| Walt Disney Pictures | Release Date: November 10, 2023 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
23
Mixed:
25
Negative:
9
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Critic Reviews
Nov 8, 2023
Here’s the main thing you need to know about The Marvels, the 33rd movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: It’s fun. That shouldn’t be revelatory since comic book movies are supposed to be uplifting blockbuster entertainment, but it’s both a surprise and a relief that Nia DaCosta’s MCU debut is genuinely enjoyable.
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Nov 8, 2023
The Marvels is a triumph. Its depth can be seen not just through its characters, but through its story as it explores war's complicated fallout; the difficulty of being a human when you are perceived as a monolith; and the hilarious and complicated virtues of family. Both funny and heartfelt, Nia DaCosta’s MCU debut will have you asking when she and her leading ladies are coming back immediately after the credits roll. It’s a pity that the villain isn’t given much to do, though.
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Nov 28, 2023
It delivers many of the ingredients expected of a Marvel movie—cheer-worthy cameos; cute, fuzzy sidekicks courtesy of the catlike Flerkens, and a truly exciting mid-credits scene that’ll spawn countless speculative blog posts about the MCU’s future—while also keeping a keen focus on its characters.
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ColliderNov 8, 2023
The Marvels is the shortest film in the MCU so far, and it’s great that DaCosta has made a movie that is short, sweet, and yet, ends up being more impactful and playful than most Marvel films. In a universe that often feels suffocated by the amount of history, dense storytelling, and character awareness needed to enjoy these films, DaCosta figures out how to handle all of that in one of the most fun Marvel films in years. It’s kind of a marvel.
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Nov 8, 2023
Nov 10, 2023
It’s not a perfect movie, but it certainly is good enough. Perhaps the most surprising thing about The Marvels is that it shows that the Marvel movie formula, an often-critiqued aspect of the studio, isn’t broken. In fact when it works, that formula is still capable of making magic.
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Nov 8, 2023
Too often the movie’s franchise mechanics and green-screen overload have a way of dragging “The Marvels” into generic sequeldom. But the stars give us something to hang onto, even if Larson — so good in so many films — has yet to master the useful trick of looking neutral yet invested in her many, many reaction shots.
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Nov 9, 2023
With a 105-minute running time, making it practically a short in the MCU, it has just enough good stuff that it doesn’t outstay its welcome. But the intricate plotting that was once a Marvel selling point is now becoming a millstone around its muscular neck, keeping newcomers out instead of welcoming them in.
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Nov 8, 2023
Even though there are some fun scenes with The Marvels trio, I’d be hard-pressed to recommend this to anyone who isn’t an MCU superfan. Again, even *I* was a bit lost with the latest in the Kree and Skrull political relationships — I felt lost by it all and I’ve seen every movie. I bet a pretty straightforward plot involving the main three characters would have gone a long way.
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Nov 8, 2023
The Marvels has a kind of 1990s B-movie vibe throughout and is neither as funny nor as engaging and warm as it tries to be, despite the best efforts of the talented director Nia DaCosta (2021’s “Candyman”) and a trio of gifted and enormously likable leads in Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris and Iman Vellani.
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IndieWireNov 8, 2023
Tellingly, the most pleasurable moments in Nia DaCosta’s “The Marvels” don’t hinge on the audience having an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Marvel. . . . They’re just solid pieces of blockbuster filmmaking: charming stars (like the full-force charisma of Iman Vellani and the appealing vulnerability of Teyonah Parris), sprightly action, and zippy humor.
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Nov 9, 2023
There’s enough going on in The Marvels—enough situations with dramatic potential, enough twists with imaginative power—to develop several decent movies. Unfortunately, they’re snipped and clipped, jammed and rammed, dropped into the movie (and swept out of it) with an informational indifference that doesn’t even have the virtue of speed.
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Nov 9, 2023
It’s frustrating what weak tea this movie is because the director, Nia DaCosta (“Little Woods,” “Candyman”), has talent, the cast is appealing, and there’s a lightly gonzo scene that shows you what the other 100 minutes could have been. It’s almost as if the suits at Marvel Studios know it doesn’t matter if their movies are any good.
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Nov 8, 2023
What remains is the seed of a very good idea — the clashing personalities of fangirl Ms. Marvel and battle-hardened loner Captain Marvel — and a very talented, very charismatic cast trapped in an exhausting and gimmicky tale that involves the heroes gradually coming together as a team while they constantly swap places due to their entangled powers.
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Nov 8, 2023
Worse, the Marvels themselves have any potential chemistry drowned like an Atlantean with blocked gills. All the giddy charm of the Ms. Marvel version of Kamala Khan is lost in a torrent of fannish shrieks, while the demand that the audience feel empathy for grown adult Monica Rambeau who's still pouting that Auntie Carol never came back (Auntie Carol, who was literally off saving the cosmos) is wearisome.
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Nov 13, 2023
Instead of offering engaging storytelling, it give us flashes, bangs, bad dialogue, and a mountain of fakery (a reminder that things that work in comic books don’t always translate to the silver screen). It’s sound and fury signifying nothing except to expose another chink in the once-impervious armor of the MCU.
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Nov 8, 2023
This interpretation is overly reductive, I’ll admit. But once the thought had implanted itself in my brain, I could not shake it: These ladies are going to war over a couple of bangles (Kamala’s word, not mine). There’s a lot of fighting, and the fate of the world is said to hang in the balance. But when you look at the screen, all you see is a bunch of people trying to grab some shiny things from one another.
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Nov 8, 2023
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