143. Captain Marvel; movie review

CAPTAIN MARVEL
Cert 12A
124 mins

BBFC advice: Contains moderate fantasy violence, implied strong language

Reluctantly, I have to admit that superhero movies are no longer just a fashion which will temporarily dominate cinema screens.
They are here to stay.
Indeed, their makers are keeping up with socio-political trends to make sure they don't lose their edge.
Therefore, Black Panther saw the first black superhero and now, following the #metoo furore and subsequent campaign for better roles for women in films, Captain Marvel is female.
There is no reason why she shouldn't be but the original incarnation in Stan Lee and Gene Colan's comics was male.
I digress.

As it turns out,  'Mar-vel' is not the electric blonde in the shape of Brie Larson but a flicker in her memory, played by Annette Bening.
Larson plays an alien superbeing who is trained by her superior (Jude Law) to fight against green shapeshifters who look a tad similar to Star Trek's ferengi.
Ben Mendelsohn is the leader of the ugly bunch who even when they appear in their natural form are not all that they seem.
And neither is Larson's character, Vers, who seeks to explain why she cannot recall her personal history.
Inevitably, albeit by accident, she alights upon surprising answers.
Larson takes the lead role with gusto, full of fire when needed but also thoughtful and with conscience.
Law's character is much more one-demensional, using brute force to overcome ignorance.
And then there is Samuel L. Jackson as a pre-eye patch Nick Fury who is literally dragged into another world.
Lashana Lynch plays the pilot who literally brings the plot back to earth.
It being a Marvel movie there are a multitude of special effects and in-credit scenes and the story is folded into the Avengers plot.
As a standalone, it works as a good versus evil storyline with a few twists.
And, in the final analysis, it is an easy way to spend a couple of hours but I doubt I will remember it much past next week.

Reasons to watch: It's Captain Marvel, innit?
Reasons to avoid; Not very memorable

Laughs: A couple of chuckles
Jumps: None
Vomit: None
Nudity: None
Overall rating: 6.5/10

Did you know? Following a trial in which DC Comics sued Fawcett Comics for breach of copyright, claiming Fawcett's Captain Marvel was too similar to Superman, the latter stopped publishing Captain Marvel in 1953. In the late 1960s Marvel gained the trademark "Captain Marvel" with their first series.

The final word. Brie Larson: "I'm into an all-female Avengers movie. Yeah, I think that would just be coll to see all of them interact together."

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