Captain Marvel found an audience. That alone spurred thousands of thinkpieces and Gawker Media style backpats. The fact that the socially conscious Internet is willing to praise the millions made by media corporations still irks me. But, let’s divorce identity politics from Captain Marvel for a moment.
Origin movies are necessary, but boring. When introducing niche characters to a wider audience, you have to focus on how they can process them. For Captain Marvel, Marvel chose to make a period film that only serves to feed a later excuse of keeping Captain Marvel off film longer.
But, Marvel wanted to feature a character that equally appealed to the Rachel Hollis and Hannah Gadsby crowd. The sheer volume of attache fans was just butter. So, what is one to make of Carol Danvers roughly 3 months after her initial bow?
Captain Marvel crosses the first hurdle
Watching younger kids getting into Captain Marvel is fun. During Free Comic Book Day, I got to watch my kiddo and some other girls flip over the sheer volume of Captain and Ms. Marvel stuff. That’s fun and all. I wish that most of the kids would pick up the books. But, there’s a litany of merchandise to keep the kids happy for years to come.
The MCU is changing, as it should. After all, Kirby and Lee weren’t scared to change the Avengers roster roughly 2 years after launching the book. They didn’t shy away from introducing The Black Panther and shaking up the public face of the Avengers. People will adapt to anything if they love the central ideas and it continues their stories.
Captain Marvel is caught up in that gravity of the MCU. Hell, they’re going to launch The Eternals in 2020/2021. That’s right, kids. The team that can’t carry a book past 19 issues is going to get a feature film. Feige knows he has the audience, so now what?
Captain Marvel’s Way Forward
There is something to going super cosmic with the Marvel movies. Outside of the horror angles, cosmic was always one aspect that got pulled out at Marvel when convenient. Readers and viewers would get multiple aliens and cosmic patrol people. However, it was always in the service of a larger story.
If you would’ve told me as an 8 year old about Marvel being so widely known…I would’ve been floored. Yet, I would have kinda expected what’s happening now. Captain Marvel like many of the other recent solo outings…will have a spectacular sequel.
Right now, all we have is an origin film that can’t focus on who it wants to explain or introduce. Are we examining the Kree and Skrulls? Does the film want to put more weight on Nick Fury over Captain Marvel? How about this one? If the Tesseract was technically the fuel cell that powered Carol Danvers, then how come Pietro and Wanda Maximoff weren’t as powerful?
At this time, I was told to be quiet. Everyone was watching what they called Goose the Cat: The Movie. You have to appreciate America turning Hentai Mouth Cat into a star.
Let’s talk about the Blu-ray
Popcorn cinema isn’t a bad thing. It’s probably the only reason why I still tolerate Academic Neckbeards waxing poetic on arthouse cinema. Whether it’s a monster movie, exploitation or superhero joint; I need to see flashy bouts of ultraviolence to keep me from spitting venom on the worst of Film Twitter.
What Captain Marvel does next has my attention, but I want more. Thankfully, the Blu-ray released this week is stacked. You get deleted scenes, gag reel and the most typical of featurettes. What’s funny is the front of the box says tons of bonus materials. Notice how they didn’t say HOURS. I’ll leave that one for you to discover.
The A/V Quality is quite impressive. The 1080p transfer is robust and showed somewhere between Reference Quality and good enough. Comparing it to the upscaled 4K, I feel just fine watching the film in 1080p. What did knock me on my butt was the sound staging of the finale with the DTS-HD 7.1 HD-Master audio track. You will believe that all 7 channels can blast on-the-nose No Doubt music cues.
Pick it up, if you’re a fan. Make a YouTube video crying about it if you’re not.