The Marvels is the latest entry to the vast Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and the last for 2023. And boy, is it going with a bang.
The movie starring Brie Larson, Iman Vellani and Teyonah Parris as superheroes Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers, Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan and Monica Rambeau has generated quite a buzz over the weekend, with various cinema listings giving conflicting timings for the Marvel movie.
AMC Theatres stated it was 105 minutes (1 hour and 45 minutes) before removing it from the listing soon after. Odeon listed it as 140 minutes (2 hours and 20 minutes) whereas Cineworld had it down as 120 hours (2 minutes).
The conflicting reports could be due to the absence of an official announcement from Marvel Studios. Given the disparity in reports, fans have begun debating on what would be an optimal runtime.
Superhero team-up movies in the MCU have tended to go over 120 minutes (2 hours). 2012’s The Avengers had a runtime of 145 minutes (2 hours and 25 minutes). The next team-up was in Captain America: Civil War (2016) at 147 minutes (2 hours and 27 minutes) and in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), which featured three versions of Spider-Man, ran for 148 minutes (2 hours and 28 minutes). 2019’s Avengers: Endgame still holds the record as the longest MCU movie yet at 181 minutes (3 hours and 1 minute).
It would be a shock if The Marvels ran for less than 2 hours. The recent entries Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 ran for 125 minutes (2 hours and 5 minutes) and 149 minutes (2 hours and 29 minutes) respectively, showing a preference for longer storytelling anyways.
That said, a movie’s runtime does not determine how good it will be.
In The Marvels. Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel has reclaimed her identity from the tyrannical Kree and taken revenge on the Supreme Intelligence. But unintended consequences see Carol shouldering the burden of a destabilized universe. When her duties send her to an anomalous wormhole linked to a Kree revolutionary, her powers become entangled with that of Jersey City super-fan, Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel, and Carol’s estranged niece, now S.A.B.E.R. astronaut Captain Monica Rambeau. Together, this unlikely trio must team up and learn to work in concert to save the universe.
The movie is directed by Nia DaCosta and will be released in theatres on 10 November.
Don’t judge a book by its cover, for behind all this makeup, is a geek just like you. To simply put it, superheroes, Star Wars, Harry Potter and all things gore and creepy makes this girly girl swoon.
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