That's your opinion then, but I personally don't see it. She has her moments of stoic professionalism, because she's a soldier (and a brainwashed one at that), but pretty much every moment she's not 100% invested in the mission, she's pushing buttons and trolling someone and maybe even being a bit flirty about it. Or there's the moments when she's questioning her past and she looks like her sky is falling. It's really not that hard at all to get into her headspace any time she's on screen, which you can't really do if the person doesn't emote at all.
I get where you are coming from, but when I watched the movie in theaters, I felt those scenes were extremely forced emotions rather than natural ones. Her being a soldier is no excuse for being a robot. Hell, Heero Yuy has more emotions than her and he's basically an assassin.
Don't see where you are coming from here. She had a personality and it was conveyed naturally through the film's dialogue, themes and her expressions. Don't mistake a lack of ham for being wooden. Larson is quite human in her portrayal of Carol. Not every actor or character should be RDJ or Barbossa.
My partner got it and had little to no interest in these movies (or super heroes for that matter) save Thor: Ragnarok
For me personally it comes down to her powers being ill-defined by nature. Rather than have something pragmatic or basically-conveyed like super strength or whatnot, it’s all just swirly CGI energy that looks lame as hell. When your skill set is that obtuse and hard to believe/visualize, extra effort is needed to make it seem real, otherwise to me it’s just the actors pumping their fists awkwardly with CGI gunk spread on top later. And no, I can’t chalk Brie Larson’s absolute wooden performance as simply some in-character trait. If it was, it was a mistake to portray her that way. I’ve seen Brie Larson act, hell she acted better even in that terrible Kong movie, but she was just awful as Captain Marvel, and in Endgame especially. There’s just... so little to compel her character. It’s all down to how it was done. It’s what everyone complains Superman is, and they do often define his powers as he learns them. Here it’s just a flat character with uninteresting abilities. It’s why a lot of superheroes end up tweaked or nerfed in films. You gotta give me more nuance than “can fly and shoot energy.”
I don’t buy the “She was told to repress her emotions” defense. You know who else was told to repress all feelings of love and emotion to become an efficient killing machine? Black Widow. ScarJo acts circles around Brie Larson in these movies, and she is so much better at conveying emotions she’s trying to bury. When Carol sees that Fury was snapped in Endgame, her face barely changes (and this is 20 years after she apparently discovered that her emotions make her stronger). It also doesn’t work when characters like Yon Rogg are telling the audience she’s too emotional without actually showing it. They do give her jokes, but her comedic timing just isn’t very good, and some of them just come off as mean spirited like when she says Fury finally did something smart. The finding her identity by discovering her past thing doesn’t work either. If you think I just don’t like Brie Larson, I don’t like Matt Damon either, but he was so good with a character going through a similar plot line in the Bourne trilogy. I haven’t seen Larson in anything other than this, Kong: Skull Island, Disney Channel movie from 15 years ago, but she has not impressed me as Carol Danvers yet.
Apparently the big factor in Marvel choosing her was because of her performance in The Room(which she won an Oscar for). I haven’t seen the movie myself, but it’s a very twisted/creepy one. Anyone here seen that?
Brie Larson plays EVERY role the EXACT same way. Whether Scott Pilgrim vs the World, United States of Tara, Unicorn Store, or Captain Marvel. She has NO range. A decent actress? Yes. Yet EVERY role she has is the sarcastic, snarky chic with spunk role. She's good at playing that one note, one dimensional character. Brie's issue is that near EVERY other lead character in the MCU is portrayed by someone who brings range and depth to the character. Brie just doesnt bring anything special. Maybe she'll own the role in a future portrayal. As generic as Black Widow is, Scarlett has always brought something extra. Brie is a good actress, it just feels like she should be in an MCU tv show more than a movie. The directors and script don't play to her strengths. Captain Marvel is about the most boring character to give a movie to. The fact that so many people said the cat or Sam Jackson were the best parts of the movie ,and the overall divisive nature of the movie, are strong indications of her solid, if mediocre acting.
It's a fantastic movie and she does do an amazing performance with a lot of range and emotions in that. It's the movie that blipped her onto my radar. Probably the best role I've seen her in.
Never seen Room? Good thing that her emotional repression isn't the only aspect of her character, then. Between all this commentary on Larson and someone apparently not getting Carol's powers, it looks more like parroting things said having not seen the movie because she does emote and she emotes several ways throughout the film. She does display personality in the movie and it should be pretty goddamn obvious if a person with autism (but is admittedly versed in creative writing) like me got it. It's funny that you positively compare Scarlett Johansson to Larson because my experience was the opposite. The only movie she had her sea legs in that I have seen is Endgame. All the Avengers and Captain America films, Iron Man 2 and Ghost in the Shell, ScarJo was more wooden than the teenage boys gawking at her. For the record, I liked Larson better in her solo movie than Endgame. That was because of the shaky creative decision to film a movie before the actress and her creative team had the time to work out the character and shove said unfinished character into a movie full of characters realized over the past decade. Not helping that the Russo Bros didn't want her in the movie in the first place. Pretty hard to act when you don't even have a full grasp of the character and their history and you aren't a high priority of the directors. That resulted in a Carol who seemed courageous and a little sassy, but in a way that doesn't come out as fluidly because the actress was going nigh by the seat of her pants and through most of the film she was only there for action scenes.
It's the only movie where she shows an ounce of credible acting ability. Every other movie she's acted in, she plays the snarky mean chick. She absolutely deserved the award for Room; She was amazing in it.
That's a pretty cop-out excuse, IMO. We don't live in an age where actors are chameleons anymore. This isn't the golden age of Hollywood, where there are only 5 major players expected to be flexible and versatile. Actors have their own strengths and weaknesses, and that's what casting directors are for, is to select from the available acting pool which actor's strengths best match the role they're trying to fill. Type-casting happens for a reason. If Brie Larson's strength is to play sassy, snarky girls, then that's fine, because that's how Carol was written. How she acts in other movies has no bearing on the story portrayed here. Being tired of that shtick, on the other hand, is a matter of personal opinion, and does not mean that the actor was bad in the role they were assigned. Just means it wasn't an exceptionally original role, and nothing more. I can't help but think that Larson being the centre of this sort of criticism is unduly influenced by all the negative coverage she received as a result of all that manufactured controversy around her. Zoe Saldana plays the same fiercely independent woman in Avatar, Star Trek, and Guardians of the Galaxy. RDJ is used for his capacity as a snarky motormouth. Morgan Freeman plays practically the same sagely know-it-all in every film he's in, as does Michael Caine frequently. Samuel L. Jackson is practically celebrated for his walking meme status, and is largely expected to play himself in every role he takes. None of them have caught the same level of flak that Larson has for this role. As someone who hasn't gone out of his way to see Larson's entire filmography or anything, I think she played the role just fine. I've seen wooden acting before, but this wasn't it. She sold her relationships with the other characters well, and I didn't notice any line readings that were stilted or off-the-mark. Maybe not the most wide-ranging role, but this was also still her origin movie, and not one where she's really put through the ringer very much. Many of the other MCU characters have had similar debut movies in that manner as well.
bought this Sunday and rewatched it for the first time since i saw it in the theater. i enjoyed it then and enjoyed it a bit more on the home viewing.
