Despite arguably being the most powerful character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) Captain Marvel still had a lot of heavy lifting to do in terms of expectations. It was the 21st film in the MCU, and the precursor to the event that was “Avengers: Endgame”, which came out roughly 7 weeks after Captain Marvel’s debut. It was the first to be a solo outing for a female character in the MCU, being the titular Captain Marvel (Brie Larson). It also felt like an eleventh-hour decision to have our first introduction to the character, and it was heavily hinted that she was going to play a significant role in Endgame.
Fortunately, for the better part of the movie, Larson manages to shoulder the expectations set on her and uses them to launch herself into the MCU. Her extensive acting talents are sublimely on display when she rotates effortlessly between her two distinct personas. The first being Vers, battling with memory loss and the echoes of who she once was, while desperately trying to fight her emotional nature and to try and appear stoic in a foreign environment. Secondly, as the stone-cold badass Air Force pilot Carol Danvers that we witness in flashbacks. Continue reading ITOL Top 50 Films of the Decade, Entry No 19: Captain Marvel