"The Marvels" was OK
Honestly, it was just OK.
“The Marvels” should have been another hit for Disney’s Marvel franchise films. They hired a great young director, Nia DaCosta, to helm the project. They had a good cast. And the runtime was blessedly short at an hour and forty-five minutes, far less than most Disney superhero adaptations.
But the film was just, well, OK. That’s really it. It didn’t do anything wrong, and it kept me entertained, which is what I minimally ask for from most visual media. And because it was OK—just fine—it’s going to be forgettable. Which isn’t good.
I’ve seen some blame going around online. Some people have said Brie Larson isn’t likable, which isn’t fair. Or they’ve levied criticisms at the story or the direction.
But none of that really gets to the heart of the problem.
Once again, it’s Disney. And I think people are seeing how formulaic their approach to superhero pictures are. That was easier to ask when the films were new and had a ton of major stars attached.
Their approach to many of these films and television shows—whether Star Wars or Marvel and so on—is this: these idiots will watch anything, so let’s put out the most basic, most formulaic content (I’m using that term deliberately) and watch the money roll in. They’re theme park rides, as Martin Scorsese famously said. They’re not stories.
But audiences are waking up to this, I think. So unless Disney radically changes its approach, then it’s fair to say these films will gross less and less, until they’re no longer made.
If it's "okay" it's better than Captain Marvel, a movie I thought was very lackluster. Brie Larson isn't the issue, she isn't given much to do. It's not that she isn't likeable, she isn't really anything in the role.
I actually kind of liked at least the first half of Ms. Marvel the Disney+ show and the lead character in that show has much more personality. I felt like Ms. Marvel tried to cover way too much ground in one season though. Furthermore the show skirted around Pakistani/Indian tensions and religious extremism in kind of disingenuous ways.
Disney always tries to play it safe it seems and a lot of people criticize their virtue signaling. Disney tries to appeal to literally everyone including foreign markets and in the process alienates people more than it draws people in. There is of course nothing wrong with female or minority superheroes, it's intact completely welcome on my end but please make it interesting at least. Kamala Khan is a more interesting protagonist than Carol Danvers because she has stuff going on in her inner world that is interesting.