The Marvels

the marvels is a genuinely solid mcu film that’s actually funny and anchored by fantastic characters. but honestly, rewatching it just highlights everything wrong with marvel’s current trajectory, especially after recent events.  this movie is a glaring reminder that marvel is currently spending hundreds of millions of dollars to undo the definitive decade-in-the-making ending they built in 2019, all for cheap nostalgia bait. the original plan was clearly to pass the baton to newer characters and let them lead the universe. but because the writers couldn’t put in the actual effort to develop them properly, giving characters like carol danvers and sam wilson absolute scraps to work with, they panicked when audiences pushed back. now instead of fixing the writing, they’re retreating to tired old gimmicks. carol and sam were supposed to be the face of this saga and yet here we are.  the disrespect to carol's character in particular is exhaustinggg. the movie ends with her living on earth, in louisiana (literally where sam wilson is from), trying to find a way to pull monica back from the x-men universe. so i really wonder how they’re going to justify their absence in doomsday. we also see she has a close relationship with valkyrie (👀) so there’s no way thor couldn't get ahold of her. yet the second a major threat appears on earth who do they drag out? the retired old ass steve rogers with his botched botox  despite some sloppy cgi here and there, the core of this film works incredibly well because of the dynamic these 3 share. i loved loved loved the familial bond between monica and carol and kamala geeking over working with captain marvel was so adorable. and the humor actually lands; the whole sequence with the kittens, nick fury, and kamala’s family dealing with absolute chaos in space was so fucking funny. it isn't a flawless cinematic masterpiece but anyone who thinks this is somehow below the current mcu standard just hates women i’m sorry.  just 2 more avengers films until this mess of a universe gets a soft reboot and hopefully we can finally be free from the nostalgia slop