Ryan McNeil
Higher. Further. Faster.
As Carol Danvers stares into the face of a familiar persona, a weapon is fired. The force it releases should incapacitate her, but it doesn’t so much as knock her off her feet. Instead, she withstands the blast – absorbing its energy, and using her genetic make-up to convert the energy into untapped power.
One could be forgiven if they see such silliness as childish cartoon fiction. But if one stops and thinks for a moment, it must be admitted that the ability and the film wrapped around it is quite an inspirational idea.
What happens when we take the destructive forces in our lives and convert them into inspiration to be more?
As CAPTAIN MARVEL begins, our hero (Brie Larson) is a Kree soldier on the planet Hala. Her name is Vers and while she is an elite member of the Starforce platoon, she is also haunted by glimmers of a past she doesn’t entirely remember. She was brought to Hala six years ago and honed into a powerful warrior, but what her life entailed before that is a mystery.
Starforce – headed-up by Vers’ mentor, Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) – is dispatched on a mission to extract an informant from their ongoing conflict with The Skrulls (shapeshifting aliens). During the mission, Vers is taken captive, and her memories are somewhat unlocked by her Skrull captors. An adventurous childhood, a rebellious Air Force career, and an encounter with a scientist named Wendy Lawson (Annette Benning) are all glimpsed in flashes.
Before heads-or-tails can be made of the flashes, Vers and several of the Skrulls are sent hurtling down to Earth. There, in 1995 Los Angeles, the close encounter becomes the purview of the military agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., and specifically field agent Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson).
The Skrulls become hellbent on learning what became of Lawson, and their general Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) will stop at nothing to learn what has become of the good doctor and her work.
When Vers and Fury team-up to head-off the Skrulls and get to Lawson first, a surprise awaits: Vers knew Lawson and worked for her on a military research project. Turns out, our hero’s name is Carol Danvers, and her power as a warrior go far beyond what The Kree instilled in her.
Eventually, Fury and Carol will find their way to Louisiana – home of Carol’s old co-pilot, Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch). It’s there in the Rambeau home that the truth will be made plain…and decisions must be made for the good of everyone.
While there is plenty of time in this movie dedicated to aliens, space ships, and lasers, CAPTAIN MARVEL is a human story with a lot on its mind.
This is a film that understands the deep disorientation that can come from deception. Our world is one where any lie can become the truth if it is said with enough conviction. We can be persuaded to hate an entire group of people, or consider ourselves lesser. We can believe that we owe our successes and our very selves to the influence of another.
Carol goes through this a lot over the course of CAPTAIN MARVEL. She is told time and again that she needs to control her emotions, and that her powers are a gift that can easily be taken back.Watching her endure it, and watching her work to overcome it is what makes this film empowering for all audiences.
There is an unexpected amount of self-doubt that comes when someone looks you in the eye and says that you aren’t what you believe you are. Likewise, those anxieties and distrust can spike when you discover for yourself that something you believed to be true is a lie. It makes us question so very much about ourselves and the people we hold closest and can be incredibly hard to shake.
Watching Carol Danvers not only shake off that disorientation, but actually rise above it is inspiring. It makes us believe that we too can dust ourselves off and get back on our feet.
CAPTAIN MARVEL wants us to consider the resilience it takes to do such a thing: to take the fall and get back up.
This movie wants us to look within ourselves – past the personae that others may have hung on us. It wants us to forget about the ranks, and the tiles, and the labels, and instead embrace who we know ourselves to be. It’s in that self-understanding that we can rise above, and potentially use our powers to help others.
When Maria needs to help Carol remember what she’s lost, she reminds her of how quickly she jumped at the chance to save lives. That quality was also true of Vers in her time with Starforce. As a pilot, as a foot soldier, as a friend, and as a human being – this character has always rushed to the help of others. She knows that about herself, and can set her inner compass accordingly.
It’s not always an easy thing to do; to know yourself. It requires patience, vulnerability, and a deep amount of honesty…and those are all very scary propositions. This is what makes Carol Danvers a hero, and someone to emulate. She finds the courage to look inward and declare in a clear voice “My name is Carol”.
We in the audience cannot fly, or shoot photon blasts from our fists…but we do have it within ourselves to look inward, and say in a clear voice “My name is…”
These very human and very inspiring beats are all interwoven into this space opera. It’s very easy to overlook them, the same way it’s easy to overlook them within ourselves. It’s easy to be distracted by the flashing lights, the same way it’s easy to believe the cutting lies about us spoken by a sharp tongue. At the end of the day though, this is a complicated story about a complicated hero.
It’s not easy, as mentioned earlier, to take the destructive forces in our lives and convert them into ways to be better. If you can’t, take faith since this film has a simpler way for you to rise above and become “more”.
This film and this character have arrived in uncertain times to serve as a reminder; That we all have it within ourselves to be a superhero. All it takes is to continue seeking the truth…and have the courage to stand up when we get knocked down.
While I admit the film had some flaws, I still think it’s a solid film that does what is needed to be done as well as the fact that it had characters that are interesting like Maria and Monica Rambeau, Talos, Yon-Rogg, and Nick Fury. Plus, I liked the arc that Vers went through into finding out her identity as I think some of the hate the film is receiving is just a bunch of fanboys with sand in their vaginas.