It is spectacular and unsurprising that Captain Marvel, a vivid action-adventure centered on the rise of Carol Danvers, is the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe led by a female superhero. The old and stubbornly held Hollywood belief that a superhero movie starring a woman would flop was bolstered by some painful evidence: the critical and financial failures of Supergirl (1984), Tank Girl (1995), Catwoman (2004), and Elektra (2005). Enter Wonder Woman in 2017, a triumph by every measure for DC and Warner Bros., and the conversation shifted. Studios and audiences began to wonder: What if other female superhero films had failed not because of a lack of audience interest in the leads, or even a lack of demand, but because the films themselves were shoddily written, acted, directed, and marketed? Build a good movie, it turns out, and fans will come.
This is the movie’s radiant core, while the rest of it—like the majority of MCU stand-alone romps—is unselfconscious, action-packed fun. Set in 1995, the narrative accelerates when Carol crash-lands through the roof of a Blockbuster Video in Los Angeles, where young agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Nick Fury and Phil Coulson (digitally de-aged Samuel L. Jackson and Clark Gregg, respectively) find her chasing down a cadre of shape-shifting Skrulls. Carol and Fury unite in unlikely friendship, with the latter helping the former track down the remnants of her previous life on earth. From his first appearance as Fury in Iron Man (2008), Jackson has been a central and beloved figure in the MCU; his presence here, pre-eye patch, is delightful. Annette Bening also shines as a rugged mentor from Carol’s test-pilot days; she appears in visions as someone Carol used to find impressive, though she can’t recall why.
Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. PG-13, 132 min. In wide release.
