Critics reviews

Women’s anger is finally being recognized as a political force, a comprehensive social reckoning, and its own genre across all forms of media, as driven and typified by the Strong Female Protagonist.

What used to be thought of as superior feminine intuition is replaced here by boyish aggression and dissatisfied spoiling for a fight. Captain Marvel messes up Women’s History Month because its juvenile story goes against the feminine confidence that Inger Stevens showed 50 years ago in 5 Card Stud when she told Dean Martin, “If I wanted to kill a man, I wouldn’t have to use a gun.”

It’s hard for a character whose fluid identity is inherent in the story to compete with a pop-culture icon who’s lasted since 1941… but when the space battles start, this Captain Marvel at least stays in the game.

“Captain Marvel” is like a political commercial—it packs a worthy message, but it hardly counts as an aesthetic experience.

Writer-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Half Nelson, Sugar) try too hard to mix empowerment with action poetry while depicting an alien incursion in Los Angeles and an intergalactic war _and_ preparing for Avengers: Endgame. That’s too much luggage to carry for independent filmmakers who’ve never shown kinetic flair or talents for fantasy.

[Brie Larson’s] personality gets lost under suits of plasticky armor and in superpowers that directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (better known for indie dramas like Half Nelson and Mississippi Grind) struggle to define in visual terms.

It’s pretty good fun, and could almost be described without sarcasm as a scrappy little picture, like most of Boden and Fleck’s other work. . . . It’s not too long, not too self-important, and benefits from the craft and talent of a cast that includes Annette Bening, Jude Law and Ben Mendelsohn.

By the time I got to the end of Captain Marvel . . . 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.

Like Superman, Captain Marvel is arguably too physically powerful and morally pure to be all that interesting a character, but Larson plays her with a frank, tomboyish physicality that’s appealing.

This is mainly a muddled effort that, by trying to jam origin stories for Danvers, Fury, and S.H.I.E.L.D. into one not terribly engaging chase narrative, doesn’t pay nearly enough attention to Danvers’s crucial emotional metamorphosis from dual-identity self-doubter to fearless warrior battling to keep Earth safe in the galaxy-spanning Kree-Skrull war.

[It] may not be subtle or stylistically innovative—or even particularly great for that matter—but I’ll still be excited to show it to my daughter once she’s old enough.