The Marvel Cinematic Universe hits a Gen Z bullseye with a superhero tailor-made for teenage social media stardom. Ms. Marvel can best be described as the MCU through a Snapchat filter. Our sixteen-year-old, Pakistani-American heroine daydreams about cosplay conventions and cute boys; while dealing with restrictive parents and adhering to her Islamic faith. Ms. Marvel breaks new ground with its culturally diverse and practical depiction of female adolescence. We’ve certainly never seen a superhero praying in a mosque or talking about her period. The problem is that the first two episodes feel lifeless despite the barrage of bells and whistles. The textbook narrative could have been written by a bot with a checklist.
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Iman Vellani stars as Kamala Khan, a Jersey City teen obsessed with Captain Marvel. She doodles comics to escape the drag of daily high school life. Her father, Yusuf (Mohan Kapur), tries to be cool and understanding; but her mother, Muneeba (Zenobia Shroff), has zero tolerance for frivolity or disobedience. Kamala desperately wants to attend the first Avengers Con. Her nerdy best friend, Bruno (Matt Lintz), has crafted an awesome Captain Marvel costume.
Muneeba will only let Kamala go to the Avengers Con with her dad as a chaperone. OMG, so uncool, Kamala shudders at the idea. Kamala’s already embarrassed by her cringe-worthy interactions with a popular girl (Laurel Marsden) at school. Kamala decides to sneak out with Bruno to the convention. An interesting bracelet that belonged to a mysterious relative seems like the perfect costume accessory.
Establishing Ms. Marvel
The initial two episodes spend most of the time establishing Kamala’s ethnic and religious background. She imagines goofy caricatures and fantastical exploits while being criticized by her parents and teachers. Kamala needs to buckle down and get her head off the clouds. She’s always compared to her pious and religious brother, Aamir (Saagar Shaikh). Kamala has another bestie, Nakia (Yasmeen Fletcher), who chooses to wear a hijab (headscarf), and covers her arms and legs for modesty. A subplot has Kamala and Nakia trying to change the rules for women at their mosque. There’s a concerted effort to show their lives as normal Americana. These girls have the same hopes and dreams as everyone else. They just have a different cultural identity than the usual white male Christian protagonists.
The superhero aspect takes a while to heat up. The action is also contrived and unremarkable when her powers surface. Ms. Marvel sadly lacks a degree of excitement. There’s a lot of fluff masquerading as eye candy. We get a sneak peek at the bracelet, know this will be the source of her abilities, and it vanishes until a predictable outcome at the climax of episode one.
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Ms. Marvel strikes an uneven tone with a rote beginning. There’s nothing new to a bored teen with buzzkill parents engaging in rebellious behavior. The characters, beyond the Islamic and Pakistani exposition, could have been cut from any similar series catering to an age demographic with disposable income. I can imagine the marketing suits at Marvel and Disney giving the producers a breakdown of everything they wanted to include. It’s a strange dichotomy of inclusion initiatives and dull storytelling.
Ms. Marvel needs to crank up the tempo and originality. It’s obvious that the show skews to a younger audience, but every successful MCU movie or series has crossover appeal. I sincerely hope we get some creativity flowing in the remaining episodes.
Ms. Marvel is a production of Marvel Studios. New episodes premiere Wednesday’s exclusively on Disney+.
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