The Marvels

Better than Quantumania and I do believe Nia DaCosta is a talented director. The problem is that she said she wanted to make a film that her young daughter would enjoy watching. And that's it. The target audience for this mess is somewhere between the ages of five and early adolescence, and the rest of us are probably going to have a hard time digesting this over-the-top girl-power manifesto, and with a female villain who is the biggest casting blunder in the entire Marvel franchise. Yes, it's got one funny idea (the scene to the music of A.L. Webber), but watching the rest of it is only entertaining in its reassurance of how Marvel is in a downhill and doesn't know which way to go. (01/18/2024)

On paper, it meets the quota. A girly Marvel movie with an unlikeable and downright repulsive villain packed with visual effects. There's no shortage of environmental overtones, even saving the sun at the end. The script connects series characters, but simply to somehow link them to what's happening on the silver screen. The biggest WTF is the Planet of the Songs, which is probably the thing my four-year-old daughter will like best. The secret invasion doesn't make sense after that (I guess it took place in another reality), and the cats save the day. Somehow. Pretty pointless episode defying physics, logic, but it goes by pretty quickly. Zawe Ashton is disgusting. Brie Larson is awfully nice, especially in a sports bra. Too bad she's not getting better scripts. (11/08/2023)

A below-average and obviously mismanaged Marvel film, which impresses with unexpectedly decent action scenes and some chemistry between the central trio. Apart from that, it can only offer a not very interesting story, boring visuals and really very poor attempts to work with the characters and their psychology. And some really really idiotic ideas. It's not a complete blunder like, say, the latest Thor, but it's not a good movie either. (11/09/2023)

Just another (boring) Marvel. I expected The Marvels to be the weakest addition mainly because of the boring characters, but in the end that's actually the only thing keeping the film afloat. Which isn't outright praise, as they're definitely not "good", it’s just that the rest of them are sadly worse. Cpt Marvel is uninteresting because she can literally do anything, Ms Marvel on the other hand is tragic because she can actually do almost nothing and the only thing that saves her is her character because as a young, natural and funny girl she's actually a pretty cool addition to the superhero family. Anyway, the rest of it is just classic generic sh*t that I'm tired of watching over and over again, and I'm really hoping that because of The Marvels’ ridiculous almost garbage rating, the studio will finally wake up and break out of this tragic loop of spinning boring repeats without any innovation. The story is boring, the villain is horribly uninteresting, the action has no juice and the whole thing is actually a completely pointless mess. The only good thing is that it's finally time for the X-Men and their connection to the universe, finally!!! (11/14/2023)

The Marvels relies on an all-female (super)heroic cast, but this can have its pitfalls. I'll start by saying that I was expecting a more feminist-tinged charge, but The Marvels keeps a pretty low profile in this regard. What couldn't be overlooked, however, was the very blatant targeting of the girl audience in places: we haven't had this many girls (and babes, for which I give a thumbs up though). The BFF-line was too forced, and the post-credit scene only sealed this "blatant targeting". But whatever! Fortunately, The Marvels has an optimal running time and offers clear and brisk action, but it also has a reprehensibly bland villain and a couple of WTF-moments (the Bollywood-tinged visit to Aladna was, ahem, weird). All in all, marginally better than Ant-Man 3. (11/12/2023)