The Marvels, Directed by Nia Docasta, serves as the latest installment in the MCU and the sequel to the 2019 blockbuster, Captain Marvel. There are a lot of strong feelings concerning this movie recently, most of which are based on hate for it. The criticisms most commonly brought to this movie are its messy storytelling and/or its goofy writing. After seeing this movie, I can say that most of the hate around this movie seems to be rooted in a much deeper distaste the comic book fandom has surrounding female-led projects. 

However, the criticism of this movie being too goofy, or messy isn’t far off. The movie is filled with jokes and some small weird plot points that we never would have seen in the first phase of the MCU. However, I think this is a strength of this movie. The use of extreme or goofy plot points in comic book movies has been quite divisive now, with the active discussion in “The Marvel Cinematic Universe Dying”, or losing its touch. And while I agree that some movies, Like Thor: Love and Thunder or even Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, do suffer from this and take you out of it. But, for the Marvels, this style of ridiculous plots involving Kittens or goofy one-liners just works. And I believe this is strongly due to the leads of this movie.

Going into this movie, I knew the highlight would be Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel. First premiering in her own Disney Plus series, Vellani immediately showed how unique her character was in this universe, and how great she was at playing her. As suspected, Vellani stole the show in every scene she was in throughout this movie. And if anything her comedic timing and portrayal of this beloved character has only improved. That being said, one person I didn’t expect to enjoy as much in this movie was Brie Larson as Captain Marvel. This is Brie Larson’s fifth MCU project and by far her best appearance. As a character, she’s grown a lot, and this movie allowed for her character to show that and also play off of others, and I think this helped to make the audience more interested in her performance. Finally, while the others stood out slightly more to me, Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau was still a great addition to this movie. I especially loved the emotional tension between her and Larson as Rambeau and Marvel. But, It felt a little rushed and I wished they delved a little further into it. 

Another thing that I especially enjoyed about the movie was the unique plot. The base storyline of this movie is that the three leads, Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel, and Monica Rambeau, all get their powers entangled with each other. This means that each time one of them tries to use their powers (at the same time as another) they switch places. Regardless of any time and space distance, they are instantly switched with each other. This made for some cool action and fight scenes, but also a unique superhero movie. I thought this was a very creative idea and we need more plots like this for the future of the MCU.

In addition to the plot, I really enjoyed the design of this movie. It had nice vibrant deep colors, with some very cool cinematography. But above all, It had some stylistically cool costume design, especially that of Captain Marvel. Marvel Studios’  biggest criticism lately is that they make their costumes too detailed with extra lines and patterns that aren’t necessary, so with this suit, they took a much simpler design. And it works so well. I would go so far as to say this might be one of my favorite MCU suits to date.

While this movie had a lot of highs, there were a few lows. The two biggest being the movie’s villain, and the pacing. While I think the actor who portrayed the villain, Zawe Ashton, was good in her role, the villain was just unmemorable. It felt like most of the character writing and focus went to the main three and it shows, but it leads to characters like the movie’s main antagonist being left to the side. Then, there’s the pacing. The pacing of this movie isn’t awful, however, there are a few important moments that I thought felt rushed, and considering this movie’s shorter run time (1hr 45min) I think it could have benefitted from sitting in those scenes a little longer.

Overall, I would rate this movie a 3 out of 5. It was not a perfect superhero movie, but it was fun, rewatchable, and a lot better than people are making it out to be. I think it’s very important with this movie not to take the hate others are giving and instead just go and see the movie yourself, and hopefully you’ll enjoy it!!