The Marvels (2023)

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For what it’s worth, I actually liked the film and Disney+ shows that directly precede The Marvels. 2019’s Captain Marvel isn’t perfect but had some interesting plot twists and a ‘90s setting that defied the ultra-modern feel of the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. WandaVision was perhaps my favorite television experience of 2021. And despite being dubious beforehand, I thoroughly enjoyed Ms. Marvel’s miniseries from last year. In fact, my sentiments towards all three of these pieces of media made me fairly excited about the latest MCU installment, and there’s no doubt that I wasn’t alone.

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Not wasting any time, unfortunately, the film opens abruptly with an overlong action sequence where our three titular heroines — Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani), and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris from WandaVision) — are fending off an alien race desperately seeking a magical armband in the possession of Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel. The leader of the villains, Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), has found the matching armband and needs to complete the set so she can restore power on her home planet, which was apparently wiped out by Captain Marvel some time ago. The hook is that the three superheroes have some sort of unique link that allows them to switch places from anywhere in the universe.

The story is straightforward enough but simultaneously way too complicated and short on plot. Rather than beginning the film with the previous conflict involving Captain Marvel and Dar-Benn, which this entire plot references, we jump in with no real context and are instantly lost — and that’s even if you do happen to remember several years’ worth of Marvel lore. The Marvels feels like two-thirds of a movie and could have used at least 20 more minutes to tell its story effectively.

The backstory surrounding the intergalactic conflict, as well as a previous tumultuous history between Captain Marvel and Monica Rambeau, is given to us via spliced flashback footage. But flashbacks in movies almost always make us feel like we’re being cheated into caring about something we haven’t actually lived through on screen. And when the footage is shoehorned into the narrative, we get the feeling that the filmmakers don’t care enough about these events to dedicate actual attention, if not linearity, to them.

My guess — and it’s a pretty good one — is that the studio, knowing that “The Marvels” would already be a difficult enough sell, had a magic number for the movie’s runtime. Those wary of watching yet another MCU installment (the 33rd feature film in 16 years) might be willing to accept and endure a short enough cinematic experience. As a result, the film runs 1 hour and 45 minutes exactly, by far the shortest entry in the MCU (the 2nd shortest is a tie between 2013’s Thor: Dark World and 2008’s The Incredible Hulk). Turns out, the “bloated spectacles” that we’ve been getting all this time may have been necessary evils after all.

However, despite not really furthering the lore of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Marvels isn’t a total loss. There are some weird, off-kilter elements that give the film personality. A detail involving alien cats who ingest humans without killing them is used to economically transport a large population of space travelers feels like a Guardians of the Galaxy beat. And then, as something that feels straight out of the Thor franchise, we get to visit a planet where the entire race speaks in song and dance (only some know how to speak). I really appreciate the weird stuff here, but if they don’t feel like a pastiche of another film series, they feel out of place entirely; these story marks are way too off-kilter to make sense within a film with no established tone.

But then there’s Kamala Khan. Amidst a cinematic universe with marquee names filling up the starring roles, Iman Vellani is a virtue-signaling experiment gone right. The Ms. Marvel miniseries wasn’t perfect entertainment but it provided a refreshing change of pace from the aggressively marketed shows revolving around characters we’ve known about long before they ever came to life on the big screen. There was really no risk involved in a Spider-Man or Thor movie, but you could say the same about a Ms. Marvel TV show. If the series didn’t work, who would notice?

If anything, my excitement for The Marvels was precipitated by my curiosity about what a big-budget blockbuster would be like with these no-name actors at the center, working around Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, and Samuel L. Jackson. And lo, the character dynamics are the most enjoyable aspect of the movie. Vellani, along with the performers who play her parents and brother, brings the sole dose of personality to a movie that’s otherwise drab.

While I’d rather sit through The Marvels than other MCU movies, the reality is it’s the worst film in the series because it never feels complete. We’re paying to see the entire story play out on screen, not to be swindled out of entire scenes. There are no real rewards or payoffs, be it from this movie or previous media. When we’re supposed to feel nervous or sad, we’re insulted that this film is so presumptuous and disconnected from its viewers. Even if you’re open-minded to the experience, popcorn entertainment might still leave you disappointed by the end, but it should never leave you unfulfilled.