There’s definitely a risk involved when it comes to criticizing certain films and despite the fact that the initial fervor cause by Captain Marvel has blown over there are still plenty of people willing to sit and jaw over the fact that she seems to be coming out as the new face of the MCU. Honest Trailers are definitely not given over to being overly polite but at the very least they do practice what they preach since whether you loved the movie or hated it they do tend to pick out things that don’t seem possible to ignore when they’re revealed. Personally I thought Captain Marvel was a fun origin story for a new hero that has entered the MCU. Without putting a political spin or giving into the idea that it’s a feminist-driven movie it’s something that could possibly kick off the next phase in a big way. In some cases it did feel as though there wasn’t quite enough substance there to really explain everything, but if you’ll recall, Iron Man was a bit spotty in places as well.
The funny thing about this is that neither Captain Marvel or Iron Man were really the start of the Marvel presence in movies. This came a while back and, if you want to get technical, movies based on Marvel characters have been showing up for decades before either hero. Granted, they were horrible by our current standards and might have even been kind of campy back then, but if you really want to get down and dirty with facts, Marvel has had an on screen presence for a long time. But it’s true that Captain Marvel is the first time a woman has headlined a Marvel movie, so it is cinematic history being made. Of course that means that you have to ignore the fact that Elektra came to the screen in 2005, but a lot of people seem willing enough to do this since Jennifer Garner’s outing as the famed assassin didn’t exactly pan out the way people thought it would.
But back to the matter at hand. Captain Marvel was a fun movie, but there were moments when it seemed as though it was being used to make more of a statement than to entertain the masses, which is all well and good since Carol really didn’t have anything left to prove to her enemies or even herself when she’d finally reached the realization of just how powerful she was. But throwing it in the average moviegoer’s face, no matter how justified Thomas Bacon from ScreenRant or anyone else thought it was, proved to be a bit startling since it seemed to slap people upside the head with the idea that a movie can’t just have a female lead and be fun, it has to remind you, especially if you’re male, that women are powerful and deserve their place in the sun. If anyone’s still disputing this after so long it must mean they’re stuck back in the 19th century, but thankfully Captain Marvel was made to remind us. Yes that sounds cynical doesn’t it? But if a movie is going to be made with an undertone that seems fit to remind us all that women’s voices have become louder in the last few years then the reaction that it gets should at least be expected if not desired.
Plus, lauding her as the most powerful character in the MCU was bound to upset some people, comic book enthusiasts, oh heck let’s be proud and call them nerds, especially. In the comics, which the MCU has been known to circumvent, Carol is still rather powerful and can take on a lot of individuals in a straight up fight. But she’s also been seen to not even crack the top 10 most powerful beings, excluding those that are insanely powerful like Galactus or the Living Tribunal, which might not even make into the MCU for all we know. But in the comics, while Carol is extremely strong and fast, heroes like Thor and the Hulk could take her out fairly simple. Being that her powers have been souped up in the movies it’s still likely that Thor could take her on, but the Hulk might be her punching bag after a few rounds. It’s not really a desire to see heroes fight since they’re supposed to be on the same team, but at the same time it’s a point of contention when one of them seems to get elevated way beyond the boundaries of their origin.
Another rather irritating point to be made is how Nick Fury was treated during this movie. Throughout much of his time in the MCU Fury has been seen as the guy that has an answer for just about everything and is always calm and cool under pressure. In this movie he seemed more like the bumbling sidekick than anything and was given more of a goofy lean to his character than many people enjoyed. If nothing else, it seems that Captain Marvel, while entertaining and fun, did have something of an agenda when it came to introducing the first female lead and a possible successor to Iron Man’s leading role in the MCU.
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