Captain Marvel takes you on a nostalgic journey

Imagine ending up in the 1990s for a few days and hoping to stay there forever. At a time when life was easy without the super-speed internet, there were giant mobile phones that not many could afford, people used to page their loved ones, and DVDs weren’t even a thing! Interesting, isn’t it? Marvel’s latest Captain Marvel has that effect on the audience as it takes you back into the pre-Google era and makes you want to be a part of the simple 1990s. It also shows to the world that Captain Marvel is more powerful than any other superhero around and if anyone can defeat Thanos, it’s this marvelous superhero or else!

Written and directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, Marvel’s first female superhero is more like DC’s first – Wonder Woman – but here, the world as we know it and superheroes from Team Avengers are at stake. You go into the theatre hoping to find out why Samuel L Jackson’s Nick Fury paged Captain Marvel and when you come out, you have all the answers. Not only is Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel the most powerful superhero you have ever seen, she is also a confused individual, one who doesn’t know about her own origin. The film takes you down the memory lane, shows you what makes Captain Marvel such a big deal and raises your optimism level ahead of Avengers: Endgame that is all set for a release later this week.

The film’s highlight besides Brie Larson’s action sequences and discovery of her origins is the digitally regressed Samuel L Jackson and Clark Gregg who look young and energetic. They are shown to have the making of a savior-of-the-world kind of agent and that’s the reason why Cap terms them as their friends. Then there is the battle between Krees and Skrulls with one of them being extraterrestrial shapeshifters, with Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) finding himself in the middle. Don’t be surprised to find Annette Benning and a mysterious cat playing important roles in the film; it’s more like a puzzle that is fitted together at the climax when you realize that there is more than meets the eye in case of Captain Marvel.

This film has everything a Superhero fan wants in a perfect flick – Powerful aliens attacking Earth, loss of memory for an alien that mingles as a human, a backstory that is intriguing and engaging, a back-to-the-future feel, etc. and a plot that is bigger than anything we have seen. The film is set at a time when SHIELD was in its infancy, when Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson was a rookie when Samuel L Jackson’s Nick Fury didn’t wear an eyepatch and when most superheroes were just teenagers, the very same people who disintegrated in Infinity Wars and for whom Captain Marvel will return 25 years after leaving her home planet.

The film also gives you a nostalgic feeling especially in scenes where the characters try using a dial-up connection, enter a Blockbuster video store, visit a bar that has video games, send a message through a pager and most importantly when Captain Marvel uses a payphone to call her boss in space. Although the film was released late in Pakistan due to issues with the exhibitors, it has managed to do well at the box office and will keep the audience’s interest on the rise till the release of Avengers: Endgame on April 26th. Captain Marvel’s presence in the updated Avengers: Endgame trailer also gives the film the hype it didn’t need. It will be a treat to watch how the Avengers defeat Thanos because after watching Captain Marvel, we are certain that Thanos’ days are numbered, for sure.