Worth: $12.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, Iman Vellani, Zawe Ashton, Samuel L. Jackson, Zenobia Shroff
Intro:
Fitfully entertaining but spectacularly forgettable, The Marvels is nowhere near enough of a marvel to save Marvel.
2023 has not been a great year for Marvel Studios. The once dominant media empire has had a string of dud beats, including Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania underperforming both commercially and critically, initially promising Samuel L. Jackson-starring telly show Secret War landing with a thud, and new “big bad” Kang actor Jonathan Majors involved in domestic violence allegations. That’s not to mention the behind the scenes dramas, scrapped projects and eye opening news articles that showcased just how dicey things have been. The minor upside has been Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 but that film was director James Gunn’s last dance with Marvel, before he buggers off to try and untangle the mess over at DC. Put simply, Marvel needed a cracker of a film to set things right.
What they got was The Marvels.
The Marvels continues the story of Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) and Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani). These super ladies have very little to do with one another’s lives until a strange cosmic situation causes the three of them to switch places with one another whenever they use their powers. This wouldn’t be that much of a problem if it didn’t coincide with the villainous antics of Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), an angry Kree warrior with a beef against Captain Marvel and a plan to revitalise her home planet at any cost…
The thing about The Marvels is that it barely has a story. Like, there’s a premise, and a couple of additional pieces of plotting, but it essentially boils down to the “hey, we’ve swapped locations again!” over and over. And over. Again.
The good news is, the cast are pretty great. Brie Larson is charming, Teyonah Parris always delightful but it’s Iman Vellani who runs away with the movie, imbuing her teenage superhero with a genuine sense of awe and wonder at the celestial hijinks taking place around her. Audience members who haven’t watched Ms. Marvel on Disney+ might be a little confused as to who the hell she is (not to mention why Monica has powers, unless they watched WandaVision) but she’s a bright and agreeable screen presence throughout.
Still, charm can only take you so far and a film that’s all sizzle, no steak, is unlikely to achieve mass adoration. At the screening your humble word janitor attended, the audience was pretty evenly split between kids and adults. To our right were a couple of pre-teen girls. Behind us, a couple of neckbeards somewhere in their 30s. The kids adored it, jumping and laughing and cackling. The nerds did not, nasally (and noisily) pointing out the perceived flaws and inconsistencies. So, maybe that’s the key to enjoying The Marvels: be a kid, who uncritically just wants a bit of flashy, colourful entertainment. For everyone else, The Marvels is likely to be a harmless bit of fluff that fills in just under two hours agreeably enough but will not even stay with you for the walk out to the carpark.
Fitfully entertaining but spectacularly forgettable, The Marvels is nowhere near enough of a marvel to save Marvel.
