 The moment that someone has been waiting for is here. Not since Endgame has there been so much hype going into a superhero film. Yeah, I'm of course referring to the Marvels, a sequel to the billion-dollar first entry, Captain Marvel. Sarcasm out of the way, no one cares about this movie, the MCU's on its last legs, and I've never seen so much baggage be associated with one film. Let's talk about it. I recently did a movie roast on the first Captain Marvel, a film that I thought was incredibly mediocre, not awful by any means, but it certainly has some awful moments. Mainly ones that retcon things in the past or just pretend existed the whole time, like Captain Marvel herself being around in the 90s, yet always on lunch break whenever a major event was taking place. I would love it if you're new here to hit the subscribe button, maybe check that movie roast out, and some of the other videos I have on the channel, I would appreciate it. This review for the Marvels is gonna be spoiler-free, or spoiler-cree, if you will. I'll keep going. And you might be thinking, Adam, the Marvels, plural, meaning more than one? And yeah, you're right, Chad, there is something weird going on, you're Chad for the scenario. It's because there are three this time around. That's right, not just one, but three. Strong female leads! And quite frankly, for a follow-up to the first MCU hit, it's about time. If that kind of pandering annoys the crap out of you like it does me, you'll be happy to know that the sequel doesn't have any of that. It's actually really remarkable for Disney in 2023 not to have a movie that panders so hard to everyone. Instead, it's just a simple, stupid, silly, nonsensical, straightforward film for two hours- No! An hour 45. Yeah, a Marvel movie under two hours. That's clearly meant for family, younger audiences, teens, and me, apparently. A 40-year-old dad whose kids didn't even want to go to this. I feel like I'm beating around the dick a lot. Let me get right to the point. I actually had a good time with the Marvels, believe it or not. I know, an angry middle-aged white dude on the internet, liking a movie from Marvel, from Disney, featuring women. It's crazy! There's a whole cottage industry dedicated to hating on this crap on YouTube. You know who you are, you pieces of shit. But I prefer to just give honest opinions and not beat them into the ground. We're not gonna be doing 50 videos on how much Brie Larson sucks, although I will say she's still not lead material in the superhero sense. She's a great actress, but in the first Captain Marvel, she was so awkward, so uncomfortably posed all the time and attempting to be stoic. It was just such overkill. In this one, she is paired back a lot, maybe arguably too much. She seems depressed throughout the whole thing. I felt bad for her. I genuinely felt bad for her. Like, she didn't want to be there. That said, she also gets to showcase emotion, something that was also missing in the first film. She's smiling, she's laughing, she's crying. It's crazy. It's really crazy stuff, what's happening. They're allowing an Academy Award-winning actress some material to work with is what I'm getting from this film. The MCU for me is essentially dead. I'm not looking for a grand world building anymore. The world building has been destroyed seven times over with the introduction of the multiverse, because now different variants of the same actor can appear throughout the multiverse, and so when one dies, another one just takes its place. Oh look, Professor X showed up in Doctor Strange 2. Oh, and he's dead. Oh man, it was brutal when they killed Gamora in Endgame- Oh, and there she is in a different version. Well, at least Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man sacrifice goes untarned. They're talking about bringing him back. They're talking about bringing back Robert Downey's Iron Man. Of course they are. Because we have to give people something to root for again. We have to give people a leader they can stand behind. And unfortunately, the whole play of bringing in all the female characters and having them be led by Captain Marvel, Brie Larson, not quite panning out for general audiences, and it is because Brie Larson's character is so damn lame. Carol Danvers has no real character. She's essentially Superman without any sort of weakness. I haven't found one yet, and I'm still a little unclear as to what her powers actually are. She's, I guess, just the sun itself. She's energy. So how do you destroy energy? Eventually I'm gonna get to what I like about this movie, I promise. But there's just, again, there's so much baggage with this film going in, because not only is it following up a billion dollar first entry, and that's only because it was wedged between two of the biggest movies in the MCU, Infinity War and Endgame, but also because there is a lot of homework to do here. There always has been in past Marvel movies, well almost always, in the later phases. But here, you're required to watch several Disney Plus shows if you want to get all the Easter eggs and references and cameos and whatnot. You also have to see a couple of the MCU movies. I'm not gonna waste my time going into them, because I don't think anybody's gonna care enough to be like, oh, I gotta watch this, and this, and this. Okay, yeah, I understand. There's articles out there for you if you really want to know, but also tread lightly because spoilers are a plenty. So for a person like me who doesn't give a shit about the MCU, I've had my time with it, it's been great. Now I go into these movies looking at just the film itself, if it meets my expectations, what it's going for, and I don't care about cameos or anything anymore. I'm done with all that. Does the movie work on its own? That's how it should be, right? And for me, the Marvels does work on its own. I was having a good time. It felt like a 90s movie, like a pulpy, fun, action-packed adventure with a good trio of characters. Yes, Carol Danvers is lame. However, she's paired with two other actresses who are having a good time, especially Kamala Khan from Miss Marvel. One of the Disney Plus shows that I couldn't even get through because it was padded out to all hell, but I really liked the actress. Actress Aiman Vellani is having a ball in this film. I love the family in this movie. They really bring everything up a notch. It reminded me of Shia's character, Sam Witwicky, in the Transformers movies. I always liked when he's playing off of his parents who are super fun and over-the-top and cringy. That stuff works really well. I'm not looking for Shakespeare in the Park with the Transformers movie. I'm certainly not expecting it from The Marvels, a film that on its face is presenting itself as a fun, goofy little film and a sci-fi action adventure for the whole family. It boggles my mind that people would be looking at this movie or going to it thinking, yeah, we're going to get another winter soldier out of this or Infinity War or something gritty or something serious or dark or that shit's done. The MCU has walked away from that or they're just mixing and matching, which is a big problem when you're trying to build up a universe that has a collection of different genres and different flavors, yet they're all very intimately tied together because there's going to be people that really like the Winter Soldiers or the Civil Wars, but they can't stand the She-Hawks or they don't want to watch the Moon Knights or the Loki's or all the other crap that's all over the place, yet it's almost mandatory to get full satisfaction out of these films and TV shows and that's just too much homework for people. Like I said, The Marvels has a lot of baggage. It's also not going to be making a billion dollars because it's no longer wedged between the showstoppers. Now it's in like phase four, phase five of the MCU after several disappointing audience, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Quantum Shitia comes to mind. I couldn't stand that movie. It was bloated over long. The tone was all over the place. The characters didn't really work together and here everything is pretty much opposite. Short runtime, to the point, lots of action, lots of comedy. There's some decent drama. Some of it were, I think most of it works honestly. Unfortunately, it pairs off of Captain Marvel, so you do kind of have to understand that movie a little bit going in. However, it does attempt to give you quick flashbacks, catch you up and it does a decent job of it, I think. Again, my kids didn't go, my wife didn't go, but I am actually excited to watch this movie with them, whether we see it in theaters or when it comes to Disney Plus eventually, because I think they're all going to have a good time with it. And I guess that's ultimately where I stand with my review. I went in with a big chip on my shoulder. I thought the trailers looked like hot trash. I don't like the first Captain Marvel movie. I think the character sucks, but I think the whole power switching storyline, bringing these characters together, giving Brie a little bit more room to actually flex some range with her emotions and with her acting has helped immensely. Is it this brilliant, perfect movie? No, I said it reminds me of one of those 90s films, like A Rookie of the Year or a, it's not near as good as like a Sandlot, but it just has a fun vibe to it. And I was, I was feeling like a kid again watching it. So, you know, it doesn't always have to be doom and gloom, larger than life spectacle. I like a lot of family movies. I like a lot of kids schlocky shit. You throw me an illumination movie like Mario or even the Despicable Me franchise. I'm going to have a good time. It's all about expectation. Movies got a pretty sweet score, pretty solid special effects. There's some janky stuff. There's a lot of it. Some practical effects, which I wasn't expecting at this point in the MCU. They even went out of their way at one point and had Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury lean on something. And I was like, oh yeah. Almost like the director was saying, look, there's, there's a wall here that we built. There is a set somewhere in this pile of CG. As I stated, a lot of humor. It doesn't go the route of Thor Love and Thunder for me though where everything is just undercut and they're constantly goofing around. The green screen is not atrocious like it is there. It does respect the audience enough to make a plot that, oh, I, you know what, that reminds me of the villain. Let me, let me end with another negative. The villain in this is just terrible, but it's almost, it's almost like intentionally schlocky and bad on purpose. Again, it reminds me of a 90s movie. This villain sucks. She's using this weird accent. She's doing a lot of facial tics and bizarre behavior. And I kind of dug how bad she was. It was almost on purpose to make her so bad. There are a couple scenes that didn't quite land for me, but I appreciate them trying new things. And yeah, I guess overall, a hot mess, but in a good way. A good hot mess. At least for me. Again, I would not run out and go see this if you're like, I need a movie that brings me back into the MCU. Now this is gonna make you run further away. All right, let me know if you saw this movie, if you plan on seeing it by putting a comment below. Please think about liking the video and subscribing if you haven't. I post tons of movie reviews, roasts, live streams, each and every week. I'm having a good time. I hope you join me and we can have a good time together. That sounded weird. Sound a little sexual, but I'm all right with it. I'm cool. All right, thanks for watching. Hopefully I see you next time. Take care.