‘The Marvels’ Sacrificed Itself on the Franchise Altar

Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for The Marvels.

The Big Picture

• The Marvels
  delivers an enjoyable cosmic comedy with solid performances and a heroic trio of Carol Danvers, Monica Rambeau, and Kamala Khan.
• The movie’s rushed and disjointed ending, aimed at setting up new teams and introducing the X-Men, detracts from its strengths.
• The burden of franchise-building in the post-
  Endgame
  era dampens the reception of Phase Four and Five movies that should be enjoyed on their own merits.

The Marvels, which serves as a sort of amalgamation sequel to 2019’s Captain Marvel and both the WandaVision and Ms. Marvel Disney+ series, brought a trio of heroes together to face a multiversal threat, and it seemed to have more odds stacked against it than your usual Marvel Studios movie. The actors’ strike prevented the cast from participating in the usual press tour, the track record of recent MCU entries tempered expectations, and a sect of the internet that’s inherently opposed to women at the helm became vocal before The Marvels even had its premiere.

Each point considered, The Marvels still managed to deliver one of the MCU’s most enjoyable experiences yet — a cosmic comedy carrying plenty of emotional weight. With Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), and Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) finally joining forces thanks to some surprisingly easy-to-follow logistics, it’s an under-two-hour ride that’s blessed by a solid villain (Zawe Ashton‘s Dar-Benn), another Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) outing, and a supporting cast among the franchise’s best. It’s that franchise’s existence, however, that ultimately sullies what The Marvels accomplishes. A final scene with the sole purpose of setting up a new team of young heroes and an end-credits tag meant to usher in the Mutants leaves us with a rushed, disjointed ending to an otherwise excellent movie.

‘The Marvels’ Is a Good Movie, but Its Ending Didn’t Stick the Landing

Despite some mixed reception, The Marvels is overflowing with positives that effectively outweigh its debatable flaws. Ultimately, the film has fallen victim to the Avengers: Endgame burden, a sort of post-Infinity-Saga syndrome that, frankly, puts an unfair level of expectation on Endgame‘s subsequent entries. If The Marvels had been a part of Phase One or Two of the MCU, it would’ve undoubtedly been regarded as an impressively concise and entirely fun comic book movie. Yes, the MCU needs to slow down with the rapid-fire introductions of new characters, but plenty of its Phase Four and Five installments have been judged a bit too harshly, all thanks to the triumphant manner in which Phase Three was concluded. If a deeper breath was taken, if this era was witnessed with the mindset of the MCU’s earlier days, these movies would have a better shot at garnering a decent reception. We’ll get to the next Endgame eventually — let’s have some innocent fun along the way.

Of course, Marvel Studios must be aware of the expectations that they’ve built, and that’s why The Marvels, a film that should be remembered for its top-notch fight choreography, its thankless delivery of a villain with relatable motives, and its ability to ride the line of comedy without ever breaching overboard, has been bogged down by the burden of building the future of the franchise. It’s a heavy yoke to carry, and the blame is not to be placed on The Marvels‘ team. The three leads share some of the best chemistry the MCU has seen in years. The film’s director, Nia DaCosta, has shown a deep understanding of how to make the swift, sweeping joy of a comic book translate to the screen. There’s a fleet of space-cats, there’s singing (but not too much), and, above all, it’s fun. Then, unfortunately, the franchise-building scenes are tacked on, and that’s when everything simply falls flat.

‘The Marvels’ Uses Its Ending To Set Up the Young Avengers

Despite all that The Marvels was able to accomplish in its (albeit a bit too short) runtime, what should have been the final scene was abruptly interrupted by a moment so out of place that, by the time the credits started rolling, the warm feeling the movie had created was already fading away. After the film’s climax, in which the marvelous trio successfully thwarts Dar-Benn, Monica Rambeau is left behind in another universe after making the self-sacrificial move to close a hole that had been torn open in space-time. The haste of that battle’s conclusion aside — we’ll get to that in a moment — it’s bookended by an endearing scene between Carol and Kamala. Carol, seemingly settling down on Earth for the first time in decades, has chosen to look after Monica’s home, remaining hopeful that she’ll one day return. Moreover, the scene gives Kamala a quiet, genuine moment of togetherness with Captain Marvel, her hero turned friend, ally, and mentor.

This is where The Marvels should have ended. An intimate, character-driven bow tie after a fast-paced hour-and-a-half-ish of cosmic entanglement would have surely left a comfortable majority walking out of the theater with smiles stretched across their faces. However, at the tail end of this ideal ending, Kamala has an idea. Cut to: the apartment of Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld). Hopefully, you watched the Hawkeye series, or you might’ve been a bit confused.

The Marvels already had the burden of introducing Kamala, the Khan family, and Monica Rambeau to viewers that hadn’t seen Ms. Marvel or WandaVision. The average moviegoer doesn’t want homework — a hurdle the film handled beautifully — but then we get Kate Bishop showing up at the finish line. The balloon of joy The Marvels inflated was popped in an instant, by the arm-twisting power of the franchise, so that Kamala and Kate could set up the Young Avengers. To make things worse, this could have easily been an end-credits scene. MCU fans are well-adjusted to the tags at the end of each movie presenting a lead-in to the next. For this scene in particular, it would have been unbelievably fitting to have placed it after the film’s credits. Kamala Khan, shrouded in shadow, is waiting for Kate Bishop to return home. Once she enters, Kate’s surprised by Kamala, who’s come to propose a new, younger team of Avengers. The scene calls back to Iron Man and the MCU’s first end-credits scene, parodying the moment in which Nick Fury appeared in the home of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) to discuss the Avengers Initiative.

Introducing the X-Men Overshadowed Monica Rambeau’s Story

After the Young Avengers stole the film’s ending, the initial credits roll. Then, we’re given a mid-credits scene that, in its own right, doesn’t necessarily detract from The Marvels. Monica Rambeau, who’s been stranded in a separate universe, wakes up in a hospital room of sorts, where she’s elated and shocked to find her mother, Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch) by her side. Except it’s not really her mother, it’s a multiversal, seemingly superpowered variant of Maria known as Binary in the comics, much like the Captain Marvel version of Maria whom we encountered in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Then, Hank McCoy (Kelsey Grammer) enters the room, bent on questioning their surprise visitor from another universe.

Hank McCoy, of course, is the fang-toothed and blue-furred scientist better known by another name — Beast. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen an actor from the Fox universe’s X-Men films reprise their role in the MCU; Patrick Stewart‘s Professor Charles Xavier had another turn (and gruesome demise) in Sam Raimi‘s Doctor Strange sequel. This has been a long time coming, ever since Disney purchased Fox and, in turn, acquired the film rights to Marvel’s pantheon of Mutants.

It feels like the fault of the X-Men that Monica’s fate came in such a rush. We barely had time to wrap our minds around the mechanics of why Monica had to close the rip in space-time from the other side of the hole. Blink for just a bit too long, and you’ll miss the weight of the situation reflected on Carol Danvers’ face. Blink again, and the closing scene between Carol and Kamala (the one that should have been the ending) is already finished, and we’ve moved on to setting up the Young Avengers. Monica Rambeau deserved better; the introduction of the X-Men was bound to overshadow the story of any character burdened with such a task.

The Marvels is now available to stream on Disney+ in the U.S.

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