Review for The Marvels

Introduction

I may be hallucinating, but I seem to recall around the time Agents of SHIELD was being broadcast, that Marvel stated that while any spin-off TV series could and would reference the movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the movies would never reference the TV shows. That’s why we never saw Agent Coulson again after his ‘death’ in Avengers Assemble. For someone like me, keen on collecting the movies, that was a potential money saver. I wouldn’t have to buy any of the TV series to ‘know it all’. Only now we get The Marvels, obviously a sequel to Captain Marvel, but leaning heavily on Wandavision for the back-story of one of its main characters, and also an obvious sequel to the Ms. Marvel TV series. I’m still not going to buy the TV shows though.


Carol Danvers a.k.a. Captain Marvel investigates a strange jump point on a barren world. Kamala Khan a.k.a. Ms. Marvel is busy fan-girling on Captain Marvel at home when she should be doing her homework. And Monica Rambeau (no a.k.a.) is hard at work in low Earth orbit, also investigating an anomalous jump point. When the three use their powers simultaneously, they become entangled. Now, when they use their powers, they swap places, which is disconcerting to say the least, worse when one or more of them is in a perilous situation.


They’ll have to figure out their problem quickly, for the new Kree leader Dar-Benn has found the twin to Ms. Marvel’s gauntlet, and is using it in a scheme to restore the Kree to power, and avenge her people on Captain Marvel, destroying all that she holds dear in the process.

The Disc

The Marvels gets a 2.39:1 widescreen 1080p transfer with the choice between DTS-MA HD 7.1 Surround English, Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo English Audio Descriptive, and Dolby Digital Plus 7.1 Surround French and German, with subtitles in these languages and Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish. It’s a recent film on Blu-ray so there’s no issue with the transfer. It’s clear and sharp, with strong, consistent colours and excellent detail. Given the nature of the film and the story, the abundance of CGI is to be expected. The audio is excellent, nice and immersive, making the most of the action, and with the film getting some great music. I did feel as if the dialogue was a little low in the mix. The Bollywood style song and dance planet was a bit of a surprise.

Extras

You get one BD disc in a thin BD Amaray case. The disc boots to an animated menu, and you’ll find the following extras.

Entangled (10:57)
The Production Diaries (5:30)
Gag Reel (1:59)
Deleted Scenes x4 (5:48)
Audio Commentary by Nia DaCosta and Tara DeMarco

Conclusion

It seems like the Marvel Cinematic Universe has fallen off a cliff of late, and it isn’t just the fact that what was Avengers: The Kang Dynasty is now looking for a new title, and a new story following the criminal conviction of actor Jonathan Majors. The multiverse was the big thing for the next two phases of the MCU, but even before this significant bump in the road, the concept was having problems with a tranche of lacklustre movies, not least Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It’s been a case of diminishing returns for the MCU recently, and while I was enthusiastic coming off the back of Captain Marvel, when The Marvels became the first MCU movie to actually bomb at the box office, The Marvels became one of those discs that I buy simply on the momentum of the rest of the franchise. I didn’t have too many expectations when I put the disc into the player last night.


The Marvels was fun! It has its problems, certainly more issues that many other of the MCU films, and arguably more problems than those films in the series that I hold in less regard, but I had a good time watching the film, which is something I cannot say for Quantumania, The Eternals, or Wakanda Forever. It’s also relatively short and sweet. Most Marvel movies break the two-hour barrier, but The Marvels is the briefest in the series yet at 1 hour and 45 minutes. It also veers towards the Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor Ragnarok in tone, playing more towards levity than employing any seriously heavy emotional stakes.


Of course once you realise that the villain of the piece has cribbed her scheme for ultimate power from Spaceballs, you should understand that this is not a film to take seriously. It’s also a film that plays a little fast and loose with logic and plot holes. The first act is a bit of a mess, as the main characters have to deal with their sudden entanglement, and the switching of places at random moments. It’s visually a tad haphazard, and hard to follow, and early on the film can feel like a chore to keep up with. But once they three main characters meet up, and get a handle on how to use this ability, the film finds a flow that works till the end credits.

For all its faults, The Marvels has plenty of likeable characters, good chemistry between the leads, and a deliciously unhinged villain. It may lack the gravity of the more serious entries in the MCU, but there’s nothing wrong with a daft bit of fun if it’s accomplished with energy and enthusiasm, which is definitely the case here. Disney might lack enthusiasm with physical media, with the simplest of packaging, and perfunctory extra features, but the film looks and sounds just as it should in HD. I don’t know what’s causing the decline in Marvel’s fortunes of late (other than some lacklustre offerings). Everything seems to be lumped together, good, bad or indifferent, and whether it’s franchise fatigue, or fans buying into the bleating of the anti-woke demographic on social media, it seems The Marvels has suffered as a result. It’s worth a watch though. It’s nowhere near as bad as they say it is.