"The Marvels" Review: A Blah, Bleh, Bleck Bye-Bye for the MCU

It's not awful, and Brie Larson shines, but "The Marvels" is going to be tough to rebound from.

November 12, 2023

On the now-defunct WB's supernatural television series Charmed, the youngest sister, Phoebe Halliwell, falls for a fictional character in a horror film, believing he’s the ideal man: handsome, sweet, compassionate, and forthright.

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It doesn’t matter how the episode plays out, but watching The Marvels - the latest installment of the fledgling MCU that’s drawing mixed reviews and bombing at the box office - we cannot help but recall the title of the film from which Billy emerges:

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Kill it Before it Dies.

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Whether it’s more the impact of Charmed or the mediocrity of The Marvels that causes such recollections is irrelevant. The truth is plain as day: this franchise needs to end.

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Movies are made by people. Thus, they are imperfect; many of their claims or “revelations” feel faulty or reductive. Alas, one lesson films regularly impart rings true: it is better to die with dignity than to beg for your life.

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Of course, since movies are made by people and thus reflect them, it makes sense that the MCU is limping to its inevitable demise. All of us would readily do away with a “dignified” death in favor of begging and pleading. Still, perhaps it can defy that idea and offer the world something even more worthwhile than giving itself to us in the first place: leaving us the hell alone.

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We all remember how the overgrown manchildren that dominate the franchise's fanbase came out in droves to review bomb the first Captain Marvel; heaven forbid a woman infest their never-ending parade of brooding, quippy sausage fests. It was one of fandoms’ more pathetic displays of pettiness but also a warning to Marvel as they wrapped up the Infinity storyline and transitioned into the next stage of the franchise:

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This series is for dudes: dudes don’t like chicks.

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They enjoy penetrating chicks, degrading chicks, marrying chicks, and then using that to imbue them with a misplaced sense of self-worth and then sleeping with a much younger woman during a mid-life crisis and then regretting the ensuing divorce, but they don’t actually like women. For as casually homophobic as that sort of creature is, they really love watching big, hulking, manly men getting all hot and sweaty while battling to the death.

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All entertainment entities have an expiration date, but within that are sub-dates wherein chapters of their lifetime conclude. When one chapter ends, the other must begin: adapt or die.

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American Idol, once television’s all-time ratings juggernaut, is a shadow of its former self but remains a staple on network television thanks to its willingness to embrace the death of its mass appeal and cater to its core fanbase, who want to believe something is exclusive to them. It’s the same way Survivor has remained on the air for 23 years or how America’s Next Top Model went from a fingers-crossed reality gambit filmed in a hotel room to a 15-year cultural staple.

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You must concede the past to embrace the future: American Idol mostly forgoes the bad auditions to feature serious musicians who pen their own music. Survivor has gone from being a social experiment with a wide casting net to a game show for its mid-20s fans, loaded with so many twists and advantages that only diehards can understand it. America’s Next Top Model let fans chime in on panel via social media scores, allowing people with no idea how the fashion industry works to play know-it-all.

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Instead of extending its lifespan by going that route, Marvel has tried to cater blatantly to modern social mores, thinking that if they stock the franchise with as many young women as possible, they can ride the #MeToo wave to big box office returns.

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Yeah… it doesn’t work like that.

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It especially doesn’t work that way if the girls are annoying, pointless, unrealistic, or all three. In the case of Kamala Khan (aka Ms. Marvel), we find ourselves in the “annoying” category with a pinch of pointless, so much so that the trailer likely shooed audiences away from what is officially the second-worst opener in MCU history. The film tones her down as it moves along, but she begins as another overly excitable teenager with no personality aside from bouncing off the walls and being a nuisance. It worked best for Tom Holland, and even that schtick got old quickly.

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Kamala gets staged for a bigger role in the franchise, but considering the emotional baggage Monica Rambeau - the daughter of Captain Marvel's deceased BFF Maria - carries into her reunion with Captain Marvel, Khan feels like a distraction and not an integral part of the film. She never does anything that directly impacts the story or its outcome. She’s just there so we don't scratch our heads when she does something meaningful in a future movie… if Marvel makes it there.

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It’s the film’s biggest problem: a lack of vision. It’s the oldest critique in the book, but just because something is tried doesn’t mean it’s not true. It’d be difficult to recall a limper villain than Dar-Benn, the Kree soldier who seeks to destroy all Captain Marvel holds dear after her destruction of the Supreme Intelligence plunges Hala into a civil war that nearly destroys the planet.

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The MCU has never been great with villains. From a pointless Ivan Vanko to a tiresome Loki to now with Dar-Benn, the franchise has struggled to evolve any of its foes beyond “angry person who does stuff.” Her general goal is clear, but the logistics of accomplishing it are not, as are the many character notes that ring false, namely how Monica, now a superhero in her own right with intimate knowledge of how extensively threatened the universe is, can be holding a grudge towards her superhero aunt, who’s spent the last three decades saving it.

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It’s not all bad. Despite its lackluster individual elements, The Marvels flawlessly embodies that idea of being greater than the sum of your parts. For all its faults, there is something compulsively watchable about it. One could argue those very faults are somewhat responsible for its success. Its inability to tell a coherent, consistent story sends us flying from one planet or battle to the next, making it, if not genuinely well-paced, then paced in such a way that it’s, at best, breezy.

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Brie Larson, though not wholly suited for Captain Marvel’s particular brand of comedy, has more charisma in one eyelash than most MCU stars do in their whole body. It makes up for what Teyonah Parris and Iman Vellani (Monica and Kamala, respectively) lack in that department and gives the movie a flair that lets it pull off one of the MCU’s all-time great scenes, when the cluster of cats highlighted in the trailer come to save the day.

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But, all in all, The Marvels couldn’t make up its mind; it wanted to be a comedy, a drama, an unabashed superhero flick, a team-building exercise, a dissection of flawed logic and rushed assumptions, and a reason to put Samuel L. Jackson back into the MCU spotlight. It’s not that it couldn’t be all these things; it just never realized it could, so it gives the audience whiplash as it zig-zags between them. The MCU used to know how to do them all simultaneously, but those days are long gone.

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If Marvel can’t figure out the best course forward and start catering to its loyal devotees, it’s not long for this world: The Marvels’ atrocious box office opening and middling reception reflect that (kind of) sad fact. At this point, that “if” seems more and more definite, and not in a good way. We should band together, give the MCU our mercy, and kill it before it dies.