"The Marvels" will go down in movie history as the end of the MCU's run of box office hits, and it's really not deserved. The movie is a mess, but not more of a mess than previous MCU installments like "Thor: Love and Thunder" "The Eternals," and the last two "Ant-Man" sequels. My guess is that the movie looked too interconnected with the recent run of MCU series on Disney+, and audiences weren't quite as fond of Captain Marvel as her last film's box office take might have suggested.
And it's a shame, because "The Marvels" is very watchable, silly, superhero fun. Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), Agent Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), and teenage Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) are all superheroes with light-based powers. Due to the actions of the villain Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), leader of the planet Hala, the three of them become stuck in a "quantum entanglement" where they switch places physically if they happen to use their powers simultaneously. So, naturally, the three of them have to learn to work as a team. However, there are some complications. Monica feels abandoned by Carol, who she knew when she was a child. Kamala is a massive fangirl of Captain Marvel and comes on awfully strong. And Carol knows more about the villain than she's letting on.
Does "The Marvels" have all the usual MCU problems that I've been complaining about for years, like being a connector piece for other parts of the franchise, for speedrunning through character development in favor of CGI-heavy action scenes, and for incredibly sloppy writing that doesn't know what to do with half of its characters? Yes, absolutely. However, "The Marvels" is also much more entertaining than most MCU installments from the past few years, easily surpassing the original "Captain Marvel." It has some great action sequences, the banter among the three leads is a joy, and the humor works. Though the show is connected to "Ms. Marvel," "Wandavision," and other MCU media, you really don't have to know any of it to watch "The Marvels." Kamala's protective Pakistani family following her into space, Carol's unsettling alien cat named Goose, and a nice planet where everyone sings all the time don't need that much explanation. This could absolutely be better, but I thought director Nia DaCosta did a perfectly fine job, and I'd gladly watch "The Marvels" over most of the other post-"Endgame" MCU movies.
Now on to Taika Waititi's soccer movie. "Next Goal Wins" was delayed for so long, and made so little impact during its theatrical run that I figured it had to be bad. And it's not. It's just sort of aggressively mediocre with a key role woefully miscast. Based on a 2014 documentary of the same name, "Next Goal Wins" tells the story of the last place American Samoa national soccer team that suffers a humiliating loss in 2001, and decides to recruit a new coach to help improve their prospects. The only one willing to take the job is Thomas Rongen (Michael Fassbender), a rage-prone Dutchman who has been fired from multiple positions. However, the team's manager, Tavita (Oscar Kightley) remains hopeful.
"Next Goal Wins" is at its best when it sticks to the American Samoan characters - a cheerful, amiable bunch of oddballs who get all the best lines and observations. The most effective comedy comes from the tightly wound Rongen being introduced to the island and the team, and being utterly bewildered by their laid back way of life. The community is so small and remote that everyone knows everyone, everyone seems to have multiple jobs at once, and nobody really seems to mind how bad they are at soccer. Rongen is especially confounded that one of the better players is a "fa'afafine," roughly analogous to a transwoman, named Jaiyah Saelua (Kaimana).
Initially, Michael Fassbender's totally incongruous appearance and energy works fine for being the stranger in paradise. Unfortunately, he stays on that wavelength for the whole film. Frankly, Fassbender just seems baffled at his role in the movie - Rongen's an asshole who has to reform, but he's an asshole for far too long before he finally seems to turn on a dime. It doesn't help that the accent is a bit of a muddle, and sometimes he ends up sounding like Taika Waititi doing an impression of Rongen. From what I've read about Waititi's directing methods, I have to wonder if Fassbender just gave up at some point and copied whatever Waititi was doing.
Also, "Next Goal Wins" is a sports movie, and it's not very good at being a sports movie. It hits all the requisite beats and builds up to a big climax with a World Cup qualifying match against Tonga, but the execution is clunky. We never really get to know more than three of the players by name, and the stakes are always very low. I barely know anything about soccer, and am clearly not a fan, which didn't help matters either. I still enjoyed the film for some of the comedic bits and a few performances - Rachel House turns in a dependably swell appearance as Tavita's wife - but this isn't one of Taika Waititi's better efforts.
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