Literally herding cats.

I’m finally up to date on Marvel movies, outside of Black Panther: Rise of the Silver Surfer which isn’t going to happen in this or any other timeline. Why watch The Marvels now? Because I was bored on a Saturday and there’s no time like the present. Like Ms. Marvel before it and WandaVision before that, The Marvels serves as a vehicle to bring us to the next phase of the MCU. Deadpool and introducing the X-Men to the cinematic universe.

I will also admit I was looking forward to finally getting around to The Marvels because the movie is directed by Nia DaCosta whose last movie was 2021’s Candyman. The film once again stars Brie Larson as Carol Danvers and brings back Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau and the adorable Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan. Sam Jackson is back as Nick Fury and the difference is night and day with his energy here versus Secret Wars. It’s nice to see Jackson caring again, or at least putting the effort to pretend to.

The biggest surprise of the film is how much presence Kamala’s family has in this movie. I think they actually have more to do in this than they did in the TV series. I love seeing Muneeba (Zenobia Shroff), Yusuf (Mohan Kapur), and Aamir (Saagar Shaikh) back and I didn’t think I needed to see them involved in a fight scene as much as I did.

I know what you’re wondering; who is the big baddie and what is their motivation? Well the big baddie of this movie is Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), the leader of the Kree. I honestly thought I forgot the ending to Captain Marvel but this plot beat didn’t happen in any of the films. Anyway, Dar-Benn is on the warpath and a mission of revenge against Carol Danvers with Dar-Benn promising to destroy everything Captain Marvel holds dear. We know the Kree suck, but why the vengeance trip? And why have the Kree started referring to Carol as “The Annihilator?” You’ll have to tune in to find out.

We caught a glimpse of this at the end of Ms. Marvel, but the big crutch for this movie is that if all three superheroes were able to just let loose on their powers this film might be really, really short. So in a twist and a bit of an oopsie, all three heroes powers are quantum entangled. All you need to know is that it means that if they use their powers at the same time they swap places. It’s a nice substitution for the usual “superhero can’t access their powers” story trope that also gives the director and cinematographer an interesting challenge.

Because rather than having characters beating the crap out of each other amidst chaos, they really have to think these fights through. And it comes out with an impressive show as we watch the three women go from the first fight sequence where they are figuring things out on the fly, to the final fight where they’ve pretty much mastered the gimmick. Suffice to say I really liked the fight scenes in this movie.

However this is a Marvel movie and despite its positives it’s time to get into the tired, repetitive negatives. I don’t blame DaCosta for this as this is a running theme in the MCU and many prior films, but there’s a lot going on in this movie and the film rarely gives time for moments to breath. The whole plot point of Carol and Monica finally reuniting and the pent-up animosity of the latter toward the former is something the film could have dealt with, but it sits on it for a few seconds and it’s time to move on. Or the whole reason the Kree are hellbent on revenge against Carol and her carried guilt for stuff that happens between movies.

At the very least Disney seems to have given up on following up heavy moments with the tonal equivalent of a drawn out fart. But this isn’t a whole lot better. The CG looks a lot better here than it did in Quantumania and people actually interacted with the world instead of being on a giant green screen set that seemed to be in its own reality entirely.

Iman Vellani is a treasure.

Rating: B+