I’m not going to lie*: I have very, very mixed feelings about Captain Marvel. When it’s bad, it’s very, very bad. When it’s good, it’s a suitably fun time at the movies. But the very, very bad outweighs the fun times. I can’t not be down for a Samuel L. Jackson performance that really lets him go off on the good vibes and do more than just be a grim-faced badass, and I of course love Ben Mendelsohn for life; I think his performance here, caked under alien makeup, is easily one of the best seen in any MCU film.
And then there’s Brie Larson.
I love Brie Larson’s work. I think she’s an absolutely stellar actress. I also think she’s better than most of the movies she’s starred in since 2015’s Room, something I make note of in my cardinal piece of reporting on Captain Marvel, which sounds kind like a dick compliment. But it’s true. The problem with Captain Marvel is that, much as it makes sense for her to play stoic for certain chunks of the film, she’s so much better when she gets to cut loose that her pre-cut loose scenes look really drab by comparison. I’m not sure what else to say about that. It’s necessary for the movie to work, but it still creates this weird tension where she out-performs herself.
The biggest trouble the film has is craftsmanship and its soundtrack, which is atrocious; I’m not sure how no one in the room heard that No Doubt queue toward the end and said, “Hey, maybe let’s not demean the character’s triumph by playing a song called ‘Just a Girl’, huh?” but they didn’t.
Be that as it may, I’m still impressed by Larson and her commitment to the role. So I did some investigative work to find out about her preparations for the movie, and came up with a fistful of doughnuts and cookies.
You can read the full piece over at Men’s Health.
*Because that would not be on-brand.
A Constant Visual Feast 