This movie is not a top tier MCU film but I'd put it on equal footing with Doctor Strange, Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp. I don't really want to do this comparison but I think if a film with this structure and talent was done for DC it would have been praised but because Marvel have made so many high mark films it has come across as a bit average for some. Wonder Woman was really really good for it's first 2 thirds but the last third really fell on it's face when she fought Ares. I don't mind full CGI battles but the choreography and camera work in it was really dull.
Bries acting for me was good, really good. Despite thinking her acting was good, I can agree that her character did not come across with any charming or likeable qualities but I think this is ok within the context of the story. She only has memories from the last 6 years or her life, she is a soldier and she is constantly told not to indulge in her emotions. In a way Fury is the first person in her life where she can be herself and the interplay and chemistry between them was really fun. Loved the scene where Fury was trying to help them escape from a room with the finger print scanner and then Carol just blasts the next door open. By the end of the film she was acting more human and coming across as happier.
Structure is interesting for this film. Some people say it is a generic film but I think it's structure makes it very non generic. It allows for some really interesting reveals. I knew that Jude Law was going to be a bad guy but I assumed he would be working for the Scrulls in some capacity. I was not for the life of me expecting the Scrulls to be victims though and was not expecting Talos to be so comedic (He's my science guy) after that reveal.
On the other hand, if they set this film up with a typical origin story, like we see Carol as a kid for 10 minutes and we see what makes her wish to be a pilot, we see her as an adult and become a pilot, she sees her mentor type figure (Lawson) get killed and then she gets revenge. That would then be a generic film structure. A positive to doing it in that manner would be seeing Carols proper personality shine through.
I don't think the feminist angle was really shoved in your face except for the bike scene where the guy tells her to smile. She doesn't react to him though, she doesn't tell him off or try to lecture him. That would have been horrible if she had, thank goodness she didn't.
The so called retcons and plot holes. I don't think they exist.
The Tesseract showing up was a very big surprise. Previously we knew that Howard Stark found it in the 40's, nek minute Fury has it in 2011/2012. That's all the knowledge we had.
Now we know that it popped up in the 90's and Lawson was experimenting on it. Howard Stark obviously failed at producing anything for 30 years(Did he die in the 70's). Whoever took over SHIELD after Howard must have kept working with Tesseract and at some point Project Pegasus was started. I know Fury is a SHIELD agent and he has no knowledge about Project Pegasus but he is only at level 3 in Captain Marvel.
From the MCU wiki
"For example, for agents to know all of the information surrounding the
Battle of New York, they had to have been Level 7."
Fury is a low level grunt in Captain Marvel. After the Tesseract fell on his desk, he either held on to it in secret or gave it to the higher ups. Either way he still has it by the end credits scene of Thor.
Now why didn't Fury call on Captain Marvel previously, Kevin Feige says that maybe he has, there is nearly 20 years between Captain Marvel and Avengers. Yeah this is fanfic but not inconceivable, he has probably seen many world threatening events since the Tesseract fell in his lap, the Tesseract could be why he got promoted to higher clearance. Captain Marvel may have helped Earth multiple times but he realises that she can't always be relied on. Eventually he learnt about Iron Man, Captain America and Hulk and saw the potential start to his Avengers Initiative, a way for Earth to protect itself.
Fury says that Thor is the reason that they were creating Tesseract weapons, I linked a video to this earlier. Fury keeps secrets from everyone and he said the Thor very confidently that he is not the only threat. Fury has seen some shit throughout his years and he is not about to divulge that information to a group of people that can't work together.
Fury losing his eye from a cat, not a big fan of that myself but it worked comedically (Is that a word?) I can imagine him wanting to pretend it happened in a more serious manner (The Last time I trusted someone I lost an eye).
The action was also well shot and entertaining. I wasn't happy when the No Doubt song played towards the end, it stopped any potential intensity that could have happened.
That's all my thoughts for now. I'm sure I have more but can't remember then
