“The Marvels” displeases public, brings promises for Marvel’s future

“The Marvels” is the new feature film starring Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), Miss Marvel (Iman Vellani), and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris). The Marvel franchise is investing a lot in this production, but the question that plagued audiences after the first trailer: Will this movie be good, or will it be another one on the failure list after “Avengers: End Game”? 

The plot of the film is related to the end of the “Miss Marvel” movie and with one of the scenes following the credits of “Wandavision” where Monica meets a Skrull who tells her that she has to go to space. In the protagonist’s first movie, the Kree race manipulated the heroine and exterminated the Skrulls. In this new production there is a twist–the powerful Captain Marvel massacred the Supreme Intelligence, which unleashed misery for the Kree, who are fighting to not become extinct. New villain Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton) uses two magical artifacts against the heroines, a second bracelet from Miss Marvel that was in space and the staff of Ronan the Accuser (the great Kree villain from the movie “Guardians of the Galaxy”. Using one of the bracelets and the staff, Dar-Benn breaks the “jump points” used for spaceships to move around the galaxy (the famous hexagons in space). Danvers runs to analyze what this hole in space is while Monica does the same on the other side of the galaxy. The two connect with Kamala because she has the other bracelet. Every time they use their powers, they change places through teleportation which complicates their plans to restore order.

The first half of the movie was good. I liked the interaction between the three heroines, there was a lot of action, and the story was developing well. I admit that it was exceeding my expectations. The writing was pretty funny too. I had a good laugh when they switched and Nick Fury made jokes or Kamala’s family got worried. One aspect that I found very bold was that the movie included Kamala Khan and her family plus all of the background from the show “Miss Marvel” without giving much explanation. While this may leave a lot of people who don’t subscribe to Disney Plus a little confused and frustrated, I think the new Marvel shows serve precisely that purpose, expanding the MCU.

From the moment they set foot on the planet where the citizens only know how to speak by singing and where Danvers is a princess, the disaster began. The movie exaggerated the comedy and the script started to get weird. I felt like the director didn’t know how to solve the problems the storyline created, so in the rush to fix them, even bigger plot holes were created. For example, S.W.O.R.D. collapsing and the cats swallowing the crew or the Prince of the kingdom where everyone just sings and speaks normally being  bilingual are some of the spots that left viewers confused.. The conclusion of the story with Dar-Benn’s death and Monica resolving everything and ending up in another dimension didn’t leave me happy; it all happened very quickly and I don’t think Monica would know how to solve that problem in such a hurry (without studying or analyzing it first).

S.W.O.R.D. It really disappointed me., I was waiting for a new S.H.I.E.L.D. and what they gave me was a clown circus. The few agents they had were stupid, they didn’t help at all during the film and they took Kamala’s family to space for nothing.

Another issue was the visual effects. Marvel has had problems with its visual effects team for some time. Visual effects workers were extremely overwhelmed with all the movies and shows that had to be released on an extremely tight deadline. In “The Wonders” I saw that some moments were very poorly done. For example, when Kamala and Monica are falling from the sky you could clearly see that the city was fake. But when it was a bigger, more complicated scene, for example the sun’s energy being sucked into the galaxy jump point, it was done well. I think the budget for the effects was lacking so, I hope they improve this in future productions.

One of the points that drove fans crazy with anticipation was the ending and the scene after the credits. Kamala summoning Kate Bishop to a team is a big promise for The Young Avengers. I’m very excited to know which production this arc continues in. But what really excited me was the post-credits scene and the appearance of Beast, an important name in the X-Men. This made me get up out of my chair and scream with joy! Since “Iron Man” in 2008, we have been waiting to see mutants fighting alongside the Avengers and after 15 years of waiting we have an X-Men in the MCU. However, Marvel will have to come up with a good explanation for Monica going to another universe, as theoretically it was only possible to physically change from one universe to another with the powers of the heroine America Chavez, who had an entire arc in the film “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”. These two appearances open many doors; now we have to wait and see how they will handle this new era of Marvel.

Regarding the expectations of the movie, I think that both I and the world were not expecting anything good. The box office forecast for the film’s first day was US $70 million, compared to “Captain Marvel” which grossed US $455 million. There weren’t many people at my cinema session and people weren’t that excited. It was disappointing to see what Marvel has become but I’m hopeful that now they can get back on their feet.

In conclusion, I think the movie is not interesting and didn’t win me over. The only points that I was really excited about were the last scene and the post-credits scene, which are not part of the movie’s content. For those who are big Marvel fans, maybe you should try watching the film and draw your own conclusion, but if you don’t follow this universe I don’t think it’s worth it.