Captain Marvel
Original post date: 8 April 2019
Rating: ✭✭✰✰
To the long list of movies that have done location shooting in my native Kern County, California, we can add the latest installment from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In addition to filming at Edwards Air Force Base, at one point our intrepid Carol Danvers and Nick Fury land at Pancho’s Bar in the desert town of Rosamond. Pancho’s is really the Zebra Club, but it was clearly renamed in honor of legendary aviator Florence Lowe “Pancho” Barnes, who was immortalized in Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, the film adapation of which is also name-checked in a great blink-or-you’ll-miss-it scene in a Blockbuster Video. Yes, this movie is set in the 1990s, and it has great fun reminiscing over how slow and clunky computers were back then. The nods to heroic test-pilot history is one of the best things about this movie. Another is a more generous slice of time with Samuel L. Jackson than we usually get in the Marvel movies, even if he borders on uncanny-valley-ness in the de-aging process. (Remember when it was only dodgy makeup that distracted you when actors were made younger?) While this is obviously Captain Marvel’s origin story, it is really also Fury’s—as well as an effective bridge between two Avengers blockbusters. Of all the various most-beloved Marvel characters in the MCU, Fury is one of the most re-invented since they could hardly stick with the version that he was originally one of the Howling Commandos in World War II—unless they wanted to freeze him for a few decades like Captain America. For completist fans, getting some backstory on S.H.I.E.L.D. is one of the best reasons to see the movie. Brie Larson (no relation) is another good reason, although she doesn’t grab our attention relentlessly like, say, Robert Downey Jr. This is essentially a sci-fi adventure flick, and on the positive side, it provides plenty of gigantic space vessels and combat action. On the other hand, it also has a really cute young kid and a cat. Actually, the cat is pretty cool, and one of my favorite moments was when the CGI Sam Jackson says “Good kitty” to the CGI cat. (If you’ve seen it, you know what I mean.) A bit earnest in places, this flick by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck is overall a solid, if secondary, entry in the MCU film sequence. Need another reason to see it? How about a poignant posthumous Stan Lee cameo? Come to think of it, given what’s achievable these days with CGI (cf. Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher in the Star Wars movies), will Stan’s cameos actually continue ad infinitum?
Rating: ✭✭✰✰
To the long list of movies that have done location shooting in my native Kern County, California, we can add the latest installment from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In addition to filming at Edwards Air Force Base, at one point our intrepid Carol Danvers and Nick Fury land at Pancho’s Bar in the desert town of Rosamond. Pancho’s is really the Zebra Club, but it was clearly renamed in honor of legendary aviator Florence Lowe “Pancho” Barnes, who was immortalized in Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, the film adapation of which is also name-checked in a great blink-or-you’ll-miss-it scene in a Blockbuster Video. Yes, this movie is set in the 1990s, and it has great fun reminiscing over how slow and clunky computers were back then. The nods to heroic test-pilot history is one of the best things about this movie. Another is a more generous slice of time with Samuel L. Jackson than we usually get in the Marvel movies, even if he borders on uncanny-valley-ness in the de-aging process. (Remember when it was only dodgy makeup that distracted you when actors were made younger?) While this is obviously Captain Marvel’s origin story, it is really also Fury’s—as well as an effective bridge between two Avengers blockbusters. Of all the various most-beloved Marvel characters in the MCU, Fury is one of the most re-invented since they could hardly stick with the version that he was originally one of the Howling Commandos in World War II—unless they wanted to freeze him for a few decades like Captain America. For completist fans, getting some backstory on S.H.I.E.L.D. is one of the best reasons to see the movie. Brie Larson (no relation) is another good reason, although she doesn’t grab our attention relentlessly like, say, Robert Downey Jr. This is essentially a sci-fi adventure flick, and on the positive side, it provides plenty of gigantic space vessels and combat action. On the other hand, it also has a really cute young kid and a cat. Actually, the cat is pretty cool, and one of my favorite moments was when the CGI Sam Jackson says “Good kitty” to the CGI cat. (If you’ve seen it, you know what I mean.) A bit earnest in places, this flick by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck is overall a solid, if secondary, entry in the MCU film sequence. Need another reason to see it? How about a poignant posthumous Stan Lee cameo? Come to think of it, given what’s achievable these days with CGI (cf. Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher in the Star Wars movies), will Stan’s cameos actually continue ad infinitum?
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