CAPTAIN MARVEL : Tuesday 12th March 2019.

Here we have the twenty-first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, 'CAPTAIN MARVEL', and the first film in the MCU to feature a female led Superhero. This much hyped eagerly anticipated film which I saw earlier this week, is said to be the second most keenly awaited blockbuster of 2019 behind 'Avengers : End Game' with advance ticket sales placing it in third place of any MCU film to date behind 'Avengers : Infinity War' and 'Black Panther'. Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck for US$152M, development of the film began in 2013 and was officially announced in late 2014, with Brie Larson publicised as Carol Danvers (aka Captain Marvel) at San Diego's Comic-Con in 2016. The film saw its Worldwide Premier in London on 27th February, its US Premier in Hollywood on 4th March and went on general release in Stateside on 8th March, two days after its Australian release. The film has so far grossed US$525M and has garnered generally favourable Reviews.

Set in 1995 on the Kree Empire (a scientifically and technologically advanced militaristic alien race resembling humans almost exactly) planet of Hala, Starforce (a crack team of super-powered individuals) member Vers (Brie Larson) has recurring visions of an older woman with whom she shares some sort of affinity. Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) is mentor and commander to Vers, and head of Starforce. He trains her to control her fighting abilities, while the Supreme Intelligence (Annette Benning) an artificial intelligence and ruler over the Kree prompts Vers to maintain her emotions in check.

Following a little pep talk with the Supreme Intelligence (whom Vers recognises as the same woman from her visions) she is granted her first mission with Starforce, accompanied by Korath (Djimon Hounsou), Minn-Erva (Gemma Chan), Att-Lass (Algenis Perez Soto), Bron-Char (Rune Temte) and of course Yon-Rogg. Together they venture to the planet Torfa to rescue a Kree scout named Soh-Larr who has infiltrated a group of Skrulls (alien shapeshifters who can transform themselves into exact replicas of other beings at will).

This leads to a Skrull ambush led by Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) which results in Vers being captured, separated from the rest of her group and taken aboard an Earth bound ship and subjected to a probe of her memory. After successfully thwarting her sworn enemy, Vers manages to escape in a pod which crash lands on Earth through the roof of a Blockbuster Video Store late at night.

Early the next morning this overnight activity has attracted the attention of desk jockey S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg, both of whom were de-aged by 25 years for the purposes of the 1995 setting), whose questioning of Vers is interrupted by an attack by several recently arrived Skrulls on the hunt for their escaped prisoner.

During the chase involving Vers hunting down the shapeshifting Skrulls both of whom are being hunted down by Fury and Coulson, Vers recovers a crystal containing her extracted memories dropped by a Skrull she tussled with aboard the subway train, while Fury kills a Skrull replicating Coulson. Talos meanwhile has assumed the identity of S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Keller, and after performing an autopsy on the dead Skrull, orders Fury to work alone to learn more of this shapeshifting alien race, although of course he has ulterior motives for doing so.

Fury mentions to Keller that he has a lead on Vers and tracks her down to a remote bar, which she had seen before in her visions and which clearly holds some significance. There the pair sit around the table while they both fire questions at each other seeking some clarification of one anothers history, motivations and what next having made their acquaintances. Using his S.H.I.E.L.D. Security clearance he takes Vers to the classified Pegasus US Air Force Base that she has memories of from her visions. Once there, they forcibly break into the archives room and Vers learns from various retrieved files that she was an Air Force pilot presumed dead in 1989 after crashing a plane with an experimental engine designed by a Dr. Wendy Lawson (Annette Benning), whom she recognises as the woman from her visions.

Talos, disguised as Keller, arrives at the Pegasus Air Force Base with a team of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents who quickly hunt down Fury and Vers, but the pair successfully manage to evade capture and escape in a cargo jet together with Dr. Lawson's stowaway cat, Goose. They fly to Louisiana to meet with Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch) a former fellow Air Force Pilot who flew with Vers, and who was the last person to see Vers and Lawson alive. Vers and Fury arrive at the Rambeau homestead to be greeted by Rambeau's eleven year old daughter Monica (Akira Akbar) who refers to her supposedly dead friend as Carol Danvers and sets about recounting her backstory to the long lost friend. Shortly afterwards Talos arrives at the Rambeau family home and reveals that he comes in peace and that the Skrulls are refugees searching for a new home and Lawson was a Kree renegade helping them.

Talos persuades Danvers, Fury and Rambeau to listen to the recovered black box recording from Lawson's plane, prompting Danvers to regain her memories of that fateful day and remember the events leading up to, including and after the experimental plane went down. Lawson tried to destroy the engine's energy-core before being killed by Yon-Rogg for working with the Skrulls. When Danvers destroyed it she absorbed the energy from the explosion and lost all of her memory in the process.

Talos then leads the group, including Goose the cat, to Lawson's cloaked lab ship orbiting Earth, where numerous Skrulls are in hiding and protecting the Tesseract, the source of the energy-core. By now Yon-Rogg and his Starforce team are hot on the heels and infiltrate the lab ship capturing Danvers, where she is connected up remotely to the Supreme Intelligence to await her fate. During their conversation which is very one sided against the mere human Danvers taken in and nurtured by the Kree, Danvers is able to remove a Kree implant that was suppressing her powers giving her full access to her abilities. 

During the ensuing battle, Fury retrieves the Tesseract and Goose, who is revealed to be a Flerken, an alien creature resembling the common house cat, but which have a pocket dimension inside their mouths which can be used to consume and store almost anything. She swallows the Tesseract before scratching Fury's left eye and blinding him. Yon -Rogg orders the support of Kree official Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) who fires a series of intergalactic ballistic warheads towards Earth, which forces Danvers in her shiny new red and blue livery to defend against with all her might. This forces Ronan the Accuser to flee to another dimension stating that he will be back to finish the job he started on another day.   

Meanwhile, an escaping Yon-Rogg darts off in an escape pod chased by Danvers who forces her quarry to crash land some where in the desert on Earth. She quickly overpowers him and has him return to Hala against his will, empty handed and with a warning to the Supreme Intelligence not to mess with her or the Skrulls again. Danvers flies off to help the Skrulls find a new homeworld, and gives Fury a modified pager to contact her in the event of any dire emergency. Meanwhile, back at his desk Fury drafts an initiative paper aimed at targeting other heroes like her, because if there's one out there, there's sure to be more. He changes the name after finding a photo of Danvers in her Air Force jet, which bears her call sign 'Avenger'.

Watch out for the Stan Lee cameo appearance, and in whose name this film is dedicated, and the mid-credits and end-credits sequences too, which bring us forward to the present day and take us back to Fury's 1995 empty desk, and that cat!

'Captain Marvel' is a worthy addition to the MCU, and an enjoyable mid-'90's romp aided and abetted by a feel good 'buddy cop' partnering between a younger and still finding his feet Nick Fury and the emerging super powers of Carol Danvers coming to terms with her destiny. In this time of the 'MeToo' movement, this film resonates with female empowerment, overcoming adversity and women finding their place in the world, and for that reason it strikes a chord that couldn't be more relevant. There's also just the right amount of humour between Fury and Danvers to provide a grounded levity before the action set pieces click in. Whilst the story backs and forths to the point of near confusion in the first half, hold tight, because it does all come together in the end and makes sense. What didn't make sense to me however, is unlike all the other Superheroes we have seen on the big screen - both MCU and DCEU, Captain Marvel, aka Carol Danvers aka Vers is indestructible and wields unprecedented power it seems. She can glide effortlessly through great balls of fire, survive unharmed and unscathed by even the biggest explosions (refer intergalactic ballistic warheads), live to tell another day from falling out of an escape pod somewhere above the Earth's atmosphere and hurtle towards the Earth crashing into bed rock and simply dusting herself off, she can thwart photon blasts, being buried under crashing iron and steel infrastructure, kicked, punched, thrown aloft and never, does she have a torn piece of clothing or a hair out of place. She well and truly might just be the saviour of the known universe, and perhaps the only match for Thanos! Watch this space! Certainly worth the price of your ticket, worth seeing on the big screen, and it's great to see Samuel L. Jackson looking so much younger, leaner and fresher, and for the most part with both eyes intact.

'Captain Marvel' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-