The DC Universe seemingly responds Marvel’s “Deadpool” with their newest installment in their highly convoluted cinematic universe, “Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey.”

The “Deadpool” comparison is apparent right out of the gate, with a cartoonish sequence of expositional violence setting up the plot of the film. Technically the film is a sequel to 2016’s “Suicide Squad,” in which Harley Quinn – played by Margot Robbie – was a protagonist. But in the new installment, after breaking up with Jared Leto’s Joker, she seeks to find a new independent identity while embracing her femininity. 

I feel like most people understand that this Joker is different than the one that is making rounds at award ceremonies with Joaquin Phoenix. Although this is just how DC does their business now, their initial plan for their big cinematic universe failed, and now they’re in the process of rebuilding. Apparently the solo Batman film coming out in the next couple years starring Robert Pattinson takes place in the 90s, and is not connected to any existing films. This is totally fine, except that the superhero movie genre has changed.

Marvel changed the world with their franchise, which consists of more than twenty films that all very intelligently connect to each other, so DC will always have that expectation inside their head, even if their films are pretty good by themselves. 

To me that’s one of the few flaws with this movie – there’s no world building. After the film is over, there’s nothing. There’s a slight tease about Batman, but there’s no substance to any of that. 

Throughout the film, Harley Quinn can no longer rely on the protection that the Joker gives her, so there’s plenty of criminals from Gotham City’s underbelly coming after her. The film is narrated by Quinn the entire way through, while breaking the fourth wall separating actors from the audience, a-la-Deadpool. The editing style is also worth being appreciated. All characters are labeled in flashy, bold and often funny descriptions throughout. 

The eccentric antagonist of the film is Roman Sionis, also known as Black Mask in the comics. Played by Ewan Mcgregor, Sionis steals the show every scene he’s in. Looking online at other reviews, that take may be hot, but in my opinion I think he nails his performance and does his best with a script that would’ve been hard to pull off with anyone else. 

The movie also has video game-like fighting scenes that are very long and drawn out, but not in a bad way. A lot of times fight scenes in big budget superhero movies are short because of how expensive they are. One would think that because of how long the fight scenes and how frequent they are that they wouldn’t be very good, but “Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey”doubles down on quality and quantity while also maintaining the same sense of humor that earned the film its R rating. 

The film is a wild ride, and a fun one more than anything. It won’t surpass any expectations, but it’s still worth the price of admission. It’s feminine identity is so prevalent and is so bad-ass. The message is that women are absolutely amazing and don’t need anyone to protect them, so young girls watching are sure to be inspired. 

Spoiler Alert: Okay first of all, if you have not seen “Avengers: Endgame” and are invested in this film, please do not read this review until you see it. I don’t think it can be reviewed in its entirety without referencing some specifics. So I repeat, do not spoil this film for yourself by reading this before you watch it.

Endgame concludes an 11-year long journey for Marvel fans. The movies, which started on the basis of human stories, have developed into an intergalactic mega-story. “Endgame” itself is visually astonishing. It has epic action scenes. It plays on our expectations of superheroes but is still surprising. It contains the most satisfying, cheer-inducing moments from the entire franchise. It knows exactly when and how to use its array of theme songs.

In short, “Endgame” is the ultimate superhero film.

But what stands out to me as the movie’s true strength, is its attention to character development and resolution – specifically in the cases of Tony Stark/Iron Man and Steve Rogers/Captain America.

Stark had long been struggling with the proper way to respond to the dangers of the world. While the fears become most obvious in Iron Man 3, this initial discomfort is apparent in even the first Iron Man movie – when he considers his role in the murder of Americans.

After this initial realization, Stark strives to protect people. He envisions total protection of the earth and is haunted by nightmares of the defeat of the Avengers. “Endgame” displays the extent of Stark’s development – he finally confronts the demons he has grappled with for years.

Stark shines through as a genuinely human hero. Robert Downey Jr. has always embodied the character and made us all empathize with the “genius, playboy, billionaire, philanthropist” that started the Marvel journey. In “Endgame,” Stark reacts to the traumatic events of Infinity Way in a human way. He does not shield his personal journey, emotions, or interests – because no one truly could.

Stark expresses humanity in a way many of the other heroes do not. He chooses to resolve his fate. He takes the initiative to sacrifice himself for the good of the world. Ultimately, he fulfills the duty that was always his. He maybe didn’t act like a stereotypical hero, but Stark was the deeply human man, striving to do his best, confronting the unimaginable who resolved his own story.

Stark was always a leader of the Avengers. He strove to protect the world. He struggled between balancing personal desires and his commitment to duty. Marvel resolved his story in a wholesome way. The restlessness that kept him up is gone. He can rest – as can his fans.

[Spoiler!] *Neat little sidenote: The unknown man at Tony’s funeral is the kid from Iron Man III. I know, I’m crying too*

Captain America also got his resolution. For so long, he tried to square his past with the present. His clear sense of right and wrong with the murky, complicated world into which he was thrown. There was never really the chance of a happy ending for Captain America. He was doomed to be the protector of good – whether he was accepted or not. He balanced between his loyalty to his past and the rapid changes of his modern world. Captain America was bogged down by the weight of loss and responsibility.

In the end, Captain America fulfilled his duty while also getting his happy ending – the happy ending he always deserved. He left the world in good hands and got his sense of peace.

Thor, on the other hand, had very little tangible character development written into the script. Chris Hemsworth acted the hell out of the role and, despite the lack of obvious character resolution and development, showed the humanity and struggles that deepened the character. Thor’s story in the Marvel universe is likely not over, and hopefully Hemsworth can continue adding depth to the character.

Hemsworth is just one of  a star-studded cast who recognized the emotional depth of these larger-than-life characters. The movie is chock-full of wild stories, but is still personal. Fans are committed to the story lines and the fireworks but also to the heroes themselves.

As individual characters struggled with their ultimate fate, so has the franchise as a whole. One theme of “Endgame” is the inevitability of Thanos – but it also tests the inevitability of the character’s fates. The characters, specifically Stark and Captain America, are drawn to their inevitable fate, but clearly make active, considered decisions in the process. Marvel was always building to this end. The end that grapples with its own meta-fate of sacrifice and inevitability. The fate that was surprising but satisfying.

The fans identify with the characters and with the progression of films themselves. Marvel inspires the questions and consideration of reality within its fantasy. Viewers take the characters seriously. We look deeper for more understanding because we care about the stories and the characters. Marvel created a shared fantasy world that allows fans to consider their own relationship to inevitability and other themes. These films, and “Endgame” specifically, facilitate imagination and emotional connection in a largely bland and disinterested world.

The movie is not perfect. The use of Captain Marvel and Bruce Banner/Hulk seems lazy. The resolution of time-travel is quite unrealistic. Not all characters get the development they deserve. But it provides the necessary resolution. It does what it needs to do without being five hours long. It was the finale to the original story that fans awaited – and it was the finale the characters themselves deserved.

The latest release in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), “Captain Marvel” is simultaneously 90s-nostalgic and futuristic, blending some truly gorgeous special effects with the impactful emotional arc of Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) discovering the truth about herself and the universe. Featuring appearances from a young Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), “Captain Marvel” offers just enough humor to make the more hard-hitting moments that much more meaningful.

While the deluge of superhero movies our culture has experienced for the past decade or so can make it difficult to care about the newest addition to whatever the current lineup is, Brie Larson does an excellent job portraying a Carol Danvers that the audience both likes and can root for, effectively feeling fresh and distinctive as a character.

Danvers must overcome six years of being molded into someone she is not in order to protect a group of interplanetary refugees and her own friends and family. The emotional climax of the film subverts viewers’ expectations as Danvers’ main antagonist challenges her to prove herself to him by playing by his rules, to which Danvers responds coolly that she has nothing to prove to him. Instead of the big, intense battle audiences have come to expect from superhero films, Danvers takes her opponent out easily and at a distance: the fight is over before it has ever begun.

Perhaps the most difficult part to swallow of “Captain Marvel,” however, is the blatant military advertising. Superhero movies, and Marvel in particular, are no strangers to promoting the military – Steve Rogers being a notable example – but the uncritical presentation of Danvers’ participation in and apparent idolization of the military combined with advertisements pre-movie designed to make joining look like a way for women to be empowered is uncomfortable to say the least.

As the film’s present-day is set in 1995, Danvers would have been last active in service in 1989, suggesting that she would have been serving under Reagan and Bush Sr. There is no mention of contemporary military activity, only that Danvers and her friend Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch) are not given many opportunities to participate in many actual assignments despite their strong desire to do so.

The decision to keep them out of activities unrelated to the plot absolves the characters of involvement in the military actions of the ‘80s, but presenting the military only through Danvers’ enthusiastic eyes as a vessel of opportunity ignores the imperialism that the United States military perpetuates. Complicating the presentation of the military in the same way that the group of refugees were revealed would have lessened the feeling of blind praise.

Despite this, “Captain Marvel” is still an enjoyable watch for the storyline and the development of Danvers’ character. The emotional arc of the film is rewarding, and being aware of the military advertising space makes it easier to set aside in order to focus on the film itself. If you’re a fan of superheroes, powerful women, or just want to stay in the loop of the MCU before “Avengers: Endgame,” “Captain Marvel” is a good choice.

“Captain Marvel” is the 21st movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – the first to have a female superhero as the lead. The movie is currently sitting at a solid 80 percent critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, but is currently at a disappointing 57 percent audience rating. I don’t know how much that has to do with some of the more political debate surrounding this movie, but I honestly couldn’t care less about that. This review will be solely based on what I thought were the positive and negative aspects of the film.

For a quick non-spoiler synopsis, the story is set in the 1990s and centers around Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), or “Vers,” a Kree soldier with incredible powers and no memories of her past. The Kree are at war with the Skrulls, and after Danvers and a group of Skrulls crash land on Earth, she teams up with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to stop the pending invasion. Along the way, she begins to uncover the secrets to her past and unlocks her potential as the most powerful hero in the universe.

Starting with the positives, the visual effects are marvelous. The de-aging effects used on Samuel L. Jackson and Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson in the movie) are so good that if I didn’t know what Jackson and Gregg looked like in real life, I wouldn’t have even known that any effects were used. There was never a point where the visual effects were so glaringly bad that they took me out of the movie, which is an issue many Marvel movies have. The effects used on “Captain Marvel” in the final act look awesome and really enhance the action scenes.

There are several plots being juggled in this movie, but I found the amnesia storyline – which contained a big twist – to be particularly engaging. I thoroughly enjoyed how the audience never really knew more than Captain Marvel at any moment. We were with her throughout the whole movie as she was learning her past, so any big discovery made was just as impactful on the viewer as it was on the characters.

This is also what made the twist so effective – for the whole movie, the audience is convinced that the Skrulls are bad and the Kree are good because Captain Marvel is so confident of that. So when we learn that Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) and the Kree are actually bad, it impacts the audience just as much as it impacts Captain Marvel, making for an effective twist.

The cast also did a fantastic job in this movie. Ben Mendelsohn always gives a good performance as a villain, but he added a certain level of depth to the Skrull general Talos that makes him really resonate with the audience. Mendelsohn played a convincing villain in the first half and a relatable ally in the second half – executing that transition extremely well.

Samuel L. Jackson did a great job, as expected, but the biggest standout actor for me was Lashana Lynch as Maria Rambeau. Lynch stole the scenes she was in and managed to stand out amongst the rest of the cast. There was one emotional scene in particular where she out-acted Academy Award winner Larson and managed to convince me of the connection between Rambeau and Danvers. Speaking of Larson, while there are a few problems with her character, her chemistry with Jackson was easily the highlight of the film for me.

There is one aspect of the film that I have mixed feelings on, and that is Captain Marvel herself. Larson does a fine job in the role, but the dialogue she was given borders on cringe-worthy at times. The character was written inconsistently as well. It seems like the writers were trying to make Danvers a female version of Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark, but that attempt doesn’t always work. Danvers certainly has the sass of Stark – which Larson pulls off very well and it works overall – but she doesn’t pull off the emotional moments nearly as well.

There were some times where Danvers was handled well, specifically with her relationship to Fury and Rambeau. In those areas, I really liked Larson’s performance as well as the writing, but overall her character didn’t wow me. It is hard to determine how much of this is on the writing or Larson’s performance, but I feel like the titular character could have been handled better. However, these downfalls don’t come close to ruining the film for me.

As far as negative parts of the movie, the action overall is very bland. While the final act where Captain Marvel is flying around and destroying ships is quite fun, it is the more grounded, hand-to-hand combat scenes that are lacking. The scenes follow the typical Marvel style of using a lot of cuts, to the point where it is hard to tell what is happening at times and the audience doesn’t really feel the impact of the punches.

“Captain Marvel” also lacked some of the creative action scenes that other Marvel movies have. For example, in the “Ant-Man” movies, the action is really engaging because of all the creative things that can be done with shrinking technology. Those action scenes are memorable and exciting, and “Captain Marvel” doesn’t really have any action scenes like that. The only one that comes close to that is the flying through space scene, and most of that can be seen in the trailers.

The biggest problem is that this movie can’t really decide what story it wants to tell. At times, it’s a classic amnesia story, other times it’s a buddy-cop film between Danvers and Fury and at other times it’s a fish out of water story. While all of those storylines are enjoyable in their own right, they don’t really mesh together well and it harms the flow of the movie. It is painfully obvious that this story was written by five people – it seems like they all came up with their own ideas, mashed them together without cutting any ideas and made a movie out of it.

Another negative for me is the over-abundance of ‘90s references – specifically the soundtrack. I love ‘90s music as much as the next person, but the way it is used in some of the action scenes completely pulled me out of the movie. For example, No Doubt’s song “Just a Girl” is used in a fight scene, and while it fits with the theme of the movie, it doesn’t mesh well with the action that it is playing over and comes across as a discount “Guardians of the Galaxy” action scene. This is more of a subjective complaint rather than an objective one, but the music used took me out of the movie at a few crucial points.

The final negative for me is a rather small complaint in the grand scheme of things. There are several points in this movie where it shows the origin of important things in other movies that either don’t work, or are infuriatingly foolish. For one, the scene where Fury lost his eye because of Goose the cat/Flerken scratching it has to be the biggest offender of this. The mythos behind Fury losing his eye has been hyped up in other Marvel movies, so audiences expected him to lose it in some awesome action set piece or from a tense dramatic moment. However, that was not delivered. Fury loses his eye near the end of the movie after getting scratched by a cat. I know it’s a bit nitpicky, but the movie relies heavily upon references and callbacks, and it drags the movie down for me.

Overall, “Captain Marvel” is a mediocre Marvel movie. There wasn’t anything in the movie that wowed me, but there also wasn’t anything in it I hated with a passion – except for how Fury lost his eye. The message of the movie is good, but a good message doesn’t make a good movie. DC’s “Wonder Woman” was able to do both, but this movie fell flat for me. It’s still a very watchable film with many enjoyable parts, but on the whole, it doesn’t do much to stand out amongst the 20 other Marvel movies.