Riot’s Reviews: The Marvels
Merriam-Webster defines “hate-watch” as a transitive verb meaning, “to watch and take pleasure at or criticizing (a disliked television show, movie, etc)”. The phenomena even has its own Wikipedia page! As funny as the concept is (and no matter how closely I related to the feeling whilst watching She-Hulk) I generally don’t go out of my way to watch something with the explicit intent to dislike the thing I’m going to see. I do however tend to have either high or low expectations that can affect my opinions but usually not until after the actual viewing. I’m sure no one will be surprised when I say that I came into this one on the very low side, partly due to the fair amount of the “homework” needed to be introduced to the titular characters and also because of the enormous amounts of bad press, underwhelming previews, and overall “controversy” surrounding its release. The original Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) was a mid-rank MCU film at best and an ideological cesspool at worst. WandaVision (Monica Rambo) started with an incredibly interesting premise that fizzled out in multiple ways. Ms. Marvel (Kamala Kahn) was a quick, quirky start that I couldn’t bring myself to finish after the midway point; an opinion apparently shared by the majority of viewers. And I didn’t even bother with Secret Invasion, having been swayed by online opinions not to watch. With a multitude of plotlines converging, would The Marvels be able to weave them together in a cohesive, entertaining way?
There is certainly no complexity to the answer, The Marvels was a dumpster fire in nearly every way. It suffered from all of the tropes that have been plaguing Marvel films over the last few years. The primary issue, the villain (Dar-Benn played by Zawe Ashton), was about as flat and uncompelling performance-wise as she could have been. Her backstory is underdeveloped and her overall demeanor is about as threatening as an angry bunny. The character’s lame excuse of a motivation is matched in its ridiculousness by the method in which she enacts her “revenge” and blows past all semblance of believability. Between Ashton’s obscene looking metal grill teeth and the completely unexplained reason why she is wielding Ronan the Accuser’s weapon (which was destroyed in GOTG btw) virtually everything about the character was an absolute mess.
Entertainment rumors said that the film went through a multitude of re-shoots and edits, trying to come up with a product that would be palatable to an audience and you can certainly tell the rumors are true. What you’re left with is an hour and forty-five minute film that should feel like it’s fast-paced (considering almost every damn movie is like two and half hours nowadays) yet it stretches on with over the top goofball antics that aren’t remotely funny and exposition that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The scenes all feel like they are haphazardly spliced together, ensuring that the storyline doesn’t flow properly and mentally jerks the audience from place to place. Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) is demoted to being a side character in her own story and Larson struggles throughout to be charismatic, or funny, or even dramatic (it was tough watching her try to squeeze out a single tear in what should have been her most emotional scene). Monica Rambo (Teyonah Parris) felt shoe-horned into the story in almost every way. Used as a point of scientific exposition, her explanations for everything, including her own powers, don’t fit into the overall narrative well and leaves the audience even more confused than when the movie started. Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) gives arguably the most consistent performance, but coupled with the members of her family who absolutely had no place being involved in the majority of the story, fails to be the comedic relief they were all intended to be.
To my great surprise, I was particularly disappointed with two things: Nick Fury (Samuel Jackson) and (it really hurts me to say this) the cats/flerkens. Fury is a shell of his once great character. Completely relegated to comedic bits that absolutely do not hit. His impact on the story is about as necessary as the flerkens. I didn’t hate the film’s overall CGI to be perfectly honest, but to call it good would prove false and there is no better example of that than the beyond awful CGI cats. Not only do they serve as the lamest deus ex machina I’ve ever seen, they just look terrible and what started as some clever bits involving Goose at the beginning, devolves rapidly by the end. The whole thing wraps with an embarrassingly bad attempt to have Kamala replay the role of Fury and a mid-credits scene that the online community was unjustifiably goo-goo over. (I’ll add a note at the end if anyone wants to spoil it and hear my thoughts about why I think its lame)
I don’t want to leave the review without at least one compliment for the film, which only amounts to the fact that I was pretty impressed with some of the action sequences. The core issue The Marvels’ heroines were having to deal with was physically switching places when they activated their powers. Bad/inexplicable mechanics of the premise aside, it allowed for some pretty interesting fight sequences, particularly when things got up close and personal with the hand to hand combat. But it is incredibly hard to make a case that this small detail would be enough to save this film in any real way. Its terrible exposition, poorly executed “rules,” and painfully awkward musical scenes (yeah, I said musical) ensure that this will be as forgettable as Captain Marvel’s previous adventure.
Riot’s Rating: 3/10
P.S. I see a lot of reviews coming out that are blaming “superhero fatigue” for why recent Marvel films are performing so poorly. I reject this idea in nearly every way. I say nearly, because Disney made the grave mistake of trying to milk the cow to death, oversaturating the market with not only movies but T.V. shows as well. What we have got from this is studios that are spread way too thin. Coupled with diving into multi-verse storylines (which I would argue only serves to make things worse because hardly anyone is doing it extremely well) the products these studios are putting out reek of rushed deadlines and plots that aren’t being given the proper respect. I don’t think the population is fatigued by superheroes, they’re fatigued by s*** storytelling. That being said, the MCU still shows glimmers of hope like with Loki, whose second season proves that a multiverse story not only can be done well, but that compelling performances can smooth over any hiccups in the storyline. The second season is dark, gritty, emotional, and has legitimate consequences even without the existence of a defined villain. Loki proves that the MCU still has life in it, if only Disney would take their time with their releases, scale back the amount of titles they feel they need to put out, and get back to the basics, giving proper respect to the source material and the audience that I believe is still wanting more.
Mid-Credit Spoiler Alert
So through the final events of the story, Monica Rambo gets trapped in an alternate dimension, only to be shown awakening in the presence of two X-Men, Binary (Lashana Lynch) and Beast (Kelsey Grammer). Now, I fully understand the excitement for Grammer specifically, who mentions “Charles” as well during his dialogue. I always thought that Grammer was one of the “as good as a casting could get” types, fitting the character in almost every way. Here’s the rub: he was completely CGI’d and it looked so bad. The second part to my issue with the appearance of the X-Men is that I am vehemently against them trying again with the story. The counter argument from other comic book fans is certainly going to be “but, but, Secret Waaaaaars” and I don’t care. Studios had too many passes at the X-Men, nearly all of which were…incomplete attempts as I see them. At the very least it is difficult to say any of them are particularly fantastic besides Logan. When placed in comparison to the latest X-Men films, I wonder if the original three retrospectively appear better now, much like what happened to the Star Wars prequel films in comparison to its latest trilogy. Regardless (and I’ve expressed this multiple times to friends and co-workers) they had their chance to make the X-Men great. Let it go, move on, and get back to focusing on one movie/show at a time.
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