Can I just say that I love Goose? And Kamala? All the bad reviews and articles claiming this movie was going to be bad were wrong, at least, in my eyes. We got to see Carol really in a team, and not just showing up to save the day. It was so good to see her not being perfect.

Carol is idolized by Kamala Khan, seen by all the Captain Marval artwork and drawings in her room. But by meeting her, we get to witness the good and bad about the real person. Carol makes mistakes, and she gets angry. She failed to return out of guilt and couldn’t communicate her feelings. She became a real person in this movie.

Monica also got more time to shine. We haven’t seen her since WandaVision, but this time, we got more of why she was angry at Carol. Carol promised to come back to see her soon. But it seems Carol never saw Monica until now, though Carol did visit with Monica’s mom during the blip years when she was sick. Carol was carrying a lot of guilt about her actions while she was away and didn’t want Monica to know about her actions.

Kamala Khan is so endearing. I love her fan girl tendencies, and her general confusion at everything going on. She is relatable on so many levels. And she also learned how to control her powers even more. She was truly the glue for the team and seeing her take the place of young Monica in Carol’s eyes was rather sweet. Kamala does have the energy of a younger kid, asking questions about everything but it’s not obnoxious.

The inclusion of Kamala’s family was wonderful. They are still the same family we saw in Ms. Marvel, but with the knowledge that Kamala has powers. This makes their interactions with Nick Fury, Carol, and Monica so entertaining. And Nick having to deal with the family dynamic while not really knowing what was happening gave some great dialogue moments.

I do have a complaint though. I needed more of the Prince. A great bit of backstory (I wanted more of it) was that Carol married a prince on a water-based planet for political reasons. The people on the planet spoke in song so we got a completely random, and brilliant basically flashmob. The Prince tried to fight off our villain, but his planet was destroyed. And that was it. I really hope he made it out, or we see him in the multiverse.

Speaking of the villain. The main enemy in the movie was a Kree warrior named Dar-Benn. She had two main goals: save her planet (Hala) and destroy Carol (who the Kree now call the Annihilator). Carol kept true to her word and destroyed the Supreme Intelligence, which controlled the Kree. This resulted in a civil war on Hala that led to a drought, unbreathable air, and their sun burning out. Dar-Benn decided that the best way to fix this was target the places Carol called home to steal the air, water, and sun from those planets. To do this, Dar-Benn found the other missing half of Kamala’s bangle, which was hidden on a random planet.

The use of the bangle to make jump points to steal the resources from other planets is what led to the entanglement of Carol, Monica, and Kamala’s powers. Whenever two or all three used their powers at the same time, they switched places. The first fight scene was so comical. Kamala was the most concerned, since she was in space. And her first interaction with Goose was perfect. The screaming, Goose being a beast, the faces. All so good.

I loved Kamala’s family trying to fight those aliens off by hitting them with furniture. But damn, their house was destroyed. At least Carol apologized. The montage of the three learning how to work with the switching places was also a fun moment.

I absolutely loved the dynamic between the three main ladies. Carol and Monica both had really good character development. Kamala brought so much lightheartedness to the team, and was always there to either fan girl over Carol or provide a funny remark. The scene of Carol and the prince dancing made Kamala so happy, and Monica even remarked that it was creating so much Captain Marvel fanfiction.

Goose is the best, and he laid so many eggs (did this make any sense?) that hatched into adorable kittens that were roaming all over. And they got to help with an evacuation plan by eating the people on the ship and throwing them up on Earth. The moment I saw the first kitten, I knew that would happen and it was hilarious to watch. The music from Cats playing in the background as the kittens chased down people to eat was a highlight of the movie.

To close the unstable jump point that became a rip in space to a new dimension created when Dar-Benn used both bangles, Kamala and Carol had to shoot Monica with their power so she could absorb it all and close the tear. However, she had to be on the other side of the rip to close it, “killing” her. We, as the audience, know she didn’t die, but Kamala and Carol did not.

This led to our two end credit scenes. The first was a funny remake of the end credit scene in Ironman. Instead of Nick Fury visiting Tony, it was Kamala visiting Kate Bishop (Hawkeye) and inviting her to join her team. Please.

The second was Monica waking up in a hospital bed with who she thought was her mom next to her. A second visitor appears, and it’s Beast, from X-men and he calls what we thought was her mom, Binary. Monica ended up in another dimension where the X-men are. The first real introduction to the X-men in the MCU.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie a lot more than I thought I would. The quirky humor was refreshing and gave me Thor Ragnarök vibes. The casting was great and while there was some dialogue that was a bit clunky, it still was fun and provided a lot more backstory to flesh out the characters. I hope for more movies like this (especially with Kamala Khan in them).

And I can’t forget that Captain Marval and Valkyrie have a little something going on. And I need more of it.