Captain Marvel, notable for being the first female-led Marvel Cinematic Universe film after twenty-one movies, is a fun and sometimes unique take on the super hero origin story that unfortunately never finds its groove enough to the point it's somewhat fearful the character won’t be able to get her groove back when it comes time for
Avengers: Endgame. For all intents and purposes, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s (
Half Nelson, Mississippi Grind) MCU debut is your boilerplate Marvel origins story which, by virtue of where we’re now at in this universe, makes it feel small in comparison to even the most recent additions. Falling somewhere in between the muddled middle of
Doctor Strange and
Black Panther, Brie Larson's Carol Danvers isn't a riff on an origin story we've seen before, but neither does it have the added elements of magic as in
Strange or the advantage of introducing us to a new world a la
Panther. In a Phase Three world, a mostly Earth-set origin story was going to have to give us a little something more than also doubling as the origin story for Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury or-at least-it was going to need to find a really cool, really fresh way to convey that story. For example, in the opening twenty or so minutes of
Captain Marvel, we are treated to what is essentially a
Star Wars or
Star Trek-like space opera with the full-on introductions of the Kree and Skrull races we've heard whisperings of for years as well as to the Kree home planet and their military force for which Danvers has been trained by her mentor, Yon-Rogg (Jude Law). Such introductions lend the film something of a
Guardians of the Galaxy-vibe, but the tone is different enough that this could simply be yet another facet of the MCU we haven't yet seen. Were Boden and Fleck, who also wrote the script alongside Geneva Robertson-Dworet (2018's
Tomb Raider), to harness the momentum of this initial set-up and action sequence, executing it in the fashion of a genre flick of this type that was released in the decade their film is set, the film might have proven to be a more unique and odd side venture for the MCU, but unlike the flavor Taika Waititi brought to
Thor: Ragnarok or the subversiveness James Gunn infused his
GotG films with,
Captain Marvel ends up being a perfectly serviceable, but highly average entry in the ever-expanding MCU; a movie that feels more like the pilot of a nineties spin-off series that never hits the same strides as the series that inspired it rather than the explosive debut it could seemingly have so easily been. Video review
here.
C
Director Rupert Wyatt passed on making a sequel, never mind a complete trilogy of
Planet of the Apes movies which then gave writer/director Matt Reeves (
Cloverfield, Let Me In) an in to complete the trilogy and go on to now be penning and planning a solo Batman film for WB's DCEU. Would Wyatt have preferred this career path? Who's to say? And who's to say if Wyatt had rounded out the Apes films that he would have been offered the Batman film at all, but it does stand to question if Wyatt regrets his decision to pass on such high profile opportunities. Since deciding not to return to the world of stories about simians though, Wyatt has only made one feature (2014's re-make of
The Gambler for Paramount which held a $25 million production budget and only turned over a $39 million worldwide gross) with
Captive State being his second outing into feature-length material and a seemingly personal one at that. Wyatt co-wrote the screenplay for
Captive State with Erica Beeney (
The Battle of Shaker Heights) and serves as a producer, but this low-budget drama/thriller has more in common with Wyatt's 2008 breakout,
The Escapist, than it does his 2011 introduction to the mainstream despite posing as a tale that typically functions on the same scale or budget as a
Planet of the Apes sequel. Full review
here. Video review
here.
C-
The Mustang is a movie about rehabilitation for both Matthias Schoenaerts' Roman and the the wild horse that has been taken into a world of confusion against his will and his nature. Roman, much like his animal companion, isn't good with people and doesn't want to be around them, but in being around one another Roman finds a relationship he can interact within and build on without a hint of judgement; there is a connection, but no words. In this, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre's
The Mustang paints a simple yet poetic picture of this character arc of transformation through rehabilitation, but while the film is beautifully captured (Ruben Impens cinematography is a truly breathtaking) and has nothing but honest intentions the weight of the emotional beats don't always hit. Such misses are critical for a film that lives or dies on the back of its emotional impact and though
The Mustang is certainly thoughtful it doesn't come to be as meaningful as it seemingly should or wants to be.
C+
Genuinely kind of said I missed this Haley Lu Richardson/Cole Sprouse teen drama about a pair of teenagers with cystic fibrosis who meet in a hospital and fall in love, despite their disease meaning they have to avoid close physical contact, but on the plus side this will make for perfect Friday/Saturday night viewing on the couch with the wife this weekend, so consider me psyched. I'm a sucker for a good teen romance and
Five Feet Apart, while being nothing necessarily exceptional, seems to have all the necessary ingredients to make a satisfactory dish.
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