The Marvels: A Flerken Good Time!

After the destruction of the Supreme Intelligence by Captain Marvel / Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), a civil war nearly destroys the Kree home world of Hala. Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), the new leader of the Kree finds an ancient artifact, one half of the quantum bands that harness great power.  The other band belongs to Kamala Khan / Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) who lives in New Jersey back on Earth.  When investigating an anomaly created by Dar-Benn, both Carol Danvers and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) come in contact with the same light energy produced by the Quantum Bands, which entangles the three heroes and their powers so that when any of the three, Carol, Monica, or Kamala use their powers at the same time, they switch physical locations.  Once this is figured out, the newly formed team of “The Marvels” attempt to save the other worlds now in danger from Dar-Benn, who is not only trying to save her home world, but also destroy the worlds that Carol Danvers has called home, including Earth.  Can the three unique superheroes learn to work together and defeat this formidable foe?  Watch and find out!

I was really looking forward to this movie for a couple of reasons.  First, because I very much enjoyed the television series Ms. Marvel, and especially liked Iman Vellani’s performance.  Second, when I first started collecting comics, Monica was using the name Captain Marvel, and has always been a favorite of mine.  I was not as excited to see the return of Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers character, I have nothing against the actress, but thought she was not exactly right in the part. I am happy to report that I very much enjoyed the film.  I feel Brie was much better in this movie then her original production and the other two characters are also well presented. Kamala is the heart of the team and the glue that sort of pulls everyone together.  Monica is the brains of the outfit, while Carol is brawn. The plot line was fun and adventurous with a lot of comedy and a little bit of heart and drama. I liked the introduction of Prince Yan (Park Seo-joon) a lesser known character from the Captain Marvel comics, and I wish we would have gotten more of him. Of course, the main man, Nick Fury, played by Samuel L. Jackson is back and is the Nick Fury we have come to know and love, as well as Goose, the orange Flerken that looks like a cat but is so much more who plays a vital role within the story too.  But don’t worry, no Flerkens were harmed either in the making or the storyline of the film.

The film isn’t perfect.  The gender swapped lesser of known villain from the comic books, isn’t the strongest of foes to pit against these very powerful heroes.  The character is well played by Zawe Ashton, but a more notable villain could have been more suitable.  The music was a mix of pre-recorded songs and original compositions and didn’t always mesh well together, but I found this a very minor flaw, and most notably, the humor may be way over the top for some people bordering on farcical in some scenes.  I actually really enjoyed that aspect, but I can see where some audience members may not find it as funny or entertaining as I did.  The movie does end with a segue to Kamala possibly forming a new team of “Younger” heroes starting with one we have already met in an earlier series.  There is also a mid-credit scene and an end credit audio bit.  Overall, this movie was fun, exciting, adventurous, and entertaining with both comedy and heart.