As the Captain Marvel movie is now in theaters, with reviews both gushing and negative coming in, we have here, for example, an interview in Entertainment Weekly where star Brie Larson gives more of an idea what the film is about, confirming further that this was all intended to make a political statement, overshadowing the entertainment value, if there is any at all:

This film is Carol Danvers’ story, but it’s also a story about female friendship, especially in Carol’s relationship with Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch) and her daughter. What was it about that theme you wanted to explore?

LARSON: I think because it’s 2019, and what 2019 is about, really, is intersectional feminism. There’s just no question that we would have to show what it means to be all different kinds of women, that we don’t just have one type. It became a great opportunity, even with things like the love story. [We wanted] to make that big love— that lost love, that love that’s found again—be with [Carol’s] best friend. To show that, that’s incredibly powerful and gripping, and you could go to the ends of the Earth and fight till the end for your best friend. It’s perfect to me and so meaningful. To me, that’s a part of what the meditation of this movie is: It’s female strength, but what is female strength? What are the different ways that can look?

Well that would surely include strength in writing and personalities, which Larson doesn’t seem to sport much of in this movie. And if they wanted better strength in that regard, they shouldn’t have made it a movie where men are belittled, as one of the reviews I read said. On which note, Breitbart said:

Meanwhile, a fight is brewing among critics who seem to have watched two different films.

A compilation of reviews published by EW reveals some critics saying that Captain Marvel is a “mundane” film “marked by unimaginative plotting,” a “generic” superhero film, a film that does not “approach the ranks of top tier Marvel movies,” or a grim film where no one seems to be having much fun. But other critics who focus solely on the feminismof the film want to proclaim Captain Marvel a success based only on that feminist metric.

In other words, some fool critics think the politics make the movie, not the story merit in the finished product. Just plain embarrassing. On that note, let’s turn to one of the more revealing reviews, written by Christian Toto:

And oh, does “Captain Marvel” wear its feminism on its glittery sleeve. The bulk of the ’90s songs featured here hail from female artists. We see flashbacks of Vers’ childhood, and at every turn a man is there to tell her she can’t do this or that.

Captain Victimhood? It gets worse.

Law’s nebulous character is always around the corner, telling Vers she’s too hysterical to make an impact. How did Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez not score a cameo?

Maria (Lashana Lynch) arrives mid-film as Vers’ old pilot buddy to flesh out our hero’s back story and, of course, add even more Female EmpowermentTM. Naturally, Maria is a single mom with a young daughter who exists to serve up even more Female EmpowermentTM lectures.

Lynch even snaps at someone who tries to address her in a cordial manner.

“Call me young lady again!” she snarls, as if the character had insulted her maternal grandparents. […]

For most of “Captain Marvel” it’s the female characters who save the day (fine!), while the male figures are either dressed down or neutered. It’s odd to see Jackson’s Fury have so little to do when the third act arrives.

What a waste of natural screen resources.

As noted before, a film that puts down men (including black men, as the part about the cinematic Nick Fury notes), and makes single parenthood look inherently better. Just plain dumbfounding. Is this what the Marvel movieverse going forward will be like?

It still remains to be seen how well it’ll do at the box office, but even if it doesn’t turn out a total disaster, it could still underperform, and for now, artistically speaking, it looks like it’ll be the weakest result yet in the Marvel franchise.

And there’s more eyebrow raising discoveries: when Larson was originally hired to play Carol Danvers, she not only knew little about her, she initially thought Carol was a man! Hmm, she must’ve first looked at all the art turning poor Carol into “Carl Manvers”. No thanks to the artists who worked on the books with Kelly Sue deConnick and turned out such a monstrosity of an insult, a complete betrayal of artists like Dave Cockrum.

And Kevin Feige’s wrong when he speaks of Carol as though she’s always been one of the most popular and/or successful characters in the Marvel stables. Her original solo book only lasted during 1977-79, and was cancelled before the last 2 stories could see the light (they were later published circa 1990 in one of Marvel’s anthologies), while both Spider-Woman and Dazzler both ran at least 2 years longer. So too, in fact, did Charlie’s Angels on TV (1976-81), and I mention that because for the first half of the Ms. Marvel run, Carol was drawn with a hairdo inspired by Farrah Fawcett’s from the times. By the late-80s (during which time she’d become Binary), she was largely on the sidelines, and didn’t become more prominent again until the late 90s when she rejoined the Avengers.

By now, for anybody in the know, it’s pretty apparent Feige and company are trying to spin us a riddle about something that could’ve been far more successful and iconic than it actually was, but unfortunately, wasn’t. And now, they’re foisting this terrible rendition upon us with an agenda that makes any in the older material look tame and masterful by comparison. No way to build up an icon, and no telling what this means for the next Avengers movie either, recalling Larson’s supposed to appear there too.

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Originally posted at the Four Color Media Monitor
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