Captain Marvel has received its official Honest Trailer. After eleven years and twenty-two films, the Marvel Cinematic Universe concluded its Infinity Saga with this year's mega-blockbuster, Avengers: Endgame. In doing so, the movie either "retired" or killed off the members of the original Avengers team, and subsequently paved the way for a new generation of superheroes to lead the franchise into the future. Among those positioned to play a major role in Phase 4 and beyond is, of course, Carol Danvers aka. Captain Marvel, who only made her big screen debut in her own solo film earlier this year (less than two months before Endgame, in fact).
Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, Captain Marvel revealed how Carol (Brie Larson) went from being a promising Air Force pilot to becoming one of the most (if not the most) powerful superheroes in the entire galaxy. The film was a massive box office success (taking in $1.1 billion worldwide) and earned generally positive reviews to boot. But of course, there were also a handful of recurring criticisms raised in these responses, as Screen Junkies highlights in its latest video.
SJ's Captain Marvel Honest Trailer is now online, in honor of the movie's release on Blu-ray today, June 11. You can watch the video in the space below.
For the most part, the Honest Trailer pokes fun at Captain Marvel in the same ways that critics and general audiences did when it first hit theaters. The MCU definitely has a formula by now, and the video playfully spotlights some of the more over-used tropes (like "the Marvel-issued black friend") that rear their head in this particular installment. At the same time, the trailer acknowledges that Captain Marvel made equally good or better use of those cliches than the MCU origin stories before it, and is certainly a huge step up from women-led superhero films past that are not named Wonder Woman. It then goes on to provide some welcome perspective on the egregious inequality between the number of male superhero movie released in the last thirty years (61) versus those starring women (6).
So yes, Captain Marvel is full of silly '90s references and formulaic elements, but it's also an enjoyable superhero adventure that will hopefully pave the way for many, many more women-led comic book adaptations to come. Next year promises to be a strong one in that respect, too. DC's Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) and Wonder Woman 1984 are both scheduled to open in 2020, and there's a fair chance Black Widow will hit theaters in-between them. As for Carol Danvers: she's expected to return in Captain Marvel 2 in the next few years, and writer-actor Mindy Kaling recently revealed that Kamala Khan might not be too far behind, either. All in all, there's encouraging news to go around on that front.
Source: Screen Junkies
