The Marvels review: It is oddly brave - and welcome

When Stan Lee first got out his pencil, I doubt the Marvel Comics luminary had in mind several dozen cats regurgitating time-warped space engineers to the soaring chords of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Memory”. But the ongoing viability of the onscreen Marvel Cinematic Universe depends on tonal evolution, and so evolve it has. This is no longer a franchise trying to entertain hardened audiences with bigger is better, but a series joyfully experimenting with jokes on a very big budget.

The Marvels, a sequel to 2019’s warmly received female-led blockbuster Captain Marvel, is an extraordinarily quirky take on the comic book blockbuster, more a series of funny vignettes than a fully fledged film. Brie Larson is back as Captain Marvel, aka Carol Danvers, the half-human, half-Kree (alien race, keep up) superhero who helped the Skrull race in the last film.

Here she joins forces with two other female superheroes with similar light-harnessing powers: Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), the daughter of her late best friend, and Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani), a 16-year-old American-Pakistani fan-girl from New Jersey.

This image released by Disney shows, from left, Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel, Brie Larson as Captain Marvel, and Teyonah Parris as Captain Monica Rambeau in a scene from "The Marvels." (Laura Radford/Disney-Marvel Studios via AP) — From left, Iman Vellani as Ms Marvel, Brie Larson as Captain Marvel, and Teyonah Parris as Captain Monica Rambeau in The Marvels (Photo: Laura Radford/Disney-Marvel Studios via AP)

When the three become entangled, accidentally swapping places every time they use their powers, they must stick together to defeat Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), a Kree revolutionary intent on restoring the power of her homeland whatever the cost to others.

The film packs a punch in its slim 104 minutes, mostly because it concentrates on the bond of its lead trio. They are all excellent, but Vellani (coming to this off the back of her successful TV show Ms. Marvel) is particularly strong. Kamala brings the same fresh, scruffy “what the hell am I doing here?” teenage energy to the role that the Miles Morales character brought to the Spider-Verse films. As a self-confessed super-fan of Captain Marvel (we first meet her doodling fan fiction in a room plastered with Marvel posters), Kamala also reunites comic book audiences with their original geeky selves.

Nia DaCosta (Candyman) is directing and writing, alongside co-writer Megan McDonnell (who worked on the excellent Scarlett Witch TV spin-off WandaVision) and they don’t hammer home the sisterhood message, but gently probe it with hugs and humour. Although there’s a terrific body-swapping fight scene early on, the film generally favours laughs over combat. Just before that ridiculous cats scene, there is also an utterly bizarre encounter with an intergalactic community who communicate exclusively through song. I loved it.

The focus on relationships does mean that the plot feels a little garbled. There’s a bit too much going on and Ashton’s villain feels sadly undeveloped and low stakes. It’s hard to care about Hala’s lost sun when there are funny felines.

Still, it feels oddly brave to make films like this so weird, and very welcome too. Who knew the thing the MCU needed to feel fresh was retching cats?

The Marvels is in UK cinemas on Friday