Here is a sci-fi superhero action-comedy which pops as sweetly and insubstantially as bubblegum. It’s a sequel, of sorts, to Captain Marvel from 2019, which sketched in the origins of Brie Larson’s eponymous superhero, one of the few MCU figures with the honour of having the franchise brand in their actual name. However, the idea of a “sequel” is a bit problematic in this world, where consequences can be modified or reversed or shunted into parallel worlds, or revealed to be null and void in the post-credits sting.
As the story commences, we are reintroduced to Captain Marvel, or rather Carol Danvers, travelling solo in her spaceship through the galaxy and coming to terms with the events of the previous film; this included dramatic remedial action on her part to save the universe, leading to a crisis on the all-but-destroyed planet of Hala, home of the Kree people to whom Danvers has complicated personal links. Now she is to encounter the new Kree leader, the fanatical Dar-Benn, a baddie role with which Zawe Ashton has a lot of fun. Dar-Benn has discovered one of a pair of MacGuffiny bangles, or “quantum bands”, on a remote planet which together could could give her enormous power and enable her to tear apart “jump points” in space.
