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After overwhelmingly negative feedback towards 2019's Captain Marvel, and of Brie Larson's portrayal of the titular heroine, the character is sidelined here in her own sequel which does not even carry the title of Captain Marvel 2. Directed by Nia DaCosta (2021's Candyman remake) 2023's The Marvels is a world-building ensemble flick that feels like the worst kind of bland, formulaic, committee-designed, assembly-line blockbuster filmmaking, and it is the worst entry to the ever-weakening Marvel Cinematic Universe to date. A thorough debacle in every way (a more appropriate title would be The Debacles), it's a creatively bankrupt embarrassment to all involved and to Marvel Studios, showing that the bare minimum for the superhero genre (flashy action and a bloated budget) is no longer adequate. Despite being the shortest MCU title to date at only 105 minutes, The Marvels feels agonisingly long and boring, and it's obvious that it was aggressively cut down during post-production in an attempt to make it as palatable as possible. Without emotional weight, compelling characters or a thoughtful story, The Marvels is a sludge of CGI-soaked action scenes, atrocious digital effects, disjointed storytelling, tone-deaf humour and terrible screenwriting. It's even worse than Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
After Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel (Larson) destroyed the Supreme Intelligence on the Kree homeworld of Hala, a civil war broke out which left the planet devoid of sunlight, water and air. The new leader of the Kree, Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), seeks to harness the power of the Quantum Bands as part of her plan to re-energise Hala, but one of the bands is in the possession of Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani). Dar-Benn manages to tear open a jump point in space by combining one of the bands with her staff, and this attracts the attention of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) who brings in Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) and Carol to investigate. When Monica interacts with the anomaly, it causes herself, Carol and Kamala to change places with each other, and this teleportation is triggered whenever they use their powers. This entanglement requires the three women to get together and work as a team.
Rumours of extensive reshoots swirled in the wake of the endless release date delays, and evidence of this is all over the final cut. The Marvels lacks a cohesive narrative and a clear story trajectory, plus character motivations are muddled and vaguely defined. The stakes are equally unclear, and there's never a burning sense of peril for any of the characters or the universe at large. A clear structure is also missing, with characters frequently managing to get from one planet to another in the space of a scene transition - there's no connective tissue. It's also unclear how Carol destroying the Supreme Intelligence managed to leave Hala in darkness, and why Carol needed to spend years away from Earth trying to fix her mistake when she can solve everything else so quickly. The Marvels ultimately feels like a six-episode streaming show that was fashioned into a 105-minute movie without paying attention to the requirements for a feature film. Whatever the case, it's clear that a lot was cut out of The Marvels, and it's clear that it was heavily rewritten and reshot in post-production.
Furthermore, The Marvels is devoid of meaningful character arcs to illustrate growth in its trio of protagonists. The closest it gets to character development is Monica resenting Carol for not returning to Earth as she was growing up, but this angle is half-hearted at best; it lacks a proper resolution and any emotional payoff. The Marvels does not have an agenda to push, but it is solely concerned with superficial "girl power" moments that mean nothing without clear stakes or characters overcoming obstacles. The women quickly form a team and practice doing menial things while dealing with the teleportation, and that's it. Even a scene of heroic sacrifice during the climax feels hollow rather than significant. Another issue is the dialogue, which is lacking in wit and mostly amounts to inconsequential noise. The performances do not help matters, with Larson still looking disinterested and sleepy as Captain Marvel. Suppressing all emotions and vulnerability, as well as any sense of nuance, Larson has a blank, stern look on her face all the way through. Parris, meanwhile, fails to make any sort of impact; she does not own the role, and it feels like Monica could have been played by any other actress. Equally nondescript is Ashton, who's as generic and one-note as they come. It's not Ashton's fault that the character is so underwritten (Dar-Benn is absent for the entire second act), but her scenes here are still far from impressive. Meanwhile, Jackson simply sleepwalks through the film as Fury, and there is scarcely a single memorable moment or dialogue exchange. The only actor who makes a positive impression is Vellani, who deserves credit for imbuing Kamala with gusto and energy. Her exuberance is occasionally exhausting, but Vellani seems excited and grateful to be part of the MCU, and it's a shame she has been saddled with projects like this.
DaCosta emphasises a strong comic tone throughout The Marvels, taking nothing seriously and always trying to force a laugh, which brings back painful memories of 2022's Thor: Love and Thunder. New cosmic worlds are introduced here but everything is bereft of awe and spectacle, which is incredibly deflating after James Gunn's masterful Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy. The movie's worst and most egregious scenes take place on the planet of Aladna where the citizens only communicate through singing and dancing. It's excruciating to watch, and one could even imagine Taiki Waititi cringing at this try-hard attempt to be whimsical and fun. The action sequences, too, are mostly awful, with jarring editing making certain events unclear, and with the 'changing places' gimmick rendering the action incomprehensible and lacking in flow. The characters consistently teleporting is interesting in theory, but the execution is disastrous in the hands of DaCosta who is simply not talented enough to make it work.
With reports emerging about Marvel's poor treatment of visual effects artists leading to subpar CGI, it's unsurprising that The Marvels looks awful from a visual perspective. The digital effects are appalling, from the phoney Flerken tentacles to the uniformly shocking green-screen compositing, and pretty much everything else. Even the best MCU flicks are not immune from moments of rocky digital effects, but their interesting visual design and, above all, their sense of style makes this aspect less bothersome. The Marvels does not have this to fall back on. The cinematography by Sean Bobbitt is mundane as hell, while the flick looks generic and cheap in all respects. Costuming, too, is unbelievably bad, with the central trio's new outfits looking worse than most amateur cosplayers. A movie costing in excess of $250 million should not look this hideous.
The Marvels is the cinematic equivalent of a nepotism baby; it coasts on the success of previous MCU titles, and those involved in the production ostensibly believe that even the laziest effort will still succeed and become beloved thanks to the Marvel brand name. This is perhaps why the film feels so passionless, incompetent and joyless; nobody felt they had anything to prove. The only positive thing about The Marvels is that it's mercifully short at a bit over 90 minutes before credits, but it still feels at least twice as long. It's clear that nobody knew what story they wanted to tell about these characters, with the notion of Carol, Monica and Kamala sharing the screen taking precedence over a compelling story. Indeed, The Marvels feels like a rough hodgepodge of ideas that exists only to give the protagonists a team-up film and to set up more MCU projects in the future. The mid-credits scene is one of the movie's only bright spots, and another positive is that there is no post-credits scene, meaning that audiences will not need to hang around in the cinema for any longer.
2.0/10
