TV Review: Ms. Marvel - Living the Dream

 

Since her debut in 2014, Kamala Khan took the comic book world by storm as the new Ms. Marvel with her solo series garnering widespread praise and multiple awards. Does her debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe rival such accomplishment? I like to think so.

While the MCU has already focused on teen superheroes like Spider-Man and the Runaways, Ms. Marvel is able stand out and put its own take on teen drama while also subverting some of the genre's tropes. Lead actress Iman Vellani does an excellent job as Kamala Khan; compared to someone like Peter Parker, she's really an average kid still finding her path. She's an Avengers and Captain Marvel fangirl, which sort of makes her a surrogate for Marvel fans and introduces us to a cultural landscape of meta proportions as we see people within the MCU idolize and cosplay as their heroes as much as in the real world. She loves her family but wishes they were more understanding of her interests, which makes for nice drama and resolution by the season's end. What I really like is how the show uses visuals that allows us to really get into Kamala's head. She likes to daydream and fantasize with these ideas manifesting themselves in interesting ways for the audience to see (including some music sequences). This also applies to when she's texting friends as the messages take up much of the screen, which I feel represents how important texting can be for teens especially in the moment. What's really interesting is as the series goes, such visuals become less frequent as her fantasies start to become reality.

Much like Black Panther and Shang-Chi, Ms. Marvel has a lot of cultural exploration as we see her Muslim background showcased in a natural and positive way; for example, I greatly enjoyed her brother Aamir's wedding in episode three and the activities shown. The show isn't afraid to shy away from darker subjects though. It touches on post-9/11 racism and delves into the 1947 partition of India; on the latter, it felt similar to how the Watchmen HBO series talked about the 1921 Tulsa massacre in how they're both tragic racially charged events that don't seem to be taught to the degree they should be.

Some die-hard fans of the comics may be upset about how they changed Kamala's powers for the MCU. In the comics, she gains elastic powers like Mr. Fantastic. The show changes this to hard light energy projection which kind of makes her more similar to Green Lantern. Since the MCU hasn't shied away from changing aspects of well known characters in the past, I don't really mind this change. I don't know if her elastic powers may not have translated well to live action, but her hardlight powers do create some nice visuals throughout the series; I'd also like to think it's representative of it being her time to shine.

I'd advise skipping this next section if you want to watch the show without spoilers, but it's a topic that warrants discussion.

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In the season finale, it's revealed that Kamala is actually a mutant, making her the first one we know of in the sacred MCU timeline. While the specific word used is "mutation", I swear the music afterwards includes a flourish of the 90's X-Men animated theme similar to the one used when 838 Xavier first appeared in "Multiverse of Madness". This changes her comics origin as an Inhuman, which I don't mind. Inhumans were being pushed at a time when the MCU couldn't use the X-Men but the brand didn't take off like they wanted and with the TV series being the final nail in the coffin.

While this reveal is a harbinger for the X-Men's arrival, it's also a signal for dark times coming for the MCU. The show's display of post-9/11 racism goes hand in hand with that part of the metaphor mutants represent. At this point in the MCU (2025 by my calculations), Damage Control is apparently on the look out for unknown powered individuals and are using the Stark Drones appropriated from Spider-Man to track them down. All this sounds like a precursor to the Mutant Response Division and Sentinels, especially when the hunt for Kamala was headed by someone with clear xenophobic tendencies like Agent Deever. 

It's crazy to think that Mysterio's actions in "Far From Home" may have created bigger repercussions than we realized. Not only has he wrecked Spider-Man's reputation, but he may have reignited a level of distrust in superheroes not seen since "Civil War". We saw how fickle the public are in the MCU with how Peter got treated in "No Way Home" so it's not hard to see them turning on other heroes despite everything they've done for the world. The fact that Damage Control is using Stark tech in the manner they are is also an insult to Tony's legacy and sacrifice.

**********END SPOILERS*********

While I think an additional episode or two could have been beneficial to help flesh out some supporting characters and villains, Ms. Marvel was nonetheless a true delight and without a doubt one of Marvel's best Disney+ shows. Kamala Kahn is literally a shining example of the next generation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and I look forward to where that light spreads.

Movie Review: "Thor: Love and Thunder" - Ragnarok 2, Electric Boogaloo

 

For all intents and purposes, Chris Hemsworth's Thor is the last Phase One leading MCU hero standing with "Love and Thunder" marking his fourth solo film. Following the success of "Ragnarok", it was obvious that director Taika Waititi would return for any follow-up. So does lightning quite literally strike twice here? Well, there's a bit of give and take.

Obviously the tone from "Ragnarok" carries over, but even some of the story beats in "Love and Thunder" are similar to its predecessor. To name just a few, we have Thor briefly working with other heroes who have their own series, a silly side villain (though to Russell Crowe's credit, his depiction of Zeus is more accurate than the Hercules Disney animated film), and a main antagonist with a death motif.

In many regards though, there are many aspects where "Love and Thunder" shines better. For starters, there's the music which continues Waititi's use of classic rock for his Thor films. While "Ragnarok" used Led Zepplin's "Immigrant Song" for two pivotal scenes, we now have quite a selection of Guns N' Roses songs to give more variety and more of an "umph" to certain scenes.
More importantly though, I feel there's more emotion to the plot this time around in two particular ways. The first is the relationship between Thor and Jane Foster, with Natalie Portman returning to reprise her role and now wielding Mjolnir herself. While we haven't seen Jane since "The Dark World" and we can only guess about how Portman's relationship with Marvel soured afterwards, I really enjoyed having her back with this film. Waititi does a great job at recapping their relationship, goes into more detail about her and Thor drifted apart, and makes the viewer fall in love and root for them all over again. I will say that of all the Guns N' Roses songs used for the film, I feel it was a missed opportunity not to include "Patience" in regard to the two.
Then you have Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher, our main villain. Sometimes I forget how much Bale puts into his roles, and Gorr is no different. Bale delivers what is probably the scariest MCU villain to date, both in his look and a performance that can be mesmerizing to take in. With the Necrosword, Gorr is cursed with both his body and mind seemingly being ravaged as he works toward his goal of killing all gods. But there's definitely more of a sympathetic aspect to him compared to Hela, where you understand what's motivating him and still feel for him even as the film reaches its climax.

In terms of the action, I don't think there's one bad fight piece in this entire film with some of the most brilliant choreography and cinematography we've seen yet in the MCU. When it comes to the comedy though, it doesn't always land quite as well as it did with "Ragnarok". It can get a little grating at times with the most annoying aspect to me being the damn screaming goats and I wish that meme would just die off already.

Everyone who's returned from previous films does a great job here but I really have to hand it to Chris Hemsworth. Whenever we see Thor in a Marvel film, it's always different as we see the character progress. "Love and Thunder" shows him still emotionally dealing with events from past films and now that he's passed rulership of New Asgard to Valkyrie, he's looking for purpose. This film is essentially Thor's midlife crisis and Hemsworth does a good job at showing that as his character appears more unsure of himself than we've ever seen him before. With how the film ends and Hemsworth seemingly still on board for more, it'll be interesting to see how Thor will be when we see him again.

While I do seem to be giving more praise than criticism comparing "Love and Thunder" to "Ragnarok" as I hinted at at the beginning, I honestly think "Ragnarok" is still the better of the two. "Love and Thunder" does improve on a lot of what "Ragnaork" did, but it does still feel like a copy in some ways. And to me, "Ragnarok" still serves as a grand conclusion to Thor's original trilogy while "Love and Thunder" makes it clear there's still story to tell. Whichever film you prefer, it's clear that Taika Waititi is the best fit for this corner of the MCU.