The Marvels

With The Marvels, Kevin Feige and the powers atop the Marvel Cinematic Universe make it clear that the quirky fun of Thor: Love and Thunder and Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania is here to stay.

Director/co-writer Nia DaCosta’s convergence of Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), and Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) ably synthesizes the narrative strands of Captain Marvel, WandaVision, and Ms. Marvel with plentiful laughs and Marvel’s typical top-notch action — albeit with some initial choppiness.

As the trio mysteriously swap places and hypotheses are raised by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and the women themselves regarding why they’re connected, there’s a strong sense that scenes have been cut. But the fan-girling by teenage Kamala at being around her idol Captain Marvel gleefully patches up the storytelling holes, as does the unspoken tension between Monica and her “Aunt” Carol.

At the root of the heroes’ link are insidious efforts by Kree warrior Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton, Mr. Malcolm’s List) to restore natural resources to her decimated home planet Hala, whose struggles are technically Captain Marvel’s fault, despite the good intentions surrounding Carol’s actions. Though this villain is not especially well developed, her threat to plunder planets dear to Carol is, and that’s enough to thrust our heroes into a series of exciting set pieces.

Throughout these intergalactic adventures, DaCosta proves she can handle the challenges of a big budget production and wisely recruits MCU TV vets Megan McDonnell (WandaVision) and Elissa Karasik (Loki) to help her with the script. Together, they bring viewers to such wondrously goofy places as Aladna, where the native language is song, and make terrific use of Carol’s ginger “cat” sidekick Goose, who’s actually a Flerken that swallows people and other large objects with the aid of multiple oral tentacles.

The addition of numerous baby Flerkens in Fury’s crew’s hour of need is particularly inspired, as is the inevitable showdown between Dar-Benn and our three gifted gals, whose combination of powers thrillingly translates to the big screen. In the process, plentiful humor and heart intertwine to successful ends and, in classic MCU fashion, the tag scenes set up multiple intriguing follow-up chapters.

So long as these actors and filmmakers are involved in telling those future tales, all is well with the MCU.

Grade: B-plus. Rated PG-13. Now playing at AMC River Hills 10, Asheville Pizza & Brewing Co., Carolina Cinemark, and Regal Biltmore Grande.

(Photo: Marvel Studios)