CAPTAIN MARVEL
A highly entertaining superhero origin with family, sacrifice, and discernment.
Should You Watch It?
CAPTAIN MARVEL is highly entertaining, with plenty of jokes, excitement, and appealing banter between Carol and Nick Fury. It also offers positive moral elements, including sacrifice, service, friendship, reconciliation, truth-seeking, and the importance of families being together.
The plot is somewhat convoluted, and the movie includes foul language, lots of action violence, and a worldview concern involving a supreme being. Still, the film is uplifting overall and strongly promotes helping others while opposing war.
If you’re choosing for teenagers or adults, especially Marvel fans, this is worth seeing; parents should use discernment for younger children.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESCarol Danvers is a woman enhanced by special alien technology. She helps the Kree fight the Skrulls, a shapeshifting race, while struggling with haunting, unexplained dreams and memories she cannot understand.
After a battle goes wrong and Carol is taken hostage, she escapes and lands on Earth. There, she meets Nick Fury, who joins her in searching for a woman with the energy power needed to stop the Skrulls from destroying Earth.
Is It Any Good?
Four stars means CAPTAIN MARVEL is a thoroughly entertaining movie that delivers both excitement and humor. It is well made, and the banter between Brie Larson’s Carol and Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury is a particular strength.
The movie also ties into the larger franchise well, offering character-development touches for Marvel fans and a touching tribute to the late Stan Lee. The main weakness is a somewhat convoluted plot, but the energy, jokes, and excitement carry the film.
The Worldview
CAPTAIN MARVEL presents a strong moral and redemptive worldview. It exalts friendship, sacrifice, reconciliation, pursuing truth, helping others, and fighting for what is good and right. It also depicts family positively and stresses the importance of families being together.
The film is very much against war, with ending war in general as one of its main themes. Some underlying political tones may be present, though most viewers may not notice them. The movie also includes a negative portrayal of a powerful being described as whatever each person respects most highly. This slightly clouds the film’s Christian, redemptive elements.
Ultimately, the supreme being is revealed as a control mechanism used by evil forces. The source review notes that this may suggest an intentional humanist commentary against organized religion, while also acknowledging that this could be reading more into the movie than is really there.
The film’s emphasis on sacrifice and service connects with Jesus’ words: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements
Strong moral worldview with moral, redemptive themes of friendship, sacrifice, reconciliation, and pursing truth with a negative portrayal of a powerful being that slightly clouds the movie’s Christian, redemptive elements, but with some positive comments about the chance to fight for the good and right, plus some strong American values
Foul Language
13 obscenities and three profanities
Violence
Lots of action violence includes aliens and human heroine engage in physical combat, firearms used, some instances where alien or human blood is shown but not too graphic, alien shape-shifter looks like an old woman, and there’s a scene where the heroine fights the old woman (who is really an alien, though children may get confused), woman punched in the face, cat scratches a man’s eye, and there’s a scary alien character that eats things
Sex
No sex but there’s an implied joke about male private parts
Nudity
No nudity
Alcohol Use
Scenes in a bar with drinking depicted
Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse
No smoking or drugs;
Miscellaneous Immorality
Lying, anger, greed, revenge occur, plus an antiwar message may bother some viewers.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
Carol learns to use her abilities in service of others. What gifts has God given you, and how can you use them to help people?
1 Peter 4:10 · Philippians 2:4The film stresses the importance of families being together. What makes a family relationship strong, and how can you practice faithfulness at home?
Colossians 3:12–14 · Ephesians 4:2–3The story promotes sacrifice and helping others. Why does Jesus call self-giving love greater than power?
John 15:13 · Mark 10:45The film is strongly against war. How should Christians pursue peace while still standing for what is good and right?
Matthew 5:9 · Romans 12:18The Final Word
CAPTAIN MARVEL is a well-made, highly entertaining superhero movie with positive themes of family, sacrifice, service, and peace. Its language, action violence, and troubling treatment of a supreme being call for discernment. For teenagers and adults, it is WORTH THE TRIP — AGES 13 AND UP.
