Captain Marvel: An Un-Marvel Hope

Movie Review: Captain Marvel
Star Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Jude Law, Annette Bening, Ben Mendelsohn, and Brie Larson.
Music Composed by Pinar Toprak
Directed by Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck

Runtime: 124 Minutes

Feminism is not a narrow subject that you relate it to a girl standing up after someone yells, “You can’t do it“. Even several groups of men are always isolated, ridiculed and body-shammed. So, there is a difference in bullying and gender abuse. Bullies are everywhere and their work is to show that they are great than anyone else. Just showing them and saying, raising against them is getting empowered makes it a shallow argument.

We need a sensible discussion where despite all vulnerabilities and judgments, despite all responsibilities and introspection, despite all shaming and bias, the rise of a person is seen as rising of a hero. DC understood this with Wonder Woman. That movie never made Amazon look like a shallow place of the female population. There was a legitimate fear that they will lose their sanctity if they open up to the general public. There was a war waiting, brewing under the carpet all the time and threatening to end them. Not just the World War-1 but their own war to protect the precious gifts.

So, you could see parallels between the hate and love, welcoming change and sacrifice, pure demon and Godly behavior. You might have chosen your own side but that is all “YOU”! There were no tags screaming empowered. There were no shout-outs to false pride with pulsating themes. There were no narrow definitions too broad ideologies. Marvel failed in understanding the difference between a popcorn movie and a movie with a message for the first time.

Captain America is loved not because of his physicality. Not because of his power to hit villains, not because of his spirit to never give up. But being the symbol of all this and respect. The respect he earned by being a soldier all the time, by being the representation of a spirit and by being able to rise above all limitations to do the right thing and guide everyone towards it, despite differences. Hence, he became the leader not because America wants to rule the world and he hypothetically represents that emotion by being “Captain America“.

Captain Marvel seems like Marvel’s punch to say, we started Avengers because of this lady. Because it is Marvel, we are the creators. We rose from being burnt all the time. Our energy source is the love of undying fans who are our tesseract, who gave us powers to be creative and be dominant. It just seems like a shallow passage of taking everything for granted. Mainly box office audiences.

The director did not bother about character build-up because he is asked to come up with a buddy-cop, fish out of water and empowered woman theme for this movie. To give a chance to say all that, the director faltered in finding a tone. Faltered in giving Captain Marvel a character that we can love or hate. For a creative team, who could re-imagine Spiderman after a popular version and find fan acceptance, this shallow character seems a rushed up design to introduce someone more powerful than Thanos to help heroes.

If Captain Marvel is just going to be a support, no one needs a film for her. She can gain love like Black Panther in a bigger movie and then get her own. But if she is the hero who can lead the heroes in cosmos battle while Captain America leads the ground battles, then this kind of introduction is a disservice to a big hero who deserves more respect and instant leadership opposed to others.

In Indian Mythology, Brahma – Vishnu – Maheshwara are the ultimate powerhouses like Iron Man – Captain America – Thor in this Marvel Cinematic Universe. When the three Gods couldn’t fight someone like Raktabija who is a subordinate to Maheeshasura, then they asked AMMA – the representation of all the power in the Universe to fight those demons by submitting themselves, their powers to her. She took nine avatars to build the power and after the war became Rajarajeshwari Devi. (Again, Amma here is used to describe the stature of a woman, don’t go by the specifics and say, the term is not AMMA, hence this is wrong. Muggurammala Mulaputamma — see AMMA is a representation!) But such a powerful representative of all the power in MCU just looked bland and monotone.

The final word that I would love to say about the film is “BLAND”. It is not a good popcorn movie like Iron Man 2 and it is not a bad and undercooked movie like THOR-2. It is an odourless, tasteless overpriced Popcorn tub that is used as a bait to milk some money out of hungry rich for experience and trusting fans.

Theatrical Trailer: