Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) and Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) have their powers entangled resulting in them swapping places when they use them at the same time. The result is that they must team up against a new threat to the universe from a Kree leader named Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton). 

For anyone worrying they need to do homework before watching The Marvels I would suggest that is something you can set aside. Watching Captain Marvel will be useful, after all this is essentially the sequel to that series within the MCU. But there is little need to watch the WandaVision or Ms. Marvel TV series that introduce Monica Rambeau and Ms. Marvel’s powers as both are explained in the opening moments. Ms. Marvel gets a wonderful cartoon animation in keeping with her tv show that is a joy to watch whilst Rambeau spends some time explaining her powers with a little help from Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). 

The main plot here is pretty slight and the focus is really on the three lead characters personalities and the relationship and team they form. The result for me was a heck of a lot of fun. 

The plot and villain motivation is that Captain Marvel is essentially a destructive and scary force to the Kree people. They call her The Annihilator following her efforts to stop their war with the Skrulls. Dar-Benn is trying to save her people and get revenge on Captain Marvel at the same time. But her plan ultimately puts the entire universe at threat. We need to be honest here and say that this villain is possibly one of the most underwritten in the entire MCU and gets very little to work with. Essentially it is the barest minimum required to throw the three leads together and kick off the fun. 

Captain Marvel is lonely. Having travelled the universe trying to protect and save many she is isolated with only Goose (her cat which is actually an alien known as a Flerken) for company. Monica Rambeau is uptight and emotionally damaged from the loss of her mother and her aunt. She focuses on the job to avoid focusing on her feelings. Ms. Marvel on the other hand is Captain Marvel’s biggest fan and living her best life in her company. The three women together help heal each other, learn lessons and have a lot of fun with their power swapping antics. 

The power swapping antics is of course the film’s best feature. The editing is purposely sharp to accentuate the swaps and the fight sequences are hugely inventive. The most fun aspect being that in between a lovely training montage in the middle of the film we have a chaotic mess of an action sequence where they do not know what they are doing and a honed masterclass afterwards. 

Comedy runs throughout the film as well. Goose has a prominent role and if you or your children love cats you are in for a real treat. Whilst Nick Fury, Ms. Marvel’s extended family and a race of aliens who communicate through song all punch up the comedy throughout. 

I really enjoyed this one and my kids loved it. It is light weight but I enjoyed the levity and team spirit. 

For all of you MCU fans out there looking for the clues for what is coming next there is a pretty exciting mid credits scene. The end credits only features a sound cue though so make your own mind up whether you want to hang around for that. 

Postscript…

At this point it’s hard to talk about anything Marvel without it being coloured by the current backlash over a drop in quality since Avengers: Endgame. So here are my thoughts. I make this the 33rd film and 47th piece of Marvel content in the MCU (counting each TV season/special as one unique “thing”). For reference Endgame was the 22nd Film and piece of content. For some of you one film was too many in this genre and for others I imagine you are wishing for more and more. But the quality of the product has varied before and after Endgame. I am not sure too many people talk about Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2 or Thor: The Dark World as benchmarks for MCU quality. Whilst the likes of WandaVision, Loki, Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings and Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 have all hit high notes since Endgame. 

So what am I saying? There was good and bad before and after Endgame it’s just more noisy now because people need a narrative to get clicks. So watch what you want to watch and enjoy it or not.

Now I’m off to play Marvel Champions…