The grave course of events set in motion by Thanos that wiped out half the universe and fractured the Avengers ranks compels the remaining Avengers to take one final stand in Marvel Studios’ grand conclusion to twenty-two films, “Avengers: Endgame.” are you ready for the Ultimate Endgame.
Kevin Feige produces “Avengers: Endgame,” and Anthony and Joe Russo are the directors. Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Michael Grillo, Trinh Tran, Jon Favreau and Stan Lee are the executive producers, and Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely wrote the screenplay.
Out 25th April in the UK and the 26th April in the US.
To celebrate the release of Bohemian Rhapsody on DVD, 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray™, we have a 4K Ultra HD copy to give away.
Celebrate the iconic and heart pounding music of Queen and Freddie Mercury with the highest-grossing biopic of all-time when Bohemian Rhapsody comes to Digital Download 16th February and on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray™ and DVD 4th March. Fans can experience the story behind band and the making of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the #1 streamed song of the 20th century and other favourites like “We Will Rock You,” “Somebody to Love,” “We are the Champions” and more, for a music adventure that will make you laugh, sing, dance and cry.
Bohemian Rhapsody is an enthralling celebration of Queen, their music, and their extraordinary lead singer Freddie Mercury (Malek), who defied stereotypes and convention to become one of history’s most beloved entertainers. Following Queen’s meteoric rise, their revolutionary sound and Freddie’s solo career, the film also chronicles the band’s reunion, and one of the greatest performances in rock history.
For the first time, fans can experience a truly one-of-a-kind music movie event with the complete “Live Aid” Movie Performance featuring two never-before-seen songs (“Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and “We Will Rock You) packed into a 22-minute collective experience recreating the original event. In addition, on Blu-ray & Digital, fans will get a look behind the making of the film including interviews with Queen, the cast and creative team.
How to enter to win
We have a copy of Bohemian Rhapsody on 4K Ultra HD to give away.
Those old enough to have owned the likes of the Mega Drive/Genesis will no doubt have many fond memories of playing games like Streets of Rage. Fortunately there are still developers who cater to these players and perhaps new ones by releasing games such as Coffee Crisis. The game has even seen a physical release for the Mega Drive/Genesis.
All gamers will dread that moment that their prize gaming controller fails or breaks which in my case just happens to be the right bumper on the Xbox One wireless controller failing on me twice now on two different ‘Ocean Shadow’ LE Controllers. The most recent time was actually LIVE on stream as I was playing Devil May Cry 5 when the bumper button failed on me yet again. Reality means I could not afford to drop another £50 on a new controller but also needed to continue gaming. The only option, to opt for the far cheaper wired controller which a good friend purchased as a gift for me and I was completely taken by surprise by just how good the Power A Enhanced Wired controller actually is!
The first thing I need to say is just how gorgeous the ‘Cosmos Nebula’ version of the controller is as it moves from metallic blue to purple as you move the controller, it has a really great visual impact as the light hits it, making it a very good-looking controller indeed. Next is just how light this officially licensed from Microsoft controller is, it looks and performs no different from the standard wireless controller except that the battery compartment is removed as well as the wireless components.
Instead this is a wired controller, that must be plugged into the console directly, which is not a problem really as it comes with a sturdy 3M cable which can plug into the front of the Xbox One S/X console’s USB ports or on the left side if you have the original Xbox One console. When plugged in, the controller’s central Guide button does not light up, but instead has a white LED dot just under it to show that it is powered up and connected. Being so light and connected to the console itself gave me real nostalgia vibes of how I used to play on the PS2 and original Xbox console back in the day with wired controllers but despite being so light, this is still a very solid and well-built controller in your hands.So let’s take a look at the Key Features of this controller:
Advanced Gaming Buttons
Unique Cosmos Nebula design
Officially licensed for Xbox One
Dual rumble motors3.5mm stereo headset jack
Removable 9.8ft (3m) USB cable
2-year limited warranty
The surprise came with the advanced and programmable buttons that sit just on the hand grips on the back of the controller. By pressing the middle button on the back, the LED on the controller will flash to indicate that it is now in ‘Assign’ mode. Simply press the button you would like to assign to either of the advanced gaming buttons on the grips then the ‘AG’ button you want to use and then the LED light will stop to show it has been programmed. The memory will also hold this assignment even if the controller is not powered and to reset you simply repeat the above by holding the middle button, wait for the LED light to flash then press the original button that you wanted to remap and its done.
This is quite a handy feature to have and all buttons can be assigned including the Right or Left stick clicks, so to have it on a controller that is the cheapest option to have is very unique. That said, due to the nature of this being a cheap alternative, I did find that the guide button was a little clunky to use, with it often bringing up the power console down option instead of simply bringing up the guide bar as is the D-Pad. But these are simply niggles and overall this is a very well made controller with astonishingly good rumble packs inside, so good that I had to turn down the vibration setting whilst playing Anthem due to the impact the rumbling was having on my hands, no doubt due to the lighter weight of the controller compared to the standard Wireless one.
The Power A Enhanced Wired Controller also comes in different styles and colours and prices range accordingly with the cheapest I found being just £18.99 to the highest being £24.99 at most retailers. This controller really makes a great back up controller if like me, your main controller happens to fail on you and being so cheap I would recommend it if you have a younger gamer who may not be able to handle the heavier wireless controller or just to protect your precious controller from being dropped or mishandled by a younger gamer (or if you happen to know a very rageful FIFA playing gamer).
Final Thoughts
Though I will be putting my pennies aside to pick up a new wireless controller, this will certainly do the job until then and most definitely will serve as a great back up. But this controller looks and feels so good that honestly, I am in no rush to replace it just yet and actually considering grabbing another one as an extra backup. Being connected to the console is not as much of a nuisance as you might expect with the 3M cable offering enough distance for me, but this will depend on how your console is placed to where you sit.
This is a controller definitely worth considering with great performance across all the game genres I play and at a price point and build quality that just cannot be ignored and will work on Xbox One consoles and Windows 10 PC.
For more information on the controller and retailers check the official site here: Power A
There are a lot of sci-fi stories in media that cover such concepts as time travelling and hopping between dimensions. However, it’s rare to see such a story play out from the point of view of someone who works for an agency attempting to control something like travel between dimensions. This is exactly what happens during the events of Double Cross.
Stela, a cinematic platformer about a young woman witnessing the final days of a mysterious ancient world, will release onto Xbox One and PC in 2019. SkyBox Labs, co-developer of Halo Infinite, will debut Stela at GDC 2019 as an official selection in Microsoft’s ID@Xbox Developer Showcase, out for Xbox One and PC this year.
Overcome daunting challenges, treacherous terrain, and gargantuan beasts while traversing a decaying land. Manipulate the environment to solve elaborate puzzles and creep past dangers under cover of muted landscapes, all set to an original soundtrack. Survive sweeping environments including mysterious towns, haunting forests, and massive subterranean ruins brought to life in an atmospheric experience.
“Our focus was to create beautiful 3D atmospheres with depth and scale while remaining as true to the cinematic platformer genre as possible,” said Shyang Kong, Co-Founder, SkyBox Labs. “We’re extremely proud of our work developing partner titles like Halo Infinite and Minecraft Bedrock Edition on Nintendo Switch, and we’re eager to bring that level of craftsmanship to a touching new experience.”
Microsoft has announced 13 new ID@Xbox titles ahead of the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco this month.
The 13 new titles will be featured alongside a total of 30 games at the Microsoft Booth at GDC, and include Beholder 2, Boomerang Fu, CrossCode, Dead Static Drive, Door Kickers: Action Squad, HyperDot, Mowin’ & Throwin’, StarCrossed, Stela, The Forgotten City, Totem Teller, UnderMine and Unrailed.
• Afterparty (Night School Studio) – Xbox Game Pass
• Beholder 2 (E-Home Entertainment/Alawar Premium Limited) – Announced Today for Xbox One
• Boomerang Fu (Cranky Watermelon Pty Ltd) – Announced Today for Xbox One & Windows 10
• Buildings Have Feelings Too (Merge Games Ltd/Black Staff Games)
• Cake Bash (High Tea Frog) – Xbox One X Enhanced
• Cat Quest II (PQube/The Gentlebros)
• CrossCode (Deck13 Interactive/Radical Fish Games) – Announced Today for Xbox One, Xbox One X Enhanced
• Dead End Job (Headup GmbH/Ant Workshop) – Xbox One X Enhanced
• Dead Static Drive (Fanclub) – Announced Today for Xbox One, Xbox One X Enhanced
• Devil’s Hunt (1C Publishing EU/Layopi Games) – Xbox One X Enhanced
• Door Kickers: Action Squad (Killhouse Games/PixelShard) – Announced Today for Xbox One
• Family Man (No More Robots/Broken Bear Games)
• Hunt: Showdown (Crytek) – Xbox One X Enhanced
• HyperDot (GLITCH/Tribe Games) – Announced Today for Xbox One & Windows 10, Xbox Play Anywhere
• Lonely Mountains: Downhill (Thunderful/Megagon Industries) – Xbox One X Enhanced
• Minion Masters (BetaDwarf) – Xbox Play Anywhere, Xbox One X Enhanced
• Mowin’ & Throwin’ (House Pixel Games) – Announced Today for Xbox One
• Operencia: The Stolen Sun (Zen Studios) – Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Play Anywhere, Xbox One X Enhanced
• Raji: An Ancient Epic (SUPER.com/Nodding Head Games) – Xbox One X Enhanced
• Silver Chains (Headup GmbH/Cracked Heads) – Xbox One X Enhanced
• Sparklite (Merge Games Ltd/RedBlue Games)
• StarCrossed (Whitethorn Digital/Contigo Games Inc.) – Announced Today for Xbox One
• Stela (SkyBox Labs) – Announced Today for Xbox One & Windows 10, Xbox One X Enhanced
• The Forgotten City (Modern Storyteller) – Announced Today for Xbox One, Xbox One X Enhanced
• The Sojourn (Iceberg Interactive/Shifting Tides) – Xbox One X Enhanced
• Totem Teller (Grinning Pickle) – Announced Today for Xbox One, Xbox One X Enhanced
• UnderMine (Thorium Entertainment) – Announced Today for Xbox One & Windows 10
• Unrailed! (Daedalic Entertainment/Indoor Astronaut) – Announced Today for Xbox One & Windows 10
• Void Bastards (Humble Bundle/Blue Manchu) – Xbox Game Pass
• Xenosis: Alien Infection (NerdRage Studios) – Xbox One X Enhanced
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is the next adventure from developer FromSoftware, creators of Bloodborne and the Dark Souls series.
In the game, players come face-to-face with larger than life foes in a dark and twisted world. As the “One-armed Wolf” they can unleash an arsenal of deadly prosthetic tools and powerful ninja abilities while blending stealth, vertical traversal, and visceral head-to-head combat in a bloody confrontation.
Out for the PS4, Xbox One and on Steam from 22nd March
IMAX Corporation today announced that Marvel Studios’ Captain Marvel opened in IMAX theatres this weekend with a $36.1 million global debut, becoming IMAX’s fifth biggest opening of all-time and the first non-sequel film to crack the top five. The film also represented IMAX’s best March opening and the second highest Marvel opening for IMAX globally. With this weekend’s results, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has now crossed $1 billion in IMAX box office.
Domestically, Captain Marvel grossed $14.1 million on 411 IMAX screens marking IMAX’s second-biggest March opening. 9 of the Top 10 grossing theatres were IMAX locations.
“IMAX is honoured to be part of the spectacular performance of Captain Marvel, the biggest superhero origin story opening in IMAX history that has earned its rank among the highest-grossing IMAX openings ever,” said IMAX CEO Richard L. Gelfond. “Captain Marvel marks an incredible start to what is shaping up to be a very strong 2019 lineup and sets the stage for the highly anticipated Avengers: Endgame, which was shot entirely with IMAX cameras.”
International IMAX weekend results for the film reached $22 million from 964 international sites and set new records including IMAX’s best international Marvel opening and IMAX’s second biggest international opening of all-time. In China alone, IMAX reported $10.4 million from 603 screens representing IMAX’s biggest March opening in the market. 9 of the top 10 Captain Marvel locations in China were IMAX theatres. The film also delivered all-time biggest IMAX openings in 12 international territories, including Germany, Ukraine, India and Puerto Rico. The film is scheduled to open in Japan on March 15.
“Congratulations to directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, and to Kevin Feige and teams Disney and Marvel on a monumental opening that showcases the multiple powers of women,” said Megan Colligan, President, IMAX Entertainment and Executive Vice President, IMAX Corp. “We believe this weekend’s results are a clear indication that audiences around the world continue to seek out the biggest blockbuster events in the differentiated IMAX format.”
Captain Marvel featured select scenes specially formatted for IMAX theatres with an expanded aspect ratio, which means audiences get to see up to 26% more picture than standard theatres, only in IMAX.
Nintendo Switch’s eShop is filled to the brim with digital titles and a lot more are added on a weekly basis. One such digital title is the rather puzzling iHUGU.
The third and final episode of the first story expansion for Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey has released and following the controversial ending to Episode 2 which saw whomever you choose to play as, either Alexios or Kassandra, having a baby with the child of Darius, wielder of the first hidden blade and master Assassin. For me, this felt like a very natural story moment based on how I played the first two episodes however it was not the case for many others who felt that play choice such as the decision to have same sex encounters in the main campaign story, felt this development was forced upon them. A patch did address this making it more of a function of continuing the bloodline rather than anything romantic and that change also flows into the final episode with different dialogue options. I was very interested to see where this aspect as well as Darius’s feud with the Order came to a conclusion.
This is by far the shortest of the three episodes and it really serves more for a narrative conclusion then anything really gameplay wise. It opens by bringing you back to your ‘family’ with dialogue choices to either support the choice to willingly have a child romantically or as a matter of simple continuation of the Alexios/Kassandra bloodline. So, for the dialogue choices, you can either be stand offish and cold or fully in romance mode which for my Alexios just felt very natural to be kind and gentle with Neema about their child, I mean she is very understanding to allow Alexios to simply go off doing his Misthios thing. The opening for me was a lovely reminder of the family life Alexios always wanted and relished to have with his baby son, the woman he loves and Darius there to remind us of the dangers The Order still threaten on the world.
For my Alexios, life is pretty good and he is happy which is very unusual for an Assassin’s Creed hero to actually have that balance, the last Assassin to have it was Ezio Auditore Da Firenze, who at the end of Revelations, puts down his hidden blade and Assassin life in order to have a life and family of his own. So, to have this final episode open with what is pretty much a happy start with all things looking very lovely for Alexios is quite nice. But this is of course Assassin’s Creed, and nice usually doesn’t stay so for long. In one of the most emotive scenes as a fan of the series, following a personal moment with my Alexios and Darius as they look to a possible happy future for their family, they see that their village is in flames, fearing what has happened to Neemas and the baby, Alexios races through the village to find them. We discover that the Order of Dominion is responsible, targeting Alexios for his actions against them and the price paid is a high one, as the baby is stolen and depending on if you play as Alexios/Kassandra, will mean the death of Darius’s last child in the fighting.
What follows is pretty much the bare essentials of this expansion story, with Alexios/Kassandra and Darius now hunting down the remaining members of the Order of Dominion for revenge but mainly to retrieve and rescue the baby. Darius and Alexios/Kassandra are now at odds, with the player feeling the guilt of failing to protect Darius’s child and in losing the baby. Now depending on whether or not you chose to be more romantic about the relationship or stand offish, you will still be called upon to seek vengeance upon the Order. This does bring the expansion story full circle as we learned in the last episode that the Order is being headed by Amorges, former ally and best friend to Darius, who turned against him following Darius assassinating Xerxes the first. Amorges has been in the background all through the expansion, with his forces still hunting down Darius many years after the death of Xerxes, bringing them in contact with the Eagle Bearer who in the main campaign, destroyed the Cult of Kosmos. But now it is perhaps the most personal of reasons to try and tear down Amorges.
The action is fine but again, its very routine for this episode as again the player must complete a few story missions whilst looking for clues to unveil the remaining members of the Order of Dominion as Alexios/Kassandra kill their way to get to Amorges. I did like the animosity between Darius and The Eagle Bearer with both blaming the other whilst clearly suffering the guilt of their own actions being responsible for the less and stealing of the baby. But the problem is that at this point, hunting down Cultists is rather old hat and offers nothing really new. Even the attempt to add in some naval combat falls a little flat as its just so short which is perhaps why for me at least, this final episode is very much focused on the story itself, which acts as bookends to the action with the opening setting up the final battle whilst the ending, which I will not spoil, serves to connect Odyssey to Origins in a clever and surprising way with a nice pay off in a post story mission for players.
All I all Legacy of the First Blade is very much a good example of how DLC can work for the Assassin’s Creed series going forward with story expansions told in an episodic way which actually suits the new RPG Action adventure style of the series now. I do feel that this was a test of various systems to craft how story expansions will be delivered and I am looking forward to the next expansion in ‘Fate of Atlantis’ a very interesting part of the main campaign that should be fun to revisit and see more of. The episodes could do with having more content that reflects the main story even though the main campaign does have multiple endings, the fact that in here how the campaign ended for me based on my decisions felt unimportant and ignored with the fact that my Alexios now has a child and yet no attempts to find my family and share that joy just made it feel a little flat at times.
As the first story expansion this does a lot of world building, by introducing the very first user of the Hidden Blade it adds more lore to the game, and I really enjoyed seeing how The Order is very much alive and well and can easily establish how it will eventually become The Templar Order fans will know from the series. There are nice little teases to the Assassin’s just how Origins did and with perhaps the biggest plot hole of the main campaign looking to be addressed and expanded on in the next expansion DLC, AC Odyssey is doing a fine job holding its own during a year that will not have a new full Assassin’s Creed title released.
I am certainly looking forward to seeing what adventures my Alexios is to have next, in the meantime, I think a cheeky New Game Plus run with Kassandra is next for me with this game until the next expansion launches.
It’s time for our review of the new Work + Play Fitness 15.6″ Laptop Backpack from Targus.
The Targus Work + Play ‘Fitness’ Backpack is ideal for commuting professionals with active lifestyles. Intelligently designed, with three dedicated compartments for your laptop (up to 15.6″”), work accessories and sports gear, it’s as versatile and adaptable as you are. It’s your Work/Life balance in just one bag.
Get ready for action. You get the tech protection promise that has made Targus the market leader in its category. Together with the generous capacity you need, Targus have created a dedicated section to keep your clothing (including a detachable laundry bag) to help make your work/life balance easier. There’s even a ventilated front compartment designed for transporting your work or sports shoes. It’s a real game changer.
Carry your laptop (up to 15.6″), work accessories and sports gear, together. Lightweight, hardwearing, intelligently designed for professionals with active lifestyles.
It’s a winning fit for all sorts of sports. The incredible versatility of this backpack makes it perfect for busy professionals who take part in sport or other fitness activities before, during or after their working day This unique laptop and sports backpack has the powerful flexibility to fit your work/life balance into just one bag. The perfect combination to suit your 7am to 11pm lifestyle, now nothing’s going to hold you back because at last, there’s a smart way to carry your work and sports gear together. It’s incredibly fit for purpose, stylish and durable for the workplace or multi sports activities and easily just has to be a winner.
It also scores points as a very handy overnight bag.
Specifications
15.6″ Laptops
Black, Yellow
27 Litres
1.07 kg
36 x 10 x 55 cm
38.7 x 2.5 x 26.5 cm
Faux Leather (PU), Poly
A Closer Look
Final Thoughts
The main selling point of this new bag is that it is both a laptop bag and a backup rolled into one. I know that you could argue that other laptop bags could always have stored your non laptop related stuff in the bag, but this bag goes that one step further and actually gives you pockets and other things to make that easier.
Tucked inside the back of the bag is a hook that can easily be moved into position so that you can hang your bag from a locker rail. You can then open up the bag fully so that you can access the contents, which makes life a lot easier. You can store your clothes, laptop, phone, chargers, wash kit, a lots of other things too.
There’s even a special shoe compartment so that you can keep your shoes separate from the rest of your stuff.
Each of the compartments have a little logo on them so you can easily tell what they are for. For example, the shoe compartment has a little shoe (kind of obvious) and one for your wash kit (as you can see in the pictures above). There’s even a dirty laundry bag included – how useful is that!!! Nice one Targus!
The laptop part of the back is specially lined to add an additional layer of protection for your laptop, not only from the outside world but from whatever you might be carrying in the bag.
The bag is very comfortable to wear for extended periods of time too, and can easily be adjusted to give you the maximum amount of comfort.
The Work + Play Fitness 15.6″ Laptop Backpack from Targus is available now priced around £64.99 and comes in either Black/Yellow or Grey.
If you are looking for a really good quality backpack that can carry more than just your laptop, then you really should take a closer look at the Work + Play Fitness 15.6″ Laptop Backpack from Targus because I think you might have just found exactly what you are looking for.
Each week a number of new ID@Xbox titles are released. Here is the roundup of the releases for this week.
Old Man’s Journey
Old Man’s Journey, a soul-searching puzzle adventure, tells a story of life, loss, reconciliation, and hope. Entrenched in a beautifully sunkissed and handcrafted world, embark on a heartfelt journey interwoven with lighthearted and pressure-free puzzle solving.
Black Desert
Black Desert is a revolutionary MMORPG that delivers intense, fast-paced combat, profitable life skills and an expansive open world. Slay monsters, abominations and gods, or engage in relaxing life skills like crafting, fishing and cooking. Become your true self in this truly open, open world MMORPG.
Beat Cop
A retro, pixel art style adventure in New York, inspired by ’80s cop shows. You are Jack Kelly and you’ve been framed for murder. Now as a regular beat cop you have to find out, who did that. Expect thick crime story, a lot of black humour and all the other things you can find on the streets of Brooklyn.
Attack of the Earthlings
Attack of the Earthlings combines turn-based combat and stealth in a dark comedic single player campaign, where you take control of the native alien race to defend your home world from the invading humans.
R.B.I. Baseball 19
R.B.I. Baseball 19 takes the field with more additions and improvements than ever before! R.B.I. 19 delivers a genuine MLB experience with heightened authenticity and incredible depth including the ability to manage your MLB franchise across multiple seasons, hundreds of new animations, updated player models, every official 2019 uniform, more player gear, improved ball physics and environments!
Overload
A new six-degree-of-freedom shooter with intuitive controls, amazing lighting and graphics. From the creators of Descent, Overload is the best zero-gravity robot-blasting combat ever.
Crimson Keep
Crimson Keep is an action RPG adventure in which your only hope is to explore, scavenge, and fight for survival. Will you find the mysterious Crimson Keep? Will you escape this terrible place? Or will you be food for the innumerable beasts and horrors that lurk below?
See you next week for another round-up of the new ID@Xbox releases.
The final piece in the master tapestry that is the current MCU has at last been unveiled as Captain MARVEL releases today internationally in cinemas. It is also quite hard to fathom how in ten years of the MCU, that it took 20 films before a female hero focused film was released, but who better than Carol Danvers to lead into a new era. I have been both intrigued but also concerned by the sheer number of trailers for the film, intrigued by the story they were hinting at but also at just how much of the big action scenes had been shown in the trailers, but it was time to how the final piece of the puzzle slots into place leading into Avengers: End Game.
I will start by saying there is a wonderful tribute to the late Stan Lee at the start of the film which is very touching and heartfelt and a moment where myself and many others in the screen took a moment to think about Stan, it is very strange to know that for at least this and Avengers: End Game will have Stan Lee Cameos, and they have even more meaning and presence now that he has passed, and this was a lovely way to pay their respects to him. Tasteful and delicately done which alongside one of his final MCU cameo’s, will keep Stan in the hearts and minds of fans as they watch.
Captain MARVEL has a lot on its shoulders just ahead of End Game’s release next month following how Infinity War ended with Nick Fury’s final act of using an old tech Pager to seemingly message an unknown hero for help with the Captain MARVEL logo appearing on screen just as Fury turns to dust following the Snap. So even before the film begins, there is huge pressure to introduce and set up this hero who Fury considers is the Earths’ last resort once Thanos had won but also never felt was required as aliens came through wormholes in New York and a rogue AI being dropped an entire city from the sky.
So, with the bar set pretty high already, it was finally time to meet Carol Danvers, which took a good hour or so into the film before you do so as we first meet Vers, member of Starforce, a Kree Special forces unit, waking up before going to train with her mentor and team leader Yon-Rogg. Vers is sassy, quick to use sarcasm but headstrong and determined as seen in her combat training with Yon-Rogg. It is also clear that Vers has powers beyond the Kree strength and fighting skills which Yon-Rogg is making very clear that she must focus harder to control but to also work on her own skills and to not rely on this power. We are also introduced to the supreme leader of the Kree Nation, The Great Intelligence, and during a session where Vers is having a talk in Virtual Reality with The Great intelligence, we can see that Vers is troubled by strange memories she does not understand, when again she is told about the potential of her power but to focus on controlling her emotions.
Her team is then sent on a dangerous mission to recover a Kree agent before their deadliest enemy, the Skrull can intervene. The Kree and Skrull have been at war for centuries, with the Skrull having the natural ability to shape shift into any person they see. But the mission is a trap, and the Skrull are able to capture Vers and submit her to mind probes by a Skrull commander named Talos which causes her to begin to remember more of the strange memories as Talos pushes towards a particular memory they need information from. Managing to escape, she crash-lands here on Earth, through the roof of a BlockBusters video store in the 1990s which is when the film really takes off.
One of the things I took away from Captain MARVEL is just how much of it is a celebration of everything that has come before in the MCU as being set in the 90s means it is a story that happens before Tony Stark builds the Iron Man suit and Fury begins the Avengers Initiative. In as much as this is an origin story for Captain MARVEL herself, it is also at the same time an origin story almost for a very young Nicholas Joseph Fury, Agent of SHIELD who is first to respond to the report of something strange break in at the BlockBuster store. After 20 films, it is really nice to see Samuel Jackson finally given the chance to have far more screen time and dialogue on screen, and the effects used to de age him for this role works really well, not so much for Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson, who in the 90s is a new agent with SHIELD and partnered with Fury. I also liked how they did not try to overdo the nostalgia of being back in the 90s, instead using clever and genuinely funny moments to highlight the difference of back then and today which older members of the audience will get right away. The soundtrack is very much of the 90s and the film will quite often take every opportunity to drop a 90s tune in, not at the same level that Guardians of the Galaxy cleverly used its own soundtrack but it still has a nice touch to the setting.
I also really liked Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, the interactions with Nick Fury came across really warm and funny in the film, even before Carol regains her memories. She brings a warmth and human side to what essentially is the most powerful character in the MCU next to Thanos which is also where the film fell down a little for me. I got the feeling that this was about showing how powerful Captain MARVEL can be and in doing so, the pace at which Carol Danvers is introduced finally, is sadly short lived. But it is thanks to the brilliant performance of Lashana Lynch as Maria, Carol’s best friend and former Air Force test pilot who is as strong and skilled as Carol and helps Carol remember her life before the events that led to her gaining her powers. Next stand out performance has to go to Ben Mendelsohn as Talos who goes all out bringing him to life and has some of the best moments in the film which was a nice surprise for his character and the Skrulls, which could be intriguing as the next phase of the MCU carries on after End Game.
The demonstration of Captain MARVEL’s powers in the final act was spoiled sadly as it was used in so many of the trailers before release but you do get the sense of the real power that she has, which as I said earlier, really feels like the reason behind the timing of this film coming out just before Avengers: End Game. This certainly sets up enough for the audience to know what impact having Captain MARVEL in End Game could have, and definitely what a MCU will look like after End Game and with the twenty years or more game between this film and current MCU timeline, there is still room to continue the story of Carol Danvers in one or two films at least to continue to build on her story depending on how she is used in End Game, which one of the two post credit scenes gives a nice little tease to.
Captain MARVEL is a very fun film to watch, it is celebratory of the current MCU which gives fans a look at a very different Nick Fury and a world before the time of Avengers and evil villains. Even getting to see Ronan the Accuser before the events in Guardians of the Galaxy was a great way to bring back this underused character and hopefully a chance for him to return in Captain MARVEL sequels. It is all very routine MARVEL though, there is nothing ground-breaking or overly memorable but it does get the balance of origin story, action and comedy right, with special mention going to Goose the cat for being well….Goose the cat. This is a MCU film that definitely knows that it has done enough to introduce Captain MARVEL as a character at a time when the MCU is about to change completely however End Game ends but it has so much more story to tell in sequels, wich is no doubt the actual plan for her going forward.
This is a great popcorn film and for me, after the darkness of Infinity War and the uncertain End Game, this is a much needed bit of fun with good action, sensible comedy and a chance to connect some dots from the early years and loose threads from other MCU films but opening up more cosmic stories now that there is a chance to learn more about the Kree and the introduction of the Skrulls. Could they have done more, yes they could have but again, with End Game looming and the merger of Fox bringing the X-Men, Deadpool and Fantastic Four licenses back under MARVEL’s control through Disney, the next phase of the MCU is going to be huge and with Captain MARVEL now established as a potential main character for the next phase, this was the sensible way to go.
Go see it and enjoy it for what it is, it is a great first look at the future of the MCU!
Captain Marvel features select scenes specially formatted for IMAX theatres with an expanded aspect ratio, which means audiences get to see up to 26% more picture than standard theatres, only in IMAX.
