Rambling About Captain Marvel (With MAJOR Spoilers!!)

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I wasn’t thinking that I was going to be seeing any movies for a while after seeing Into the Spiderverse. I’m the type of person that sees maybe one to two movies a year, so that wouldn’t be rare for me. Then, Captain Marvel was coming out, and I was super HYPED. I just couldn’t wait to see this new film! I even went by myself, which I never do, just to make sure that I would be able to see it this week. Boy, I was definitely not disappointed!

Let me start off by saying that in hindsight, the trailer was a bit misleading. I honestly had no idea what the movie was going to be about from watching the very first one, and was only starting to sort of piece the story together in the second one. Honestly, these were some of the most confusing trailers that Marvel has ever released. Nevertheless, the movie was not confusing at all.

You start off the movie with Vers (Captain Marvel) on the Kree capital planet of Hala. She is training to be on a sort of military team that has been tasked with fighting the Skrull, but she is struggling to control her powers during her training with her boss. Honestly, the training seemed to be that typical Marvel superhero train and flirt session, so I thought that this dude was going to be a love interest. I wasn’t mad about it, but I wasn’t exactly delighted either. He wasn’t though, Vers doesn’t seem to have any love interests in this film, which was a nice touch. I was sick and tired of female superheroes being beaten by love (cough Kara Danvers Supergirl cough).

Anyways, she is taken during a mission and torture-interrogated by the Skrull. She manages to fight her way out, but she is too far away from her platoon when she lands on Earth in the 1980s. She is on a mission to find a scientist that was locked away in her memories, hoping that she will find the rest of her memories with that woman. While waiting for them to show up, she catches the attention of the Skrull coming after her and a young Nick Fury working for the FBI. She brings Fury up to speed with what is going on in her world, and as he sees more and more proof of the aliens being real, he agrees to help her find the scientist she is looking for.

This is when the movie really starts to get fun. Fury was always pretty serious, but it was hilarious to see a younger Samuel L Jackson! At first, I thought that it was just an incredible makeup job. Then I Googled it and figured out that they had to digitally age him down for every single scene in every movie. Whoever did that had a very tedious job, but they did so well! Vers/Carol Danvers and Fury had such fun and playful banter that it made me crave for more scenes with them! Carol was finding out things about her real life that she couldn’t remember, and she even started to remember a little bit more about the last minutes of her life.

Once she finds out about her friend, she goes to visit her in Louisiana. I loved the interracial friendship that they had, they were like sisters, and her friend’s daughter called her Aunt Carol! Their friendship was my favorite part of the movie. Rambeau was just as capable of a pilot as Carol. She could have even been on the mission with Carol and the scientist, but she was worried about dying and leaving her daughter. She never gave up hope that her friend might still be out there somewhere, and she barely hesitated to help her current friend on her new mission.

This movie really hit home with me once we got into the main plot. Once Carol remembered that she got her powers from the energy core blast on her mission with the scientist, she realized that she had been fighting on the wrong side of the war the entire time. The Kree were moving in on the Skrull land, wiping out the species, and taking their planets. The Skrull were not technologically advanced enough to fight the Kree, and the Kree continued to bring their armies. Armies that Carol was a part of. The scientist realized this and was trying to find a way to get the Skrull off of their hiding places and thousands of lightyears away where the Kree couldn’t hurt them any longer. Now, it was up to Carol, young Fury, Rambeau, and Talos (a Skrull refugee) to save the Skrull species.

I know that this was just a fantasy film, but it did make a pretty strong statement. The Skrull knew that they had done some bad things, but they were trying to protect themselves from the Kreee who had struck first. The Kree media were constantly painting the Skrull as demons, even though the Skrull were mostly acting in self-defense. No Skrull was going and killing thousands of Kree families, the Kree were killing thousands of Skrull families. It seemed almost like a statement as to what’s going on in America currently, on a more drastic scale. I don’t know if the graphic novels had the same story as this or if it was the writers of the movie making a statement, but it really stuck with me. America has been on the “wrong side of the war” a few times, just like the Kree were, and it takes a strong, smart person to recognize that.

The rest of the movie was mostly just Carol saving the Skrulls found on the scientist’s old space station and fighting her old Kree military team. It was an awesome scene when she found Talos’ family, and it was definitely epic when she broke free of the limiter that the Kree had put on her to dampen her powers. Rambeau and Fury didn’t stay out of the action either, they got a little help from a cat and managed to help fight off Carol’s former teammates. I don’t know why the team didn’t listen to Carol at all, I guess they were all in on it and wanted the Skrull to be demonized? This wasn’t really explained all that well.

My last favorite part of the movie was when Carol’s boss tried to do a “last stand battle for honor” sort of thing. He wanted her to fight him in hand to hand combat, to “prove” that she was stronger than him. She just blasted him with her powers and sent him back to Hala. No one has time to do last stands! That always got me so mad when villains would just talk and talk and the hero would agree to their demands like they are the VILLAIN for a reason!

Overall, this was an absolutely amazing film! I will definitely be watching it again when it is put on Netflix, and I would definitely recommend that everyone I know sees it! Of course, if you haven’t seen it, you shouldn’t have read this rambling post with spoilers, but still. If I didn’t convince you to at least watch it for yourself, I don’t know what will. This one was good!

Overall Rating: 6 out of 5 stars!

Rambling about Captain America Civil War (With Spoilers!)

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So, I rarely watch movies. Like, until this past weekend, the last time I remember sitting down to watch a movie was when I saw Wonder Woman in the summer of 2017. I just don’t do it that often. But, I watched 4 movies in 24 hours on Saturday and Sunday, and I plan to review them all! Starting off with Civil War.

Alright, so I will admit. The only reason why I watched this movie was that I wanted to see Tom Holland’s first Marvel appearance. I love his version of Spiderman, and I wanted to see the story from the very beginning. What I got was far more than I signed up for, and I loved every minute of it.

So basically, in this movie the Avengers get in trouble for accidentally killing people on their missions. This was triggered by Wanda, aka Scarlet Witch, accidentally dragging an explosion to an office building. Only a few people died, but they were people from Wakanda. This leads the United Nations to create Accords to try to limit the power of the Avengers, so that they would have to go through a panel before they do anything. This splits up the team, as some think that they should sign the Accords before they are forced into it, and others believe that they should wait.

Then, Captain America’s old friend Bucky is framed for bombing the UN and killing the king of Wakanda. He wasn’t even there, and Captain knows that, so he decides to seek out his friend. By siding with Bucky he becomes a criminal, and a few Avengers team up with him. This officially splits the team in half, as many others side with Black Panther and Iron Man.

So the final team is Captain America, Wanda/Scarlet Witch, Falcon, Bucky/Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, and Ant Man VS. Iron Man, Black Panther, Spiderman, War Machine, Black Widow, and Vision.

I have to say that at least this far into the film series, I kinda agreed with Iron Man’s side on the Accords. It would make more sense to sign now and try to negotiate later instead of trying to go against human authority, making them not want to trust the enhanced humans anymore. Sure, they could go against the UN if they truly needed to, but for not it would have been the best choice. But that’s just my opinion.

Then, let’s move on to the whole Winter Soldier situation. I know that Captain America wanted to help his friend, but by helping Bucky run, it did make him look guilty when he wasn’t. The UN might not have listened to him, but he could have at least had a chance to make his case. By running and subsequently getting caught, they took away any chance of negotiating with the government. The only reason why they weren’t put in jail was because Iron Man thought that he would be able to convince them to sign the Accords. Bucky was jailed though, as the government had already deemed him a villain. I haven’t seen the previous films, which is kinda needed to make sense of the whole Winter Soldier debacle, but it kinda confuses me how everyone seems to be so split when this guy was clearly brainwashed and has been doing things that were not under his own control.

I love Wanda and Vision’s friendship so much, and I definitely think that they could be more in future movies.  Wanda is around 18-20 years old, and she is struggling with her powers. Vision is a synthetic person, AI if you will, who is technically only a few years old but has the mental capacity of an adult male. Vision is put in charge of taking care of Wanda and making sure that she doesn’t leave the Avengers’ Tower after the events at the beginning of the film. Even though Wanda is technically being kept prisoner, she befriends Vision and he tries to make her feel as if she is at home. Wanda doesn’t fit in with the rest of the Avengers because she is younger and has powers that the public view as being “more dangerous.” Vision doesn’t fit in because he isn’t human and doesn’t understand the societal norms. The two stick together and form a relationship that I don’t think either of them could have had with any other Avenger.

This film also shows the start of Spiderman’s journey with Tony Stark. Tom Holland is honestly a great Peter Parker, he acts the part of a fifteen-year-old boy so well. I wish we had sort of gotten an introduction to how he had gotten his powers, and how he created the cheap suit, and how he was doing in NYC before Tony came into the picture, but we don’t. Instead we are fully thrown into the storyline where Iron Man needs help defeating Captain America and his crew, so he decides to recruit Spiderman onto his new team.

Spiderman is definitely my favorite character in the entire film. He doesn’t really know what’s going on, but he is just fanboying over getting the chance to see all of his favorite superheroes in action. He doesn’t even really know how to fight, but because the other Avengers don’t know him, he brought the element of surprise. I love his little banter throughout the fight as many other Avengers are just like “Who IS this kid??”

Then, the big reveal comes. Bucky killed Iron Mans parents while he was under the control of Hydra, and Tony loses it. He just attacks Captain America and Bucky, even as Cap is trying to explain that it wasn’t Bucky’s fault. I think that is really going to be Tony’s downfall in a way, his temper. Like here’s a guy that you trusted saying that it was not Bucky’s fault that his parents are dead, but you just keep attacking. You are just getting beaten to a pulp but you won’t stop trying to 2V1 two guys who are just as strong as you are. I understand that he was hurting, but that was a pretty dumb thing to do.

Overall, I loved this movie, but I felt as if I didn’t love the right characters? I didn’t love Bucky or Cap or really care about their story at all. I didn’t care about Iron Man. The only people I cared about were Wanda and Vision, and Spiderman. But they made the whole movie for me, so that’s fine. I will be reviewing Infinity War next, so stay tuned!

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The Gifted Season 1 Episode 3 Review

Mrs Strucker decides to take her and her kids to her brother for protection, however the others think this is a very bad idea. This is proven when the neighborhood is attracted to the house from an instagram post by Andy’s cousin, and they are forced to run. Mr. Strucker has to reveal where the mutant underground is in order to gain his and his family’s freedom, but as he is carrying out his mission, he is slowed down by a mutant mother and daughter who are trying to find freedom. Clarice struggles with her portal powers, and Dreamer wants to use her powers to get into Clarice’s head and give her something to work for.

This show honestly just keeps getting better every week. My favorite part of this episode was when Andy’s cousin posted a picture of the statue Andy had bent, drawing him to the house. The whole episode, I had been watching the brother/uncle, waiting for him to do something and rat his family out. However, the whole time I should’ve been waiting for the idiot cousin to do something.

I wonder if in the next episode we will get to see the aftereffects of Dreamer’s powers!

Overall Rating: 5/5

Wonder Woman Movie Review

Okay, I didn’t know what to expect at all when I walked into this movie theatre. I was always more of a Marvel gal to be honest. I watched Agents of Shield and skipped Gotham. Then Supergirl came out and I have been obsessed with that for basically forever. And now, Wonder Woman came out and I was expecting a movie about current times, not about the past. But this is more of a Wonder Woman origin story, which I ended up loving even more.

Wonder Woman/Diana lived on an island full of Amazon women who were put there by the Greek gods from Olympus in order to learn how to fight and eventually kill Ares with a sword called the godkiller. Diana’s mother forbids young Diana from training because they think that Ares will never return, but Diana’s aunt Antiope trains Diana in secret. A few years later when they are found out, Antiope convinces Diana’s mother to let Diana continue training. By the time she has grown into an adult woman, she is an amazing fighter, but she has some powers that no one can explain, such as the bracelets that she wears that accidentally knocked down her aunt with some kind of sound wave when she crossed her forearms. A pilot named Steve crashes into the ocean within the island’s mist barrier, and the Germans are after him on ships, but they get through the mist barrier by accident and begin to attack the Amazonians with their guns. Steve is captured, the Germans are killed, and he says that there is a terrible war going on outside the island. He says that there is some crucial information that he MUST share with the British in order to stop more people from being killed in the war. Diana thinks that the war must be caused by Ares, so she and Steve leave the island together, him in search of the commanders he needs to give the crucial information to, and Diana in search of Ares.

I loved this movie. I really loved this movie. I know people always said that they didn’t think it lived up to the hype, but I never listened to any of the hype so I wasn’t expecting anything. I thought that by having the backstory of the island, it felt much more personal when she left and went to see the outside world. I also liked the view of WW1, it was sad to me because as she tried to save humanity in the movie, in real life the humans just kept fighting each other which got them nowhere. This was a great plot line for her, although I don’t know if it followed the comics or not simply because I never read the comics. (Steve was Chris Pine, and if you are a girl like me, you watched Princess Diaries 2 when you were young, so seeing him go from Nicholas to Steve has been such a journey for me.)

The movie looked amazing. The only issue I had in the theatre was that they had so many metaly sound effects during the fight scenes that sometimes I felt like I just had the permanent whine of metal screeching on metal stuck in my ears. But other than that none of the other sound effects were particularly obnoxious. I would recommend this movie for anyone who hasn’t seen it, but if you have sensitive ears to those noises then either see it in a theatre that you know has the sound down a little lower than others or wait for it to come out on Netflix or DVD to watch it.

Overall Rating: 6/5