I didn't have high hopes for The Marvels, but it cleared that bar.

The Marvels review

Brie Larson and Iman Vellani in The Marvels.
A still from The Marvels courtesy of Disney.

At this point in the MCU, a fun 100-minute (105 minutes, to be exact) romp at the movies is all we need. Aside from the Variety cover story that suggested the MCU was falling apart, the franchise has lost its luster in recent years. A combination of over-saturation of its market and decline in quality are to blame, but The Marvels brings the fun back that the series has long missed.

So for that, I applaud Nia DaCosta. Her MCU debut is a lot better than Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but lacks the emotional depth of a Black Panther: Wakanda Forever or Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, or even the visual pop of Thor: Love and Thunder.

It's also unabashedly weird (as unabashedly weird as an MCU film can get) — there's a sequence on a planet that features Park Seo-joon that got a genuine laugh from me — and has some great action choreography that overcomes shoddy editing and lackluster cinematography.

The leading trio of Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) knock it out of the park with their chemistry and are all incredibly charismatic. Their banter leads to some funny moments and more from them as a team would be welcomed.

But saying that the plot was underwhelming would be an understatement. Whether or not Variety's cover story is accurate in regards to The Marvels requiring a month of reshoots to bring coherency to a story as tangled as the leading trio's is something God (and DaCosta) only knows. Would it surprise me to find out that's true? After seeing the final product, absolutely not.

Entangled powers (and plot)

Samuel L. Jackson in The Marvels.
A still from The Marvels courtesy of Disney.

Instead of assuming that you've watched the MCU Disney+ series, The Marvels catches you up to speed and doesn't require the typical homework their projects do. That's a blessing for someone who stopped watching Ms. Marvel after the first four episodes but also a curse for the plot itself.

So due to The Marvels essentially being a Captain Marvel sequel and a follow-up to Ms. Marvel and WandaVision, the trio of DaCosta, Megan McDonnell, and Elissa Karasik are given a full itinerary. First, they have to catch the audience up on Captain Marvel — which they do via flashbacks that consolidate the entire film into 60 seconds. They also have to introduce Kamala Khan to audiences who didn't view the Disney+ series, and they succeed by bringing her hand-drawn comic book aesthetic. And then there's Monica Rambeau, whose storyline carried into WandaVision, which came out years ago.

The odds were against DaCosta and Co., especially given the MCU's track record of weaving its Disney+ series plots into their films (just look at how Multiverse of Madness seemed to forget what happened to Wanda in WandaVision). And tonally, The Marvels feels like an extension of Ms. Marvel due to its humor and vibrancy.

What makes it all puzzling is the MCU's seeming lack of commitment to Brie Larson's Captain Marvel. Had The Marvels been the third film in a Larson-led trilogy, it would have been perfect. But this film serves as a better follow-up to Ms. Marvel than anything (which is when the film is having fun).

I don't know if that's a Brie Larson problem, who is way overqualified for the MCU, but the first Captain Marvel film made over $1 billion at the box office. Fast-tracking a team-up film is a puzzling decision when we haven't seen Carol do much post-Endgame. What she has been up to is explained via exposition that I wish I could remember.

Remember: Seeing is believing. We haven't seen much of her at all aside from the Ms. Marvel post-credits scene that's stitched into The Marvels as seamlessly as old movie clips in a YouTube video essay about why Martin Scorsese is wrong about the MCU.

It's almost the same issue the then-DCEU ran into by fast-tracking Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. That should have probably come a few movies into the series — not the second overall in the entire franchise.

Rome wasn't built in a day, which is a cliché the MCU used to be aware of before they made 10-12 projects a year. The Avengers team-up film was the sixth movie in the MCU after all of its core members were introduced. The Marvels attempts to juggle three stories in one.

That's not entirely its fault, though. The short runtime only allows for so much after all the catch up it plays. Fiften more minutes would have helped the film immensely — and that's coming from someone who advocates for shorter runtimes. It just feels that at times, The Marvels is throwing in scenes shot last second to fill in the gaps and that there's a lot missing.

The MCU has a villain problem

Zawe Ashton in The Marvels.
A still from The Marvels courtesy of Disney.

Everyone knows that the MCU has a villain problem. At this point, it's expected that the antagonists of a film aren't villains (in their minds). It's a familiar template that the MCU has relied on for years. Zawe Ashton's Dar-Benn has her own motives and history with Carol — they explain her first encounter with Carol in a scene that was very clearly filmed without Larson present — but it's hard to care when she's not present.

For large chunks of The Marvels, Dar-Benn is MIA. I know that's saying a lot considering the 105-minute runtime, but she makes her big appearances for the climactic act battles before going off to whatever it is she does. She's like a part-time Brock Lesnar in the WWE making appearances on an as-needed basis.

And that applies to The Marvels' story at large. It's very safe. Yes, it has some great implications for what's next in the MCU, but its story itself follows the same cookie-cutter template. The expression “if it ain't broke, don't fix it” has been taken too seriously for far too long. Just a slight tweak to the generic three-act template would feel like a whole new game.

Should you watch The Marvels?

Goose in The Marvels.
A still from The Marvels courtesy of Disney.

In no way, shape, or form does The Marvels reinvent the wheel. But it's a lot better than the pre-release online discourse would suggest. It's a fine story executed sloppily — it sometimes feels like they changed tires on a moving car — and is carried by its charismatic leading trio.

A better villain and a more coherent story would've gone a long way to reaching The Marvels' potential. There is a good comic book movie in there somewhere, but instead you get an airless one that's perfectly fine.

For a film that throws around Captain Marvel's “higher, further, faster” motto, it really only goes faster.

Grade: C+

The Marvels will be released on November 10.