Review by C.J. Bunce

The box office doesn’t lie–most of the people who watched Avengers–Endgame haven’t yet watched The Marvels.  Maybe it’s because they feel they’ve been inundated with the genre, maybe they’re tired of slogging through clunky series like Loki and Secret Invasion, and big screen movies that were too dark and heavy like Black Panther 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy 3.  Fortunately, The Marvels is at last streaming on Disney+ for all the Marvel fans to see.  Tying up and expanding upon plot threads from Captain Marvel, WandaVision, and Ms. Marvel, it’s fun, it’s a solid comic book movie, and you’re not going to want to miss it.

Something about the movie Captain Marvel made it one of the MCU’s most re-watchable movies.  It combined fantasy and sci-fi, and brought back Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury and Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson.  Even if it show-horned into the MCU an-all new, late-breaking savior superhero with Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel, it brought together fans wanting a powerful woman in the MCU and an alien conflict straight from the comic book pages.

Then this quirky series WandaVision introduced Teyonah Parris’s Monica Rambeau, daughter of Carol Danvers’s flight partner, who we met as a child in Captain Marvel.  She saw Captain Marvel as her aunt Carol.  Rambeau was industrious and smart, saving a town from a magical threat.

And finally Ms. Marvel came along, providing a young leader for the next generation of superheroes in the form of a wide-smiled, bright-eyed Pakistani-American teen.  You can’t deny the infectious curiosity, optimism, and excitement of young actress Iman Vellani–and her character Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel.

So the challenge for writer-director Nia DaCosta was stringing the three together and giving us a good time.  It all begins with Ms. Marvel re-introduced in The Marvels in a similar animated way as Miles Morales was drawn in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse.  Is this a foreshadowing of bringing a live-action Miles Morales into the Young Avengers going forward?  How fun would that be, especially if speculation that Tom Holland has wrapped his run as Spider-Man is true.

The Marvels is also a story about Captain Marvel’s obligations to save the universe, which are wearing on her, and her relationship with now-Captain Rambeau, who is working with Fury at the orbital base S.A.B.E.R., charged with negotiating a human-Skrull future.  After headlining the Secret Invasion series, it’s nice to see Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury back in the realm where MCU audiences last saw him at his best, partnering with Captain Marvel.

A big thing missing from Marvel movies since before Avengers: Infinity War is a focus on the fun of comic books, which aren’t always about plucking off your favorite characters and destroying worlds.  That fun is found here in the chemistry and interaction of new-found “Twinsies” Ms. Marvel and Captain Marvel, and the fast-friendship enveloping the more focused and practical third member of the trio, Captain Rambeau.  The fun is also found in some great action sequences, especially as the trio inadvertently switch places across the galaxy, narrowly getting out of trouble until they all finally come together in the obliterated New Jersey home of Ms. Marvel’s concerned parents.  Each of the three superheroines has personal issues to come to terms with, although Ms. Marvel’s are realizing her hero isn’t perfect and she still needs to realize she’s just a kid.

The movie’s antagonist continues Marvel’s focus on heroes while de-emphasizing compelling villains.  Zawe Ashton (Doctor Who, Sherlock, Case Histories) is Dar-Benn, a former Accuser (like Thanos’s frequent irritant Ronan) and Kree warrior seeking revenge for Captain Marvel’s acts against the Kree following the events of the Captain Marvel movie.  Avengers: Endgame solidified the use in Marvel of a frequent sci-fi tool, Ant-Man, The Hulk, and Iron Man’s traveling quickly across worlds and time.  Here Dar-Benn has acquired the power to use jump points via “quantum bands” to destroy worlds.  Ultimately the trio of superheroines need their common foe, so Dar-Benn is as good a MacGuffin as anything.

But the very best of all for many will be the return of Goose, the very cat-like Flerken, and a whole lovable legion of Flerkittens that have a very Tribble-esque vibe.  Ms. Marvel’s reactions to Goose are priceless.  The clever use of several Flerkens in solving a key problem of the story is the point at which The Marvels switches from good to great superhero movie status.  It truly sells the show.  Plus we meet Captain Marvel’s very own Prince!

The ending and coda are reminders of where we are in Disney-Marvel’s building toward the future of the franchise.  Viewers will be reminded we are still within the Multiverse Saga, while also building the Young Avengers to take over the movies and series of the future.  It’s all done very well, especially with Ms. Marvel filling the shoes of Nick Fury.

It’s great fun and a high point of the Multiverse Saga and the top event of Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Don’t miss The Marvels.  It’s streaming now on Disney+.