It’s been eleven years since the release of Iron Man and with the recent release of Captain Marvel, all of the background has finally been set for Avengers: Endgame. Although some are displeased because of the fact that Captain Marvel would seem to be purely filler, that doesn’t stop it from giving some much needed backstory to some more obscure characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

In this film, the protagonist, Vers, is a special agent for an alien race called the Kree. Her mission is to infiltrate a planet and retrieve a spy that is behind enemy lines. The only problem is that the planet has been overrun by the evil Skrull, a race of beings who can shapeshift to look like anything that they desire. However, the plan goes awry, and Vers is captured by the Skrull, and they scrub her memories. After waking up, Vers escapes (and eventually crashlands) on a late 1990’s Earth. It is then that Vers meets a young Nick Fury who is an agent for S.H.I.E.L.D (imagine a mix between the FBI and the CIA). After the encounter with Fury, Vers starts having flashbacks to a previous life.

Carol Danvers was working for the Air Force trying to become a pilot when she was approached by a Dr. Wendy Lawson. Lawson told Carol that she could become a pilot if she tests a top-secret new plane developed by P.E.G.A.S.U.S (Potential Energy Group/Alternate Sources/United States). Carol agrees, and during the test flight, she and Dr. Lawson are attacked by a UFO, which ends up crashing the new airplane. Stepping out of the UFO is a Kree warrior, who claims that he is there for an item called the tesseract which is in the plane’s engine. In a last ditch effort, Carol shoots the engine, which explodes a large burst of raw infinity energy straight into Carol’s body, thus turning her into a super being. After Vers (who remembers she is Carol) wakes up, she realizes that the Kree are not who they seem to be, and that the Skrull may not be that bad.

“I think Captain Marvel’s character was developed well, and I like the way they scaled her power throughout the movie,” said junior Joe Machado.

One of the reasons Captain Marvel is such a well done film is the way the movie uses trust. During the exposition, the audience trusts the Kree because Carol trusts the Kree; when Carol learns that she’s been lied to, the audience can sympathize as well because they also feel betrayed. This method of storytelling is used throughout the movie to great effect. For example, Carol knows just as much as the audience does about her past: As she learns about herself, the audience learns just as much. This creates a unique bond with the character and the audience. By the end of the movie, the audience has seen Captain Marvel grow stronger and it leaves them with the feeling that they, too, have grown stronger.

“I like how they focused more on her backstory and powers than the fact that she is a chick,” said junior Teagan Burns.

It will be interesting to see where Captain Marvel’s character will go in the future, but all will be revealed in Avengers: Endgame. While Captain Marvel is an amazing movie by itself, it hasn’t lived up to the standard that previous Marvel movies have set. Nevertheless Captain Marvel is an amazing feel good film for any moviegoer.