Captain Marvel Review: 7 Ups & 6 Downs

4. The Subversion Of Expectations

In these dark days of spoilers and leaks, it's rare for any film to successfully surprise its audience. That's why moments like the Deadpool 2 special cameos end up getting so much attention: we love to be positively shocked.

For all of the expectations built in Captain Marvel's marketing campaign, there's a surprising level of subversion going on and its on a far deeper level than just cameos. Fundamentally, the story depends on one of the biggest twists in the entire MCU and it's one that changes a lot of things for the better.

On top of that, there's a major link to the rest of the MCU that will come as a huge shock to a lot of the audience and an individual character change that is silly and fun at once.

Ben Mendelsohn's performance is also one of the most surprising things about the film, which is particularly wonderful when fans will have seen accusations levelled at him that he's playing characters that all exist within a very small slice of the spectrum.