Don’t listen to the naysayers: The Marvels is worth the price of a ticket (and concessions!)

The Marvels has it all: action, comedy, more comedy, drama, cats, Cats, and even a little song and dance. It begins with Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), a novice teenage superhero with an arm bangle that has given her the power of “hard light,” meaning she can turn light into matter. Kamala idolizes Captain Marvel, from whom she has pinched her hero name (in this universe the kids worship actual superheroes, not actors who portray them in movies).

As the movie opens, both Captain Marvel (fanboy favorite Brie Larson) and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) are in different parts of outer space, each in contact with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson.) They discover a disturbance in the space-time barrier that surrounds the jump points, wormholes that are shortcuts through different points in space. Of course, both get close enough to absorb some of the mysterious energy that is pulsating around the points.

Back on Earth, a power surge that emanates from her bangle blows Kamala back, through her closet – and into outer space. Meanwhile, a confused Carol Danvers finds herself in Kamala’s closet. She and Kamala have swapped locations. Monica starts switching places with one or the other of the two, because any time two of the three use their powers at the same time, they switch places with each other.

The switcheroos couldn’t have come at a worse time, as Dar-Benn, the new leader of the Kree (Zawe Ashton) is out for revenge for her people – the people of Hana, which was irreparably damaged in Captain Marvel when Carol destroyed the Supreme Intelligence that ruled their planet. Now Dar-Benn’s people have a dying sun, no water, and no hope. Dar-Benn plans to return all to her people by any means necessary.

She also has a bangle, the twin of the one on Kamala’s arm, and all the attendant power it provides. She knows another bangle exists, but does not know it’s on Kamala’s arm…yet. Now The Marvels (as Kamala dubs the nascent team) must learn how to sync their entangled powers so they can take on Dar-Benn and her army of Kree.

From this pretty standard premise comes a film that is heavy on action (with less than the usual amount of wanton destruction of property for a Marvel film), but one that also contains some – actually a lot – of the funniest scenes in any Marvel film to date. (Remember, Deadpool has yet to officially join the MCU.) The humor doesn’t detract from the story, because there are some genuinely emotional beats in the film as well.

Nia DaCosta (Candyman) directs from a script she wrote with Megan McDonnel (WandaVision) and Elissa Karasik (Loki), which means between them and the four female leads, there are a lot of women involved in the project. That might not play too well to the most vocal of Marvel “fan” groups, to whom “bad writing” is code for “there are girls in this movie.” But they will be missing out on one of the best Marvel offerings this year.

The fact that this movie handily passes the Bechdel test aside, it’s great fun to watch Monica, Carol and Kamala have to fight battles while constantly swapping places with each other, and the montage where they learn to work as a team is clever and charming. And there’s no bad writing here; the script is both witty and poignant.

In a year where most of Marvel’s film and television product was underwhelming, The Marvels injects a needed jolt of lightness and fun that was the hallmark of past MCU outings. Kamala, the ultimate fangirl, is supposed to be the audience surrogate, and her infectious delight at finally getting to meet her hero (and join her on an adventure) is contagious. Oh, and Goose the Flerken plays a large role here. This movie is a blast.

You won’t need to have watched too many of the shows and movies that preceded The Marvels: the movie does a good job of swiftly catching viewers up on the important elements of each character’s back story. There is a mid-credits scene and a little something extra at the end of the credits.

The Marvels is in theaters now.