc...) and is compelling from that angle, but is sadly unmemorable and lacking in charisma, despite Ashton's best efforts.

The action is great, with the "entanglement" of the three Marvels' powers making for some neat CG trickery. The sillier moments are also excellent; better than the emotional beats. The cat-like flerkens are given a hilarious role while a wacky Bollywood-style dance number in the middle is nice, but the relationship between Danvers and Rambeau feels forced.

The combination of it all is unwieldy at times, but by-and-large The Marvels works. It's disappointing this film will be written off as an MCU flop because its superior to plenty of other entries in the franchise that fared better at the box office.