Director Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels is yet another example of a flop Marvel film with a mostly female leading cast. The movie follows Carol Danvers (Brie Larsen), Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) attempting to defeat the forgettable villain Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton) because she has entangled their powers with the use of a quantum band. This causes them to switch places with one another whenever they use their powers.
Serving as the sequel to Captain Marvel, The Marvels marks the middle of the fifth phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Released Nov. 10, the film made a lackluster $47 million in its opening weekend, falling far short of the $154 million Captain Marvel made during its first weekend.
Since Avengers Endgame, Marvel movies have been on the decline with boring plotlines, bad CGI, and uninspired attempts at comedy. This movie is no exception, at times checking all three boxes. I can confidently say that I could not honestly remember the name of the villain nor any of her justifications. This is yet another example of a dull villain that has no meaning outside of the story and implications that have no ulterior motive in the MCU.
The Marvels now sits at the third lowest rated Marvel movie, according to Rotton Tomatoes, alongside Eternals and Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, and it most definitely deserves that rating, if not lower. Each second of this movie is more mind-numbing than the last, with the critic rating coming in at a staggering 65% and the audience score considerably higher than that at 85%.
Of course, the audience score is understandable, as the movie does create the slightly enjoyable feeling that just about any studio could churn out without much effort, but the hour and forty-five minute runtime leaves the story jumbled and cluttered with tone shifts every five minutes. This left a lingering impression that the story was unfinished and uninspired.
Truly, the worst scene of them all would have to be the musical scene in which the characters are on an island where the people could only sing, trying to warn them about a disaster. It’s a truly ridiculous scene that will have you laughing not because of the humor, but because of the stupidity of the writing and belief that a singing monologue between Brie Larsen and Park Seo-joon would make comprehensive and groundbreaking cinema. Sadly for everyone seeing this movie in the theater, it does not.
The only saving grace of the film is Vellani and the actors portraying Kamala Khan’s family. While both Larsen and Parris portray their characters lifelessly, Vellani brings young spirit and intrigue into the project. Vellani portrays the typical teenager, arrogance and all, exceptionally well. Her lines are delivered with fervor and hope, just as she portrayed the character in her standalone series. On the other hand, every single other performance in the leading cast just seems to fall shy of their previous performances of the characters.
Marvel’s golden age has gone down the drain as they continually release lifeless films that require the showing of four or five different films and shows to comprehend. Between singing monologues, low critic ratings, low box office releases, a short runtime and monotonous acting, The Marvels is a warning to the bleak future that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has in the cinema space.
