It’s been a few months since the first trailer for Captain Marvel, the next MCU title and the first since this summer’s Ant-Man and the Wasp. (That’s nine entire months with a Marvel film, which hasn’t happened since the Iron Man 2 days.) The last time we saw Brie Larson’s super-super-super-powered superhero — the one who might be able to beat even dreaded Thanos — she was punching old ladies for reasons that presumably will be explained.
Now, in an ad that aired during halftime of a Monday Night Football match, we know why she did that: The old woman was an evil alien! That’s right: It’s now clear that Captain Marvel is basically a more respectable, considerably less silly looking version of the 2011 film of Green Lantern, in which a normal human is also integrated into a world of alien do-gooders and alien do-badders.
In this case, said everyday earthling is Larson’s Air Force pilot Carol Danvers, and the trailer gives us brief moments that play like Top Gun only starring the woman who won an Oscar for 2015’s Room. Speaking of acclaimed thespians, Annette Bening — who, insanely enough, has yet to win an Oscar, despite being nomianted only four times — is there as well, playing what looks like an alien goddess who helps Danvers get acclimated. And you know who else should have an Oscar, too? Samuel L. Jackson, getting what looks like his biggest chunk of Marvel screentime ever, as S.H.I.E.L.D. honcho Nick Fury.
And no, Larson still isn’t smiling. She’s too busy hurting aliens.
Anyway, some of us are just amused that so many people are stoked for the latest from directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, who once upon a time made the edgy Ryan Gosling crack drama Half Nelson. Let’s hope their new film is just as moving and brilliantly acted! It’s out March 8.