THE MARVELS
Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) likes to keep her enemies at arm’s length.
CAROL DANVERS IS BACK — HIGHER, FASTER, FURTHER AND FLERKEN-ER
★★★★
OUT NOW / CERT 12A / 105 MINS
DIRECTOR Nia DaCosta
CAST Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, Iman Vellani, Samuel L. Jackson, Zawe Ashton, Park Seo-joon
PLOT Captain Marvel (Larson), Monica Rambeau (Parris) and Ms. Marvel (Vellani) have their powers entangled — just as a new threat, Dar-Benn (Ashton), arrives…
AFTER A RUN of recent disappointments, the stuttering Marvel Cinematic Universe needed a zap of energy. Maybe some kind of plasma blast? Thank goodness, then, for director Nia DaCosta and her marvel-lous cast, who bring us the zippiest and paciest film the studio has made in some time. It’s a welcome surprise, especially for a film that has been relentlessly attacked online prior to release, and for a cinematic universe that has been groaning under the weight of its own lore. DaCosta and her fellow screenwriters Megan McDonnell and Elissa Karasik do tie this story into the wider world — Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is up on the S.A.B.E.R. space station, and hostilities between the Kree and Skrulls are still a factor — but without getting lost in the canon. Instead, DaCosta gives us just enough to tie it all together, and then focuses on her characters and their adventure.