‘The Marvels’ Is Another Fiasco in Marvel’s Road to Ruin

The Marvel ship is sinking, and The Marvels (in theaters Nov. 10) won’t keep it afloat. Director Nia DaCosta’s sequel to 2019’s financially successful if creatively ho-hum Captain Marvel is the first big-screen Marvel Cinematic Universe entry to require significant knowledge of the series’ Disney+ efforts, thereby tethering it to the middling fare that has helped get the franchise into dire straits. Another in what’s become a long line of stakes-free adventures that neither stand on their own nor contribute to a compelling overarching serialized saga, it’s an irrelevant B-team affair which further suggests that the MCU can’t survive, short- or long-term, without the active participation of its most famous characters.

(Warning: Minor spoilers follow.)

Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), alas, has never been one of those, and she remains a generic bore in The Marvels—a hero of unmatched power who has the personality of drywall. When DaCosta’s film first locates her, she’s floating through the cosmos in a ship, using a device to recover some of her still-MIA memories. The flashes she witnesses aren’t particularly illuminating for her but they at least remind viewers that Jude Law and Annette Bening co-starred in her maiden theatrical outing. Her reveries don’t last long, however, since she soon receives a call from old buddy Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) asking her to check out some weird energy signature.

Read more at The Daily Beast.