Captain Marvel 2019
Brie Larson's Carol Danvers, judged as a movie asked to do five jobs at once: an origin story, a S.H.I.E.L.D. prequel, the Kree-Skrull war, an Avengers setup, and a ’90s period piece. Fennessey calls the storytelling rickety and the girl-power framing reactive; Dobbins finds it functional but forgettable. Both snag on the needle-drops (No Doubt's 'Just a Girl' over the big fight, Nirvana's 'Come as You Are') as a Happy Meal version of the decade. Larson comes alive only riffing with Samuel L. Jackson; Ben Mendelsohn's Talos is the film's real emotional center.
