Before fans can learn what happens after Thanos snapped his fingers, Marvel is introducing the world to Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel, in her titular debut film on March 8. However, lead Brie Larson’s comments about feminism and inclusion in the project have resulted in its fair share of blowback for the film, Marvel Studios, and the actress. The latest high-profile name to jump in on it is actor James Woods. Via Comicbook.com, after a Twitter user sent out a tweet telling the “white men haters” to stay home for “Captain Marvel,” Woods decided to reply on Twitter, writing, “Okay. We will be happy to sit this one out then...” Woods, 71, then followed up his comments in a subsequent tweet, encouraging people to go see “Alita: Battle Angel” instead. He tweeted, “When you have a choice, pick a movie where the studio doesn’t hate half its audience...” “Captain Marvel” isn’t the only franchise Woods has criticized recently, either. Last month he went after “The Walking Dead” by referring to the series as an “all-chick zombie series” and “estrogen fest” that didn’t spend the money to keep actor Andrew Lincoln. “The Walking Dead” stars Michael Cudlitz and Jeffrey Dean Morgan ended up pushing back, explaining that Lincoln left to spend more time with his family after dedicating so many years to the AMC show. And this sort of Twitter behavior is not uncommon for Woods. In 2018, he had his account locked for tweeting a hoax meme encouraging liberal men not to vote. Woods has also been accused of sexual misconduct and predator behavior by actress Amber Tamblyn. Photo: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images<doc-sep>Captain Marvel (12A) Rating: This is the first Marvel movie since the death last November of Stan Lee, the founding father of Marvel Comics, although the old boy gets a posthumous cameo and, at the very start, a richly deserved show of gratitude. A caption simply says: ‘Thank you Stan.’ Which quite possibly is short for: ‘Thank you Stan, for making us more money than Fort Knox has room for, and for giving us the superheroes who have enabled us to churn out Marvel blockbusters with indecent regularity. The next one will be in cinemas in a matter of weeks.’ Ah well. At least Captain Marvel has one unique distinction. There have been 20 films in the so-called Marvel Cinematic Universe and none of them has had a female lead. Until now. Brie Larson and Annette Bening attend the Captain Marvel screening at Henry R. Luce Auditorium at Brookfield Place in New York City. Larson plays the title character The title character is played by Brie Larson, a prominent champion for gender-equality in Hollywood since winning an Academy Award for her performance in the 2015 abduction thriller Room. Well, now she’s given feminists everywhere a spectacular new pin-up, as a jet-heeled superhero with fists that can thump practically any man into the middle of next week. The key word, however, is ‘practically’. It takes the best part of this movie’s two-hour or so running time (hallelujah, by the way, for a Marvel blockbuster that doesn’t make you wish you’d brought a pillow and a chamber-pot) for her superpowers to be fully unleashed. Actress Lashana Lynch attends the Captain Marvel Canadian Premiere held at Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto, Canada At the start of the film, answering to the name Vers, she is not yet powerful enough in martial arts sessions to overcome her condescending boss, Yon-Rogg (a miscast Jude Law). He wants her to control her emotions, which can’t be easy, because she also has to stomach his platitudes. ‘I want you to be the best version of yourself,’ he says, like a New-Agey schoolteacher. The pair of them are Kree, inhabitants of the planet Hala, where he runs an elite military unit and she is his bright protege. At this early stage, they and their fellow soldiers look as though Scotty has beamed them up into an old episode of Star Trek. The crew of the Starship Enterprise would certainly recognise a pointy-eared, green-faced race called the Skrulls, who are presented to Vers as the enemy. Her mission to outflank them soon has her hurtling through the galaxy to the planet she knows as C-53, and we know as Earth. This is the first Marvel movie since the death last November of Stan Lee, the founding father of Marvel Comics. There have been 20 films in the so-called Marvel Cinematic Universe and none of them has had a female lead It is 1995. She crash-lands on top of a Blockbuster Video store, abiding by that law of the movies which decrees that crash-landings from outer space always have to happen in Californian shopping malls. Like the Kree but with different motives, the Skrulls, led by a wisecracking cove called Talos (the excellent Ben Mendelsohn), are trying to find an entity known as the Supreme Intelligence. Come to think of it, in this age of supreme idiocy, aren’t we all? But anyway, with a woman in a silver space suit having just rocketed through the Blockbuster roof, an operative with the covert U.S. government agency SHIELD is quickly on hand to find out what’s going on. This is Nick Fury, played by Samuel L. Jackson, for whom digital effects wreak the miracle that syringes of Botox never can, making him look 30 years younger than he normally does as SHIELD’s eye-patched director, dishing out save-the-world-from-Armageddon jobs to the Avengers. So this is his origin story as well as Captain Marvel’s; we even find out how he loses his eye. In the meantime, he and Vers team up to deal with the Skrulls, which is tricky, because the slippery so-and-sos can metamorphose at any time into anyone or anything. And as if that weren’t enough to be getting on with, Vers learns how she acquired her name — it derives from Carol Danvers, the U.S. Air Force pilot she used to be before she absorbed other-worldly superpowers in an accident and was adopted by the Kree. With this realisation comes a barrage of random memories of her previous life, quite a few of which feature Annette Bening, playing her old squadron leader. These fragmented memories also lead her to a deeply emotional reunion with her former best friend and fellow pilot, Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch). As BEFITS a woman called Brie, Larson brings a fair bit of cheesiness to these scenes. Indeed, the film generally makes a cheese-heavy meal of female friendship. There’s no romantic sub-plot; the love story is all about the sisterhood. Meanwhile, those clever folk in the bells-and-whistles department are not quite at the top of their game. There’s an overdose of special effects, which somehow leeches a climactic battle scene of suspense. On the other hand, writer-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (whose last collaboration was 2015’s wonderful but little-seen road movie Mississippi Grind) keep it all bombing along very watchably, handle a series of narrative twists cleverly and make the most of the Nineties setting with some smart visual gags about CD-roms and all the things we thought back then were the very essence of cutting-edge. Captain Marvel isn’t exactly marvellous. But old Stan, I think, would probably approve.<doc-sep>
Actor James Woods, who previously worked with Disney and provided the voice for Hades in the animated film Hercules, roasted the company and their upcoming Captain Marvel film with the distracted boyfriend meme. Woods would write on Twitter, “When you have a choice, pick a movie where the studio doesn’t hate half its audience…” He then posted the distracted boyfriend meme encouraging his fans to see Alita: Battle Angel instead of Captain Marvel. When you have a choice, pick a movie where the studio doesn’t hate half its audience… pic.twitter.com/69I3QuCxt3 — James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) March 3, 2019 Woods previously told one Twitter user, “Okay. We will be happy to this one out then…” The user had stated “Dead white men haters, You’re not welcome at cinemas for #CaptainMarvel This movie takes a astand against everything you represent. Don’t pollute the audience with your toxicity. I stand in solidarity with every woman who has ever faced abuse.” Okay. We will be happy to sit this one out then… https://t.co/bCQEFKFUfP — James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) March 3, 2019 Woods is more than likely responding to the marketing and lead up to Disney’s Captain Marvel which has seen Brie Larson make a number of controversial comments about the film including stating she wanted fewer white men covering the film via reviews and on the press tour. She would eventually clarify those comments in a follow-up interview saying she wanted to “bring more seats up to the table.” Larson has also described the film as her “form of activism” and revealed that Marvel Studios approached her to make a “big feminist movie.” She would then go on to state it’s not just a “big feminist movie,” but is about “intersectional feminism.” In one interview, she stated “that was the patriarchy that was ringing on my parade,” when what appears to be a door bell is signalling the end of the interview. Larson also responded to the Captain Marvel smiling controversy by stating “it’s a depiction of the female experience.”