But Captain Marvel mostly bears the weight of those expectations. Even Ant-Man and the Wasp, the first Marvel film with a female character in its title, felt like it was queuing up expectations for Captain Marvel, and for the fast-approaching Infinity War sequel Avengers: Endgame.Īfter all of that, Captain Marvel is in the unenviable position of having to introduce a new character to the MCU, lay out her origin story, tie her in with the current MCU timeline, create backstories for several previously established characters, and set up even more significant elements for Avengers: Endgame. That film dovetailed neatly into Avengers: Infinity War, which linked together 18 previous films, made $2 billion worldwide, and eradicated half the universe’s population. Then came Black Panther, in which director Ryan Coogler took Marvel fans deep into the story and culture of the African nation of Wakanda, breaking box office records and giving Marvel its first Oscar-winner. Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi brought a new irreverence to the MCU, while also lining up Thor, Hulk, and Doctor Strange for Avengers: Infinity War.
That gives Captain Marvel the triple challenge of living up to past MCU films, proving a female-led movie can make the company money, and squaring off against one of DC’s biggest hits.īut even without the challenge of breaking new representational ground for the MCU, Captain Marvel is facing sky-high expectations because of the MCU films immediately preceding it. And it took the example of rival studio DC Entertainment releasing Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman to both critical and monetary success.
Even after years of fans clamoring for a Black Widow standalone movie, it took a full decade and 20 MCU films for the franchise to produce a single movie with a woman protagonist. All of which leaves the Men’s Rights trolls who are noisily vowing to spurn the film for its allegedly feminist overtones looking all the more ridiculous.As the first female-led Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, Captain Marvel is arriving in theaters under a heavy burden of expectations. Corny? Absolutely – and proudly so.īut as you watch, and perhaps realise this image might mean as much to the next generation of women as the shots of a soaring Christopher Reeve did to chaps my age, you can almost feel the cinema expanding around you, like Lewis Carroll’s Alice after a swig from the Drink Me flask.
There is a moment towards the end when Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) shoots off to save the day, and an 11-year-old girl, played by Akira Akbar, looks up at her in amazement, as she literally blazes a trail across the sky like a departing comet. But the latest Marvel Studios production still feels as thrillingly revolutionary, in its own way, as Donner’s cloud-skimming pop cinema opus. Hollywood, quick off the mark as ever, has taken 41 years to realise a woman can too.Ĭaptain Marvel is not the first female-led superhero film: even if you gloss over the embarrassments of Supergirl, Catwoman and Elektra, 2017’s terrific Wonder Woman beat it to the punch. “You’ll believe a man can fly” was the tagline for Richard Donner’s Superman, which on its release in 1978 became the first comic-book blockbuster of the modern age. Dirs: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck Starring: Brie Larson, Samuel L Jackson, Jude Law, Ben Mendelsohn, Annette Bening, Lashana Lynch, Akira Akbar.