by Imtiaz Popat
The Marvels, Marvel’s latest cinematic release is Marvelous. Kamala Khan/Ms. Overall, the film with its multicultural cast has a global appeal. Marvel’s (Iman Vellani) is the best hope for the future of this increasingly troubled superhero franchise says Christian Holub of Entertainment Weekly.
The premise of The Marvels reflects the complicated continuity of the modern Marvel Cinematic
Universe,. Each of the three female leads hails from a different project: Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) debuted in her titular 2019 film, Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) comes from her own Disney+ series last year, and Captain Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) was the breakout star of WandaVision. But her character was first introduced in the Captain Marvels 2019 film.
Vellani’s Kamala is a shining star and the MCU’s best hope going forward according to Entertainment Weekly. The film also features her Pakistani Khan family first introduced in the Ms Marvel TV series. Their whimsical and warmth makes the film great family entertainment.
As that sequence makes clear, meeting Captain Marvel is Ms. Marvel’s greatest dream. Unfortunately for them, it ultimately results from a quantum entanglement that keeps the three leads switching places with each other every time they use their similar light-based superpowers at the same time. This situation is first displayed in an energetic fight sequence that takes place simultaneously in an Earth-orbiting space station, an alien spaceship, and the Khan family’s Jersey City apartment, as the three Marvels keep switching places and having to pick up where the other left off.
There’s a comic feel to this scene that keeps it entertaining even as it becomes somewhat hard to track who’s where. It’s also a showcase for Kamala’s amazing family, including Zenobia Shroff as her mom and Mohan Kapur as her dad, who roll with the punches and start hitting Kree soldiers with lamps when they need to. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), who mans the space station, also gets to have some fun.
With three heroes to split the spotlight, that doesn’t leave much room to develop the villain, and the Kree leader Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton) is the weakest enemy any Marvel hero has faced in a while.
But for all those weaknesses, there is Kamala Khan. Although her Disney+ series feels stuck halfway between a two-hour movie and the 20-episode teen TV show it could’ve been, Kamala comes into her own here and works really well at meeting her heroes. Both the actor and the character are clearly so excited to be in a big Marvel movie that you can’t help but get a little swept up in it yourself. The film’s final scenes contain some classic MCU teases, but they’re most exciting to the degree that they promise even more Ms. Marvel to come.
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