“Captain Marvel” follows Carol ‘Vers’ Danvers, an Air Force pilot involved in the top-secret Shield program ‘Pegasus’. One alien attack later, she finds herself on the Kree planet of Hala, without any memory of her previous life on Earth. From there, she returns to the Terran planet, also known as Earth in laymen’s terms, searching for remnants of her past and answers to the questions left in her mind.

I don’t generally listen to negative movie reviews; if I want to go watch a movie, I will. Of course, being part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), I was going to go to “Captain Marvel” anyways, but the mediocre reviews worried me. I was still excited to see the film, but my expectations were low.

Well, they were absolutely blown away. 

Everything in “Captain Marvel” clicks. It fits perfectly into the already created Marvel Universe, tying up loose ends from past movies, and provides a deeper understanding of some previously brushed over plot points. I’m not normally a fan of action scenes (a strange sentiment for a superhero fan, I know), but this movie executed them exquisitely. Every hit, every takedown, every fight sequence, I became more and more enthralled. 

The plot, though fairly cliché of a superhero movie, had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. It was very well paced, and the impactful climaxes in the movie resulted in a jaw drop every time. The characters played off each other extremely well. Similarly to every MCU movie, there were jokes that took away from the seriousness of the movie, but they were all very much in character, and when things got serious, the characters reflected that. Some of the dialogue in the first third of the movie was a bit awkward, but it found its footing as the action picked up. 

The casting choices were superb, akin to the likes of Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man and Chris Evans as Captain America. Brie Larson absolutely killed it as Captain Marvel. There were many emotional scenes in the movie, and Larson’s acting had me tearing up at times. Her portrayal and delivery were phenomenal, but admittedly at some points, her body language was closed off and not correlating with her words or actions. However, it is only noticeable if you know exactly what to look for, and it’s not prominent throughout the whole film. 

“Captain Marvel” is the first female led MCU movie, and it certainly won’t be the last. It proves undoubtedly that girls can be superheroes too, bringing in a new wave of Marvel fans. Of course, being a boy myself, I was not totally convinced of the effect the movie had at first, but in the two showings I saw, there were more women in attendance than any other MCU movie I’ve seen, by far. “Captain Marvel” sets an impressively high bar for the rest of the MCU movies that follow, and I sincerely hope they can live up to the expectation. 

“Captain Marvel,” for me, is a top five Marvel movie, up there with the likes of “Avengers: Infinity War,” “Iron Man,” and “Guardians of the Galaxy.” It’s the perfect culmination of years of work, and will become a classic of the original MCU.