[[note– I promise this is cheerful. Fluff. Absolute fluffy kittens and unicorn dreams. ]]
I went to the movies yesterday afternoon. Guess what I saw? Not the cute dragon movie. Not the anti-romance romance comedy that I will probably really enjoy when it finally gets to TBS or TNT. The one with Rebel Wilson. That one.
CAPTAIN MARVEL.
Yes, that’s the obscure art house pic I suffered through. As those art house pics generally demand that you SUFFER to get to the end without throwing up, falling asleep or generally giving up ten minutes in during the first of many twenty minute monologs on how swift life is by a teen girl working retail as her mother does crack in the alley out back.
There were other people there. Sigh. I go to matinees because they’re [A] cheaper and [B] not attended by other people. Okay, whatever! Popcorn rustles, comments flying about me, soda pop being sucked loudly through hollow plastic tubes. The sounds of cinema! I arrive just before the previews start, so I don’t have to sit there pretending not to be making snide mind comments about everyone else there. As you do.
Previews. Avengers!! Tony Stark in outer space giving some sort of Hamlet-like speech. Captain America filling up with HOPE that some Hail Mary plan will work against a [guy, thing, god, dancer, evil bad farmer, etc?] who just took out half the known universe. What’s this…a new avenger might join in to CHANGE THE GAME? What???? Yeah, I’m so going to this it’s not even funny. I’m a weak-souled consumer drone mind-raped by Hollywood’s Satanic influences. You heard it here first.
LION KING. Now!! I’ve seen the cartoon version X number of times. Yet! I’ve got oddly wet eyes, so there must have been a drive-by onioning. Shouldn’t a live-action movie about animals use, um, actual animals who are not…Stop that, brain! The heart is sobbing right now! Shut up, brain! Disney, how dare you pile on the pathos!! How dare you!
There’s also a preview for a movie I’ve already seen soundly panned and ‘not wanted by anyone’– Dark Phoenix. Which is Sansa Stark getting all evil on Mr. Tumnus. There’s lots of screaming, explosions, people in extensive makeup with superhero hair looking truly magnificent. I wanted to see it. How evil does Sansa get?? Like, super-evil or just mildly evil where she kicks a puppy then goes to work for the ASPCA? I’m hooked! I also can’t wait until it’s on TNT in two or three years. Yay! Also, maybe the X-Men can call on Dani and her dragons to KICK DP’S bottom. Oh my, the crossover potential there. Game of Thrones meets X-Men. Somebody get on this one, stat!
I could just do a blog post about listening to people snack in the near-dark and my reaction to the various trailers.
Here we go:
Captain motherfucking Marvel.
That’s a Sam Jackson shout out.
Pretty much what you expect to happen, well, happens. Plot? There was an actual twist here that was pretty solid. I thought it went well. It was set up through memory loss flashes. Plus, any time you have a British guy in an American superhero movie…yeah.
Ooh, that was a sort of spoiler. Yikes!
But I had my suspicions. I don’t trust people who seem ‘nice’. They’re just not. In real life or superhero movies.
Carol, played by Brie Larson, was everything Girl Power needs. She’s fierce. She’s a fighter. She’s got hot hands…hands that light up and shoot lasers. Or fire. No, lasers.
She’s also a hothead who’s…wait for it…emotional. [I let out an actual WTF gasp at this.] Of course the Nice British Guy [Jude Law] hammers this one over and over and yet over again.
Our heroine also keeps having this memory of a female scientist [Annette Benning], being an Air Force pilot, having a life on earth. Vers, as she’s called now, lives on the Kree planet…here I just clocked out. More comic worlds I should know like the back of my hand??
God damn it, no thanks. I have enough crap crammed in my cranium at any given moment.
So we get Vers crashlanding through a Blockbuster after chasing the Bad Aliens, who are shapeshifters. Who can be ANYBODY, right down to their memories. Some of their memories…again, I checked out here, just rolling my eyes.
The movie took place in the Nineties. Ah.
Nostalgia, you tricksy blighter. Everybody laughed and sighed over the Blockbuster bit. The Blockbuster here in Ontario, Oregon went under overnight seemingly. In a day. It’s now a gym or get your taxes done here office front.
CM goes on a Journey of Discovery with Sam Motherfuckin’ Jackson, which is Great Fun. We get to see her Kick Ass. A Lot. She was a one-woman Rambo aboard the Bad Aliens ship, after all. Well, she beat the crap out of large groups of extras. Those scenes where Our Hero or Heroine [Yay, girls can be heroes, too! Yay!] takes on legions and just GOES TO TOWN on their bottoms. Yep!
So, we get the Plot Twist. We get the Betrayals. We get the Moments of Doubt. We get the If You Need the Suit You’re Not a Hero moment that all Marvel movies seem to employ unblushingly. [I just watched one of the new Spiderman movies, where Tony Stark says this to Spiderboy.]
Now. All of that? I still enjoyed the ever-livin’ crap out of this movie. I was glad I left my house to go see it. I enjoyed the heck out of the trailers. I could totally get away from how my country seems hellbent on installing an actual dictatorship…Her Emails! Lock her up!! Build the wall! Fake news!
I felt an odd Captain America type hope that a Hero Will Rise. And save us. From ourselves. So we don’t have to do it. Yeah. The Home of the Brave and the Land of the Free fully expect to be saved from themselves by some superhero unicorn sort that everybody can get behind…ha ha ha ha. Sob. Okay!
Oh my goodness, there’s the thing with the cat in Captain Marvel. Ha ha ha. There’s also the rather sweet shout out to Stan Lee in this movie. Ah!
To sum up this Not Really a Movie Review so much as a Sprawling Mess, I really liked Captain Marvel. It fired on most of its cylinders. She wasn’t the grim awfulness of a Gamora. She was more a combo of Starlord and Wonder Woman. While your head explodes for various reasons from that…ha ha ha. Done exploding yet? Okay!
She kicked ass. Lots of ass. In satisfying ways. Things Blow Up. In satisfying ways. There’s a pretty good dogfight battle with Best Friend of Cap Marv. I liked it, anyway.
And the quickie scene after some of the credits played…yeah. You sit there, along with a few others, waiting for it. Waiting for it. Ah! What??!! Holy crap, so going to Avengers! Satan, see you in a few weeks!
ANN WUEHLER 