Captain Marvel

Set mostly in 1995, Captain Marvel follows Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers as she discovers her superpowers and attempts to stop a brewing war between two alien races. Filmmakers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck deliver an entirely underwhelming opening stretch that certainly doesn’t hold a lot of promise, as Captain Marvel kicks off with a first act that jumps right into a less-than-engrossing story and boasts (or suffers from) a series of ineffective, dimly-lit action sequences – with the movie not improving until Larson’s one-dimensional hero makes her way to Earth (although even that portion of the proceedings manages to disappoint due to its lack of fish-out-of-water silliness). And while the movie subsequently possesses a very small handful of captivating moments (eg a fight atop a moving train), Captain Marvel progresses into a seriously padded-out (and increasingly tedious) midsection that contains few attributes worth embracing – with, as a result, the various revelations and instances of backstory unable to pack the punch Boden and Fleck have surely intended. It’s not surprising to discover, certainly, that the picture closes with an almost interminable final stretch that seems to consist solely of relentlessly over-the-top (and yawn-inducing) battle sequences, which ultimately does confirm Captain Marvel‘s place as just another generic, cookie-cutter comic-book movie that brings virtually nothing new to the table.

** out of ****