Laurence Boyce | On 03, Feb 2024

Director: Nia DaCosta
Cast: Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, Iman Vellani, Zawe Ashton, Samuel L Jackson
Certificate: 12

Marvel Studios faces a possible case of superhero fatigue among audiences who might be growing tired of the endless array of films that are beginning to fall under the weight of their own mythology. The Marvels came to big screens with seemingly little hype or bombast – especially when compared to previous Marvel fare – and a subsequent underwhelming performance at the box office had many people pointing to the end of the superhero “fad”.

While Marvel doesn’t seem quite ready to go bankrupt just yet – there are still plenty more movies, TV shows and ancillary markets from which money can be made – there does seem to be a sense of: ‘Where do we go from here?’ On a narrative level, The Marvels is unable to promise the constant escalation of world-ending doom that previous MCU instalments have contained. But while the film contains all the ominous end-of-the-universe beats familiar to most Hollywood actioners, the relative reduction in stakes actually works in its favour. It still may be an orgy of expensive effects and glittering set pieces, but there’s a sense of fun and the ridiculous here that recent films in the MCU have been sorely lacking.

Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) – aka Ms Marvel – finds herself consistently switching places with her hero, Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), after mysterious villain Den-Barr (Zawe Ashton) steals a magical bracelet. Soon it transpires that Den-Barr is trying to restore her planet Hala, which has fallen on hard times, to its former glory. But her mission will mean the end of many other parts of the universe, so the trio of heroes – linked together whether they like it or not – must work together to put right the mistakes of the past and look to the future.

As always, those who have been following along will find this much more easy going, with such shows as WandaVision and Ms Marvel – and, of course, the film Captain Marvel – all providing a plethora of back-story for our three female protagonists. But those who are coming in blind will just about manage to follow everything too, even if many references will go flying by. And, at a svelte 105 minutes, the film itself feels refreshingly self-contained and lacks much of the bloatedness of its counterparts. Yes, there’ll be repercussions for future MCU films but one could happily watch this and enjoy it as a singular story.

There’s a certain amount of insouciance here. Some truly silly set pieces – an escape from a destroyed space station alongside some alien cats is audaciously ridiculous and funny – are peppered throughout and give the film a somewhat different feel to others in the genre. The most entertaining thing here is the character interplay. While Larson and Parris do a good job, Vellani steals the show as the constantly starstruck teenager who finds herself being the hero she always wanted to be. With these moments of character interaction, the film really shines. It also remains an important step for female-led genre blockbuster cinema and representation, both in front of and behind the camera.

The film does still occasionally fumble – it can never quite decide whether Den-Barr is a villain or misguided antihero, and Ashton is sometimes given little room to do much more than be a snarling bad guy – but the fun outweighs the flawed. Superhero movies can be bold, dark, introspective and intelligent. But they should also be allowed to be as colourful and exciting as the comic books that are based on. While The Marvels hasn’t been a turning point for a superhero-fatigued audience, those who check it out will realise that it’s actually a tremendous amount of fun.

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