THE MARVELS (2023)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological*

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

While watching THE MARVELS I had a couple of flashbacks, both resulting from my having grown up with Silver Age comics.

First, once I got a sense of the movie's plot, I started thinking, "what a DC Silver Age plotline to find in a Marvel movie." I seemed to be recalling some archaic WORLD'S FINEST plot (not yet pinned down) in which Superman, Batman and Robin faced some extraordinary menace whose proximity caused Superman's powers to go on the fritz somehow. That's what we get in MARVELS, in that the three protagonists-- Captain Marvel, aka Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris)-- get their powers "entangled" by the Menace of the Day.

Second, I also flashed back to 1969's issue #17 of Marvel's original CAPTAIN MARVEL comic. In that story, the hero got a makeover from his previous model, from which the 2019 CAPTAIN MARVEL derives a large part of its heroine's backstory. In issue #17, Original Marvel Captain Marvel acquires "nega-bands" which allow him to escape confinement in the Negative Zone and switch places with Earth-teen Rick Jones. Said "bands" play no part in the origin of Carol Marvel. But the basic idea of such wrist-band weapons had been worked into the origin of the Kamala Khan character in her 2022 series.

Now, the plot-thread dangled in MS. MARVEL comes to fruition in THE MARVELS, for Kamala only acquires one "quantum band" that she can use to become a superhero, while the other one is in the hands of "extraordinary menace" Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton). Dar-Benn, the current ruler of the Kree Empire (and based on a very minor Marvel character), undertakes a plan that requires the use of her single quantum band. Her activity sets up the basic Silver Age predicament of the heroic trio: that whenever any of them uses their light-powers, one of the heroines is liable to exchange physical space with one of the others. This situation, I admit, bears only a loose resemblance to the comic-book Captain Marvel switching molecules with Rick Jones, but I mention it as a possible influence on the script of THE MARVELS.

The main purpose of the body-switching schtick is very different from the comic book's purpose, of course. CAPTAIN MARVEL established that Carol Marvel had ties of friendship to Monica Rambeau when the latter was a child, though because of the various complications in Carol's life, she wasn't anywhere nearby when Monica gets transformed into a superhero with even MORE of an aversion to a code-name than Carol has. This transformation is shoehorned into the events of WANDAVISION, patently as a setup to the events of MARVELS. Teenaged Kamala Khan for her part has no previous association with either of these adult heroines, but she's a hardcore fan of the Captain Who Never Speaks Her Own Name. Thus Kamala's thrilled to get brought into the sphere of her heroine, even if it does involve the deaths of numerous alien people and the doom of Earth.

As it happens, Dar-Benn's evil plan also happens to deal with teleportation. In some previously unchronicled event, Carol Marvel destroyed the AI system that governed the Kree's home planet, ostensibly with the best of intentions. This action somehow caused the planet Hala to lose all of its natural resources. So Dar-Benn uses her special armband and various other elements of Kree technology (including a hammer-like weapon last seen in the hands of slain villain Ronan the Accuser) to steal air from one planet, water from another, and the sun itself from the last one. All are planets with which Carol has some relationship, the final planet being Earth. 

The whole "steal the elements" plot is extremely ordinary, and it's not helped by the fact that the character of Dar-Benn is an equally routine villain, thesped by an actress who possesses no screen presence. The body-switching of the three heroines works somewhat better, particularly in a big opening fight where the heroines keep switching places with one another while trying to defend Kamala's family from two Kree warriors. But the script isn't consistent about always having the teleportation-mojo activate. It might have been better had they advanced the notion that the power-use had to reach some critical level before the switch-magic activated. A worse use of the schtick occurs when Kamala disappears because of such a power-usage, and to get her back quickly Carol jets straight up into the sky. This results in her switching places with Kamala, who then falls toward Earth and is only barely saved by Monica.

Oh, and the alien Ferkins supply a sort of space-warp ability too. These feline-looking entities, also introduced in CAPTAIN MARVEL, can sprout tentacles from their mouths and seemingly devour people and things whole, though they can just as easily upchuck the same entities without harm afterward. I could have lived without them, though their presence does lead to the presence of one of the few decent songs in the movie's mediocre score.

Speaking of things not needed, Monica adds nothing significant to the story. When she first appeared in the 2019 movie, I didn't mind her getting name-checked, since in the comics she became "the Second Marvel Captain Marvel" for a decade or so. I don't know if the MCU Bible meant for their version of that character to become yet another superhero way back then, though obviously her 2021 transformation in WANDAVISION foregrounded that very intention. Maybe the Bible-writers had the notion that MARVELS would be much stronger as a trio of heroines. But Monica is just another in a long line of MCU heroes with no personality. There's a lame attempt to claim that Monica nurtures an irrational grudge against Carol, though that grudge has no impact on the narrative. Once or twice the Monica character is able to make arch comments on Carol that could never have come from Kamala, but this doesn't change the fact that her character is dull.

The Carol Danvers character is certainly somewhat improved from the previous film, in which I mentioned that she seemed to display no emotions save confusion and anger. But most of that dimensionality stems from her relationships with Kamala and with her supervisor Nick Fury, not her relationship with Monica. Kamala is without doubt the main source of humor in the film, and most of her jokes land pretty well. I can't help speculating that if the writers had omitted Monica, they could have built up some of the storylines originated in CAPTAIN MARVEL. After all, Carol was not defined entirely by her relationship to Monica and Monica's mother: she had some sort of Earth-life before getting transformed into a Kree warrior-woman. But the script keeps harping on the connection with Monica, even though there's a lot more dramatic potential in a heroine being confronted with a starry-eyed fangirl.

The fights and the big cataclysms generally look okay, so I won't be one of those fans who hates on director/co-writer Nia DeCosta simply because she didn't have much experience. I did think all the costumes of the alien races-- mainly the Kree and a weird Bollywood-like people-- were ugly, and I found it tedious that both races were multi-ethnic. Couldn't they all be blue or orange, and still be played by actors of differing ethnicities? 

Despite the unwelcome guest-appearance of Tessa Thompson's "King Valkyrie," the script, authored by three persons with female names, doesn't overdo the "girl boss" theme. There are no offensive reverse-racist comments, but that may be only because there are no major Male White Characters in the story. The transformation of the minor comics character Dar-Benn into a female does feel like an extra maneuver to pile on the XX factor, though. One of the main heroines apparently dies to save the Earth, but a mid-credits sequence not only establishes her survival, it ties into yet another presentiment of an "X-Men Universe" out there. Another sequence hints at a new incarnation of the Avengers, but given that in its opening weekend MARVELS has done very poorly, I'll be very surprised if those plans go through unaltered.