Note: This review is based on the digital edition of The Marvels, which includes all the extras the physical disc will have.
It is a damn shame that The Marvels 4K doesn’t include what could have hypothetically been the greatest extra ever — a featurette about directing the kittens. We know those kittens were mostly real, as they show up in other behind-the-scenes stuff. And anyone who has cats or has ever been around cats knows that baby ones are nigh-impossible to direct, hence the phrase “herding cats.” Oh yeah — it’s also a truism of the Internet that at any given time, the majority of non-pervs online are searching for cat pictures or videos.
The new Garfield movie gets this and uses images of baby Garfield to sell the hell out of that thing. Yet aside from some Funko Pops and a Comic-Con exclusive T-shirt that sold out, the “Flerkittens” were never effectively utilized to market The Marvels, despite having the best scene in the movie and one of the best MCU moments ever. (This cat-dad might be a little biased.)
The Froth of Khan
At least the folks at Marvel Studios understand that their second-best selling point after the kitties is Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel actress Iman Vellani, a Marvel superfan-turned-star who still acts like she’s Charlie Bucket with a golden ticket. A massively condensed version of her on-set journals conveys just a fraction of her boundless enthusiasm, while the other featurette, ‘Entangled,” showcases many of the large practical sets, and the mostly appropriate use of the Volume. As in First Man, it primarily featured outer space vistas and was placed beyond the windows of the practical sets. The Mandalorian, which made the Volume part of common parlance, could stand to do that more with its Din Djarin cockpit scenes, frankly.
A gag reel is obligatory for Marvel home releases, but this one has the benefit of Samuel L. Jackson‘s swear words getting overdubbed with cat meows, so that automatically elevates it above the norm. As for the four deleted scenes, all but one might have been better left in — that one being a slightly extended bit with Ms. Marvel running and hiding, adding nothing to the plot. Kamala’s first teleport onto Carol’s spaceship includes a moment of Valkyrie mistaking her for a new spouse; an extra character scene on Aladna shows their new costumes being constructed, and Monica figuring out how to counter Dar-Benn; and a yoga gag lets Samuel L. Jackson make a “namaste”/”Nah, I’mma stay” pun.
Two Times, the Charm
Aside from a commentary track that we’ll get to, that’s it for the extras. So let’s talk about revisiting the film. Was I too enthusiastic the first time, given how many naysayers there were? I expected to be a bit more jaded, yet the thing charmed me all over again. Admittedly, it’s 90% Vellani on that score and the other 10% is cats. The Marvels plays more like a super-expensive pilot for Ms. Marvel season 2 than it does a WandaVision spinoff for Monica Rambeau 9Teyonah Parris), or a Captain Marvel 2. Indeed, it seems everything we would have expected from a Captain Marvel 2 happened off-camera between movies, Prometheus-style. The 4K visuals make for a much darker, deeper image — from the very opening shot of the collapsing sun, it conveys the coldness of space far better than the brighter, less color range-y HD.
Both Marvel and DC seem doggedly determined to only let female superhero movies be set in the past (Black Widow, Captain Marvel, both Wonder Woman movies) or team-ups (Birds of Prey, both Suicide Squad films, this). It’s not clear they’re conscious of the rule, and yet here we are with Captain Marvel’s sequel getting taken over by a TV show teen. In this case, that’s not a bad thing, except perhaps for the box office. Vellani and Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel actress Brie Larson make a great study in contrast, as both the performers and their characters serve the megastar/swooning fan dynamic. But on paper, it’s as if the Wonder Woman sequel had been Wonder Woman and (The CW’s) Naomi, for example. Again, that might have been actually good, but a weird marketing choice.
(Your move, James Gunn’s Supergirl.)
Rambeau: Third Blood
Teyonah Parris, meanwhile, makes a great straight woman to all the wacky stuff around her. With aspirations only to be the best soldier and astronaut and none to be a superhero, she’s a decent foil to the Captain Marvel/Ms. Marvel dynamic, though it comes at some cost to her own development. For that, WandaVision is your friend, but with the viewers most likely focusing on the flashier storyline, it’s easy to miss just how she transitions from reluctant, awkward flier to godlike sacrifice.
By my third viewing, it became clear that the weakest part of the film is its ending — after that great kitten scene, there’s still a lot left, and it involves resolving Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), a villain whose performance seems surprisingly off-note given that she’s Tom Hiddleston’s girlfriend. Seeming to always be on the verge of a panic attack as the angry Kree, Ashton talks about how multi-layered this character is in the BTS stuff, and then it hit me — she’s going for a subtle performance in a role that calls for grandiosity. Perhaps she wouldn’t let the MCU’s best villain actor coach her that way, or maybe it’s director Nia DaCosta’s choice. Since the character is arguably a successor to Guardians of the Galaxy’s Ronan the Accuser, though, it makes some sort of sense she’d be as forgettable as he.
Tagging Along
The ending scenes that tease what’s next are obviously tantalizing, although in the commentary, DaCosta makes clear she has no idea what’s next or why Carol is wearing the second quantum band bangle in her final scene with Kamala. A serious comics fan, she clearly wants to see more X-Men and Young Avengers but has no clue if her credits hints will actually lead to anything.
DaCosta and VFX Supervisor Tara DeMarco recorded the commentary during the film’s premiere week and prior to studio sources essentially blaming DaCosta for its failure in the press. The director may have gotten some sense of that coming; it’s very, very subtle, but she drops hints about choices that were made over her head during post. Not that she comes off blameless. When she discusses how great the effects houses were to be able to change everything on a dime when they decide to reconceive, say, what rifts in space look like, she plays it off as the effects team being amazingly wonderful, as opposed to overworked and unable to say “no.”
DaCosta clearly loves Marvel and loves to make her sets as practical as possible. At times, she sounds almost as much like a kid in a candy store as Vellani. Tasked with a hugely difficult task of combining three disparate storylines that don’t necessarily fit organically, she mostly opted to go weird, a choice she admits and I endorse. It’s also key to note that The Marvels was being shot at the same time as Ms. Marvel, so the fact that the continuity works between the two is the result of great communication.
Three Against Two?
Still, might we have been better off with a separate Captain Marvel 2 and Ms. Marvel season 2? Quite likely, but that wasn’t DaCosta’s call. Despite the convolutions, the adventure onscreen actually ends up being quite simple and fun, and hardly the layered crossover requiring endless backstory that too many moviegoers expected. Marvel Studios may well take it out on the director, but the leads remain hugely charismatic, and it’d be great to see their stories continue.
Movie: 4/5
Extras: 3/5
The Marvels is now available on digital, hits Disney+ Feb. 7th, and Blu-ray/4K disc Feb. 13th.
