Steven Hoang, Staff

I consider myself a Marvel fan and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has grown my love for it. I have stayed up to date on all the shows and films like the second season of “Loki,” which I enjoyed from start to finish. To me, I find this fictional world filled with superheroes to be an escape from the cruel reality called life. With that being said, I would like to share my thoughts on the new film “The Marvels.”

This film serves as a sequel to the 2019 film “Captain Marvel” and features characters such as Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) and Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani).

I can gladly say that this movie was a huge improvement from its predecessor. In “Captain Marvel,” I felt that Danvers’ character lacked a bit of depth and substance. This to me was resolved through this film as Danvers becomes a lot more personable.

Additionally, I enjoyed the interactions between Danvers, Rambeau, and Khan. It did not feel stiff and I think that the chemistry between Larson, Parris, and Vellani plays a huge part in that. I grew to enjoy the characters a lot more and their connections between each other.

There were also the fight scenes that I enjoyed overall. This element of the movie really helped to enhance the experience as I loved the choreography. It was great to see Danvers, Rambeau, and Khan learning how to coordinate as a team.

In terms of minor characters such as Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Khan’s family members (Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapoor and Saagar Shaikh), they helped in adding some comedic moments in a way that did not feel forced, which I appreciated.

My only complaint would probably be the run time. The movie ran for about 105 minutes (1 hour and 45 minutes to be exact). I think that if the movie was a bit longer, there would be more time to flesh out the story even more as it did feel a bit rushed. One plot element in particular that I felt would benefit from the additional time would be Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton). She is the movie’s antagonist and I felt that she was not given as much attention. Because of that, I was not as fully invested in her character. I think she had potential in being a compelling villain, but the short run time hindered her role in the story.

With that being said, the film to me was enjoyable. Besides from it being an improvement to its predecessor, I found that it was a lot better than some of the previously released MCU projects such as “Thor: Love and Thunder” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” I would give this movie a solid 8 out of 10.