Dar-Ben (Zawe Ashton), who took over as Supremor after Captain Sparkle-fists (Brie Larson) killed the Supreme Intelligence in the first Captain Marvel movie (I forgot that happened, along with most of what happened in that movie), is looking for a couple of wristbands that will give her incredible power. But she only finds one, because the other is on Kamala Khan's (Iman Vellani) wrist.
Oh well, enough energy and one bangle (or Quantum Band) is enough to open jump gates enabling Dar-Ben to steal resources from worlds that important to Captain Marvel to revitalize Hala. Yeah, she uses the scheme from Spaceballs, except she actually succeeds in stealing a planet's fresh air, and another's water. Meaning Carol Danvers is less competent than Lone Star and Barf. Ouch.
With only one Band, the gates are steadily tearing apart spacetime, and have also caused Carol, Kamala, and Monica Rambeau's (Teyonah Parris) powers to somehow get "entangled", so if two or more of them use their powers simultaneously, they switch places. Leading to a lot of confusion when Carol, say, abruptly swaps with Kamala (drawing comics about team-ups with Danvers) during a fight with the Kree, or Kamala and Monica get swapped when Monica's on a spacewalk. But it provides an excuse to not send the teenager or the scientist home (since they'd likely just get dragged back in at the worst possible moment), and they have to work together to try and stop Dar-Ben.
I figured that if Dar-Ben kept managing to open gates with one bangle by supercharging it with her Universal Weapon, the solution was going to be Kamala closing the gates (or rift) with her bangle after getting it supercharged by Carol. Probably with some help controlling the energy from Monica, what with her ability to shift between different parts of electromagnetic spectrum. Teamwork makes the dream work, and there was the whole bit about Carol having been on her own in space a lot and being used to handling everything solo, and Monica being reluctant to get involved in this kind of stuff and needing to embrace her powers, and Kamala getting to live out her dream of a team-up on an Avengers-level danger, while having a better sense what that actually entails.
It seemed like an obvious reason to need both bands to create stable gates. One opens, the other closes, they regulate each other, something like that. Plus, you've got Kamala using her power to turn energy into solid barriers or shields or whatever. At least have her try to make a giant plug or patch or something. But they had to do the Multiverse thing, so there you go.
The three leads play off each other well. Vellani's got Kamala's starstruck and eager attitude down cold, and it gives the movie energy and excitement that helped carry it along. Because otherwise, Danvers is really serious and guarded, and Monica is nervous and trying to sort out her feelings about "Aunt Carol." But Larson and Parris let their characters gradually get swept up in the enthusiasm a bit. The training montage sequence was fun, although I'm a sucker for "Intergalactic" (up there with "Body Movin'" and "Eggman" for my favorite Beastie song.)
As generally repulsed by choreographed singing and dancing as I am in movies, the visit to Andala was interesting - I laughed at, "we have two newcomers - although one of them could be more cheerful" - although Carol's Princess Dress Outfit really did drive home that she needs something brighter on the lower half of her costume to break up all that muddy dark blue. If not the classic red sash, at least a bright red or yellow belt or something.
The gags with the Flerkens and the space station were amusing, though it felt weird to be worrying about that when Dar-Ben is about to steal the Sun to reignite Hala's. But the movie was emphasizing home and family, and all 3 of the leads had connections to the people on the station, so it wouldn't make a lot of sense to abandon them to die when the station blows up, implodes, falls into the atmosphere, whatever it was going to do (I wasn't clear on that beyond it wasn't working well.)
Overall, I had a pretty good 95 minutes watching this.
2 comments:
Yeah, I thought it was pretty decent. The plotting was terrible, and it sort of felt like a bunch of TV episodes mashed together -- which possibly it was -- but the three leads were good, developed nicely, and there were some fun individual set piece scenes.
I was surprised it was barely 1.5 hours long, and kind of hate saying that, since it seems like superhero movies so easily bloat out to 150+ minutes, but the part on the musical planet felt like it moved too quick, and probably the Skrull planet stuff could have used more time. Heck, let Kamala react to shapeshifters and alien a little more. Like you said, the leads are good, give them more chances to show their charisma.
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