If anyone has been tuning into the latest development in the Marvel Cinematic (MCU), Captain Marvel is the next movie that will connect the “Phase 3” portion into the much anticipated Avengers: Endgame movie.

Riding on the coattails of the sheer success of the daring direction Marvel Studios went with Avengers: Infinity Wars, Captain Marvel is the connecting movie between Infinity Wars and Endgame. But with so much that has happened surrounding Captain Marvel, fans are beginning to question if Marvel Studios is capitulating and pandering to the current cultural narrative. In addition, is Captain Marvel the start of the pandering?

Spoiler Alert!

Before making any type of objective review, we do have to let you, the reader, know that there will be spoiler alerts. So take this as a fair warning: If you have not seen the latest Marvel Studio’s installment of Captain Marvel starring Brie Larson and don’t want spoilers, don’t read further. Stop here.

Muh Feminism

If you have been following the last six weeks of media coverage, you know there is a great deal of conflict surrounding the movie. Brie Larson went on a racist and sexist tirade by claiming that she did not want white male movie reviewers nor white male journalists attending her press junkets regarding the movie.

She then had to do damage control by saying she simply wanted to include more seats at the table of discussion by bringing in more women and more people of color. But there is also evidence of her saying that this movie was not made for men in particular. This lead to a plummeting score of people wanting to see the movie.

The Rotten Tomatoes Cover-up

Popular movie review site Rotten Tomatoes arrived at a conundrum. There was a function where people would voice their opinion on whether or not they would see the movie. Prior to Brie Larson’s disastrous press tours, almost 86% of people said they wanted to see the movie.

Once Brie Larson opened her mouth and spewed her rancid rhetoric of racism and sexism, the score of people wanting to see the movie toppled down to a 27% before Rotten Tomatoes removed the function in an effort to halt the score dropping even further. Left wing media pundits as well as feminist critique sites all claimed it was the work of white men and trolls.

Rotten Tomatoes capitulated. They removed the “want to see” voting function by saying that it’s to protect the integrity of the movie. You can read about their decision here. Once the movie hit theaters on March 8th, the scores weren’t at all as successful as it was touted.

(As of March 10, Rotten Tomato critic score of 80% with an audience score of 57% and over 40,000 users rating the movie). With the movie now in theaters, it is time to review what the craze is all about. Again, spoilers ahead — so if you have not seen the movie, go watch it.

Kree-Skrull War

The movie centers around a war between two galactic empires. One side is known as The Kree, a technologically advanced imperial race and the other is the Skrull, a sort of demonic elvish race who are able to shapeshift into any being that they see. This is transformation is to the point where even genetic makeup is exactly the same.

During this war, a rogue scientist named Mar-vell is on planet C-53 (AKA Earth) developing a light-speed engine when she was interrupted and killed off while testing her device. She was ultimately killed off and her co-pilot Carol Danvers was taken by the Kree who then fostered aid to get her back to health by imbuing her with Kree blood. She was brought into the fold and trained to be one of their colonial enforcers.

Told that the Skrulls were the bane of the galaxies, she would join their team and hunt them down. She then is taken on a mission to find a spy whose identity is compromised. She and her Kree team are sent on a rescue mission. However, it is an ambush and she is taken prisoner.

Throughout the first and second act of the movie, she is attempting to regain her lost memories. She already has these powers called “photon blasts” and received training to control her emotions in order to become the ultimate fighting machine for the cause of the Kree.

On Earth

She escapes her Skrull captors. They attempted to garner information in order to find that rogue scientist. After her escape, she lands on Earth through the roof of a Blockbuster Video store. (Remember those?) Through this landing, she meets up with young upstart S.H.I.E.L.D Agent Nick Fury.

They venture throughout the US trying to find information about who she is and what this is all about. Along the way, they meet and fight Skrulls who have infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D as well as other hiccups.

Fury and Danvers find her old USAF buddy. They all get pulled into what was considered an immoral war. It seems that the Kree are not the benevolent race they lead Carol to believe. Instead, they are genocide mongers bent on the extinction of the Skrull.

Skrulls on Earth are refugees looking for a home. Fury and Danvers ultimately get pulled into rescuing the Skrulls. She finally awakens the full potential of her powers to save the shapeshifters. Danvers doesn’t leave without handing Fury a pager dedicated to contacting her. She is going through the galaxy helping to find a home world for the Skrull. Ultimately, it was the beginning of The Avengers Initiative and now we wait for Endgame.

The Pros

With an MCU movie, the visuals are amazing. There is weight to the explosions, the Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) interaction with people are done nicely and all in all, it was what we would expect from a Marvel Studios movie. There are some comedic elements in the movie that were worth a good chuckle here and there. Also, the relationship between Carol Danvers and Nick Fury had some endearing moments. There was a poignant moment where Danvers gave a nod to Stan Lee, as this movie is a tribute to the creator and founder of Marvel Comics.

The Cons

Brie Larson should not have been the choice to take on this role. Throughout the movie, her personality was nothing short of a boring ficus plant stuck in a doldrums with no wind. It was as if she didn’t want to be in the movie but stayed to cash in a check.

She lacked heart, she lacked personality, and she lacked any sort of real chemistry with any of the other characters on screen. The fight scenes were useless as they were not impressive. Whatever comedy they tried to inject into these scenes were incongruent to the plot. Everything felt awkward. In addition, there were plot holes and gaping moments. It seemed obvious that they tried to speed details along which did not help the continuity of the movie.

The SJW Spin

Brie Larson’s ultimate goal in this role is to let the audience know that it is a feminist movie. They do not skip out on shoving feminism in our faces. Every moment on the screen was about Danvers trying to kick as much tail as she can. From shoving men around to being aloof at the chauvinist trope the movie tries to assert. It was pure cringe with the way she interacted with all white men from boys who got in her way to her interactions as a woman in the military during the 90s. It was all symbolic of her standing back up, to face those men to where this fully had her awaken to be the Captain Marvel we were hoping her to be.

But ultimately, she’s a “Mary Sue” if anything. She is completely and totally detached from any hero’s journey which is what was loved about Luke Skywalker, or Tony Stark, and even T’Challa of The Black Panther. Along with the rampant feminism, there is that whole refugee spin they attempted to interject as they conflate “terrorist” who looks different with simply being “refugees” which takes away from the original source material. The Skrulls are in fact a war mongering race whose desire is to dominate. They are not refugees looking for a home which is in fact disrespectful of the source material of the comics.

The Pandering is Strong in This Movie

If Marvel Studios ever wanted to get on the good side of the Social Justice Warriors (SJWs), they did it with this movie. The message is clear, feminism is everything. From women acting like being given this power made you, the woman, completely and totally perfect. As a woman, she was capable of handling it all by herself while every man was kicked to the curb. Even Nick Fury was the subject of emasculation from Carol Danvers.  

It’s quite clear why this movie received the ratings it did. Also, it only happened because Brie Larson had to open her persona-less mouth. This fueled the fire and audiences are now giving the movie a poor rating while pandering critics can barely give it a C+ grade. Pandering to the SJW feminist agenda is so overbearing that it’s difficult to swallow.

Strong Character is Valuable Trait

What is very telling as well is the movie battle in the general public and media reviewers alike was the movie, “Alita: Battle Angel.” One could say she’s a “Mary Sue” but she struggled while being the strongest character in the movie. Simply put, Captain Marvel is a strong woman. Alita, is a character who is a woman.

Many critics and general public reviewers would assert that Alita is a much stronger movie as she is a beloved character. Wonder Woman is also a strong character who is a woman. The general public loved her as well as Gal Gadot who portraying the iconic character.

Marvel Studios took an “L” on this one. Brie Larson’s ridiculously sexist and racist comments may have been a PR stunt backfire. As the public waits for Avengers: Endgame to drop, this movie doesn’t fair well. In terms of how the public hates pandering, we have seen the results on Rotten Tomatoes. We will have to see if Endgame redeems this Marvelous debacle of a film when Brie Larson returns to replay her character along with the ensemble cast of the Avengers.