Movie Review Girl power and fan service energize 'The Marvels'

CEBU, Philippines — Oscar-winning actress Brie Larson returns to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) in her fourth appearance as Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel -- but she is not the sole hero this time as Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), the daughter of her deceased best friend Maria, and superfan Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani), join her latest adventure.

“The Marvels” focuses on Danvers fixing dangerous wormholes in the universe left by Kree leader Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), which is one of the consequences of Danver reclaiming her title as Captain Marvel from the tyrannical Kree rule by destroying their Supreme Intelligence that left their planet deprived of air, water, and sunlight.

Things get complicated during a space mission when Rambeau touches one of the wormholes which leads to her, Danvers, and Kamala switching places whenever two or three of them use their powers at the same time. While determining why they are connected to each other, the trio figure out how to defeat Dar-Benn with their unique interconnected superpowers.

Carrying on with the story of Danvers which was established in 2019’s “Captain Marvel”, it also continues the storyline of Monica and Kamala from their previous appearances in the Disney+MCU shows “WandaVision” and “Ms. Marvel”, respectively.

While watching the two aforementioned shows may give viewers a better understanding of who they are, it’s not required to enjoy “The Marvels” since context clues and how the characters react to their circumstances together are enough for the audience to get interested.

However, this puts Danvers in an unfair situation as she is not given an additional MCU entry to elaborate on her character before being part of the trio as her characterization in the first “Captain Marvel” movie is quite forgettable.

Running at one hour and 45 minutes -- noticeably shorter than most MCU entries -- more time could have been given for the character development of Danvers as most MCU fans who are caught up with "Wanda Vision" and "Ms. Marvel" are able to know Rambeau and Kamala in-depth. A longer runtime would have also fixed the film’s whiplash pacing and editing.

Just like any MCU film, it also struggles to develop in interesting ways its villain who has valid reasons to resent Danvers. At this point, anticipating the villain is not even a thing that MCU fans are looking forward to these days. MCU has struggled to develop them in most of their films, which is unforgivable since it has had a few memorable villains such as Thanos, Killmonger and Agatha Harkness.

Fans of Park Seo-joon, who plays Prince Yan here, may find themselves disappointed as he only appears in a handful of scenes and his character doesn’t seem to have a major role in the stakes presented in the film.

Those being said, what made “The Marvels” remarkable was the chemistry between Danvers, Rambeau, and Kamala. Their dynamic is worth re-watching the film alone. It’s hard not to feel joyful about how they work, especially for MCU fans who have longed to see them together since the film’s announcement in 2020.

Of the three, Vellani as Khan is obviously the scene-stealer, akin to Tom Holland’s Spider-Man in “Captain America: Civil War.” Both characters have the same passion towards their superhero idols that we can’t help but imagine ourselves in their shoes.

The action scenes, especially the ones where the trio use their superpowers at the same time, are also worth praising. One can tell that director Nia DaCosta had a lot of control over how these scenes are presented. It’s a refreshing change from the cliched MCU action scenes in recent entries.

While the typical “MCU storyline” formulaic structure is apparent here, it somehow works in its favor, especially with its shorter runtime. It cuts through the unnecessary quips pointed out in criticisms against “Thor: Love and Thunder” in favor of progressing the story directly. However, proper pacing and character development shouldn’t be sacrificed for the sake of going straight to the point.

As expected, there is one mid-credit scene that will surely make Marvel fans and casual viewers alike excited over the MCU’s future. Hopefully, it will rejuvenate public interest in the franchise, even if it may take a few years for that to pay off.

Casual viewers may find themselves detached from “The Marvels” as just another Marvel film with nothing to think about after leaving the theater. But many hardcore MCU fans may find it satisfactory at best for the amount of fan service being presented, the chemistry between the leads, and the story itself is not too atrocious to go through. It knows how to be a fun Marvel movie -- something that early 2023's “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” lacked.

The worst thing that an MCU film could be is to be boring, and “The Marvels” is definitely not that. Three and a half stars out of five.