Update and Captain Marvel

Well it's been awhile since I've done a #pastebinmonday... so what the hey! Here we go! Couple quick speedrun related things, and then I'll jump into my thoughts on Captain Marvel! While that will stop short of a full review, there are somethings I thought that would be worth typing out a bit more. It will be spoiler-filled, so if you haven't seen the movie and care, then be sure to skip that part.

As for speedruns, I'm excited that I was able to get new PBs in time to submit DKC2 to SGDQ. Though neither PB is indicative of my full potential at the moment, I'm just glad I was able to get something to show that I was still current with the game. And that I was able to get such times (with a ton of room to spare in both) less than 2 months into coming back to the game is really encouraging! My 102% PB has an easy minute lost due to slop, whereas back when I got the 1:31:31, it felt like near the peak of my abilities. Same is true for any% - I got a tiny PB, but basically just re-distributed the time save from the wrong warps into some deaths. Getting a 40:3x should be an easy feat - which, considering that my old, pre-wrong warp 41:51 was the peak of my abilities, is exciting indeed. So after such little time spent in de-rust, I'm already better now than I ever was back then. If the submissions list is correct, it looks like if DKC2 gets into SGDQ, it'll be either Kanis, me, or a race between the two of us. I feel like I'm still a long shot, but I'm just glad that I was able to try.

Short term plan is to try to go snag that any% PB - I get somewhere in the mid-40s, I'll be happy. I'm not quite ready to push for 39 (unless SGDQ decides to put me in a race...). But after that, I will try to push for that 1:29 in 102.

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As for my CAPTAIN MARVEL thoughts.... here we go! I pretty much got exactly what I expected from this movie - for both good and bad. At a high level, I'd say that it was one of the MCU's weaker entries, but it still had several fun moments. My impressions from the trailer were that it was just a generic, sci-fi action movie, and yeah, that's pretty much exactly what we got. The performances weren't terribly impressive in the trailer either, and, unfortunately, that is also what we got.

The Good:
My favorite part was all around just being in the MCU again. I loved all the connections to other movies. Nick Fury and Coulson were wonderful. Seeing the Tessaract show up again was a (mild) surprise, but I was super excited when it happened. I love too that Carol's powers were derived from an Infinity Stone, as well. Very similar to how Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver got their powers from the Mind Stone. I liked the nods to Guardians of the Galaxy - with the Kree technology, Korath and Ronan, and overall MCU cosmic vibe.

I generally liked the storyline with the Skrulls, as well. I liked Talos and Ben Mendelsohn's performance. There was some good humor that they pulled in with these characters. My favorite scene was probably the flashback where we found out what happened with Carol and Mar-Vell. Felt like the drama and tension were a lot more present in that scene. The 90s feel, with the music and setting, were all great. I especially loved the Stan Lee tribute in the opening titles for Marvel Studios. And of course, GOOSE!


The Bad:
Unfortunately... Captain Marvel herself. She just wasn't that interesting. It was hard to get a sense of her personality - one minute she would be super focused and driven, the next she'd be cracking an awkward joke and trying to appear relatable. There was no organic growth to her relationship with Nick Fury - it just went from nothing to a friendship basically right away. Same thing with Carol's friend from the Air Force and her daughter - there was no organic growth to those relationships. At least not on screen. And it felt like when her memory came back it just... came back completely? Overall, I liked the direction they were trying to take the characters and the storyline - but none of the stuff was actually *earned* on screen. Honestly, with this, it was hard to believe that Brie Larson is an Oscar winning actress. I don't know if it was the dialogue, the direction, or what... but something was off.

And the end conflict was just awkward and rushed. Captain Marvel's seemingly unlimited power took almost all the tension out of every conflict she was in. I realize that the story of the movie was her process of self-discovery, including her abilities as well as her memories - but there was no drama to the actual fight scenes themselves. She never felt like she (or anyone else) was actually at risk. Which I suppose is a bit of an issue with any prequel film, but it was more obvious here.

But all that was pretty much expected from the trailers. The two things I think were most disappointing to me are 1) they didn't do a good job of addressing where she was during Avengers 1. Why would Fury have not used that pager to call her when there was a giant wormhole opened above New York City? You'd think that would have been a pretty good trigger for him to call up Carol, who is a much more effective nuke than whatever that council tried to send. And 2) she spent 20 years trying to help the Skrulls find a new home? She told the Kree she was coming for them, but by the time we get to Guardians of the Galaxy (roughly 15 years later in MCU time) I guess everyone is... still fine?

Obviously that stuff is all getting retconned, but I just feel like they could have done a better job of that retconning.


The HYPE:
Endgame. So excited. I loved that Mid-credit tease. At first, I was a bit caught off-guard, since it would feel like a pretty significant misstep to have Captain Marvel's reveal in that movie happen before the movie even began. But then I realized that we were actually seeing a scene *from* the movie! Just like the Ant-Man post-credits scene which showed a clip directly from Civil War. That being the case, this is a pretty sweet way to bring our new Cap into the fold. I'm really hoping that under the writing and directing team of the Russos, Markus, and Mcfeely, that Carol Danvers is really given an opportunity to shine, and that Brie Larson's true acting skill is able to emerge. (But, my greatest fear for that movie is that they do what they did in this one and use Captain Marvel as basically just an auto-win button. I doubt that will happen, but I fear it). I'm really looking forward to seeing how she fits in with the rest of the crew.

I liked Captain Marvel. It was a fun ride, and as an MCU movie, it was a good experience. Though not their strongest work, it's entertaining superhero fare. I will definitely be seeing it again in the theater before Endgame comes out. Now that I know what we got, I'm looking forward to seeing what my second reaction is.


As for my MCU rankings, you can find those here: https://pastebin.com/acBZC6Xs

I put this one in the bottom tier, ahead of Thor 2, Incredible Hulk, and Iron Man 2 - but behind Iron Man 3, Thor, and Dr. Strange.