Captain Marvel

I have a strong belief in two ideas when it comes to watching and reviewing movies. the first one is that you should never review a movies that you have not seen. Don’t say that a movie is great or sucks if you have not given it a chance to win or lose you over. The second idea that I try to hold onto is that it’s OK to give a movie a second viewing, in fact many times movies get better the more times you watch them. Sometimes it goes the other way, it just goes for crap that second time around. Those are two ideas that I try to hold to when it comes to reviews. Captain Marvel I saw when it came out and enjoyed it very much but I was not like a cheerleader for the movie. So I saw it and I let it have its voice with me and I just found it middle of the road. However I watched it again since I did not give it a review the first time around and this is where my second idea of movie review came in. I still was not a cheerleader for the movie but it was better the second time around.

Now the story is pretty simple at it’s heart. Brie Larson plays our hero named Vers who believes she is a warrior on the planet of Hala, which is ruled by the Kree. Now things get very complex quickly but when you get down to it, Vers is really not who she thought she was and soon she finds out information that shakes her world upside down. Along for the ride is her mentor Yon-Rogg, played by Jude Law. We also get to get up with an old friend, Nick Fury. Fury then was younger as this movie takes place in the 1990’s. There is also a cat. The people who you thought were supposed to be the bad guys turn out to not be and everyone is all over the place. I could explain the story in better detail but another one of my own personal rules in writing reviews is not to give everything away. Give just a basic understanding of the story and let the reader go watch the movie.

So why was this go-around so much different the first? Well I think this really had to do with the fact that I was not sure what I was going to expect from Captain America as a movie. What would the tone and backstory be. How would it connect to the larger MCU and how would the fact that she was the first female superhero in the MCU be handled. The tone was light but not Thor Ragnarok funny. The backstory left out some holes so it was not as well done as say Captain America. The fact that she was a female was not overly done but there were some touches here and there that I did like. But it was her connection to the larger MCU were the movie filled in some holes while also filling ones that I did not know needed to be filled. When you watch a movie for the first time many times we are so lost in the moment of it all that if we do not get answers right away, it can feel like a letdown.

Now why cant i just enjoy the movie you ask? Well as someone who watches some 400 plus movies a year, over time you start to notice new things and things that bother you about movies that are hard to set aside. This is where that second viewing comes in. I was not looking for the answers to my questions this time around and guess what, I really enjoyed it. It was fun and more refreshing re watching it. While I will not say that it is the upper tier of the MCU movies, as a first time out it is not bad at all.

So should you watch this movie? if you have not watched it, give it a chance and have an open mind to it. If you have, watch it again. Movies like people change over time and you might be surprised at what you see the 2nd time around.