Series Ms. Marvel season 1 is stylish and fun
Ms. Marvel is really lovely.
It's Ferris Bueller or Breakfast Club with vlogging and cosplay. And super powers.
It reminds me of Into the Spiderverse or Roger Rabbit in the way in which animation and holorealisim somehow work in the same frame.
Iman Vellani is a wonderful actress and carries the coming-of-age-story high school drama elements with strong characterization and quiet aplomb. Great supporting cast and very creative and non-Marvelly plot while also deconstructing the tropes.
What works: Strong characterization, ensemble cast acting, clever script, color palate and splendid soundtrack. Strong visual storytelling with text and conversations and Kamala's early fantasy sequences integrated into the narrative flow. Specific to Jersey City Desi Muslim community and family, but with lots of relatable universal coming of age and family tropes.
Not so much: Generic unmotivated villains who waffle from antagonist to protagonist with no good reason shown; choppy editing perhaps due to reshoots, rushed by the 6 episode format. Spending all this time to give Kamala a new, not-Inhuman origin with the Clandestine and the Noor dimension, only to yank the rug out from this careful world- and character-building to characterize Kamala as a mutant in the next-to-last scene.
Episode 5, "Time and Again," is a mixed bag. In a six episode show, devoting one episode to a flashback inset tale of how Kamala's great-grandparents met and fell in love to raise a family is non-essential to the plot and in a sense it is a big detour. On the other hand, the slow and delicate pacing, the charismatic performances by Mehwish Hayat and Fawad Khan, are lovely and breathtaking. Quite unique in superhero movies to be sure. But the hometown Jersey feel of the series and the delightful, Scott Pilgrim or Spideyverse exposition of Kamala's interior world as graffiti on buildings and reconfigurations of nearby objects, are lost until the finale.
Outstanding: Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel. She carries the show with her earnest head in the clouds dorkiness. Now that Spiderman has become untethered from high school, New York, Uncle Ben, and Aunt May, in many ways Ms. Marvel is positioned to be the new street-level nyc-adjacent local neighborhood hero.
Overall, 5/5 stars. Can't wait to see more!
Series The Ms. Marvel Show, its not as good as the comic
The first episode started strong with the way its filmed and seeing the drawings come to life and Kamala's inability to focus, and the ways her plan to sneak out of the house went wrong. It had a delightful warm personal quirky and artsy feel that was unfortunatly lost on the later episodes.
The supporting cast feels rather rushed or under utilized compared to the comic. Aamir's wedding should've happenede much later on. Zoe and Nakia barely had any presence. I wish there were more episodes of Kamala being a superhero around Jersey City before her family found out. I don't understand how Red Dagger, based in Pakistan, has any connections in Jersey City.
However, I did like the trip to Pakistan in the show over how it was done in the comic, since Kamala's mother came along, and they're learning more about their family, and there's a whole organization of Red Daggers as opposed to just one random vigilante. In the comic it really bothered me that Kamala flew to another country all on her own.
The Clandestine Djinn villains just looked like boring martial arts humans. Their plan of making the Djinn world bleed into and then supplant the human world looked dumb especially when they themselves won't survive the process. The Damage Control villains just looked like cops with slightly above normal equipment. I don't understand how they suspected Kamala was muslim from just her being "brown skinned". If we get a second season I sincerely hope we get Doc X or Knox in his Inventor armor.
The Ms. Marvel costume looked great, but Kamala doesn't get it until the final episode. Instead we have her being called "Night Light" for several episodes. I wish instead we had Bruno just create the costume for Kamala in the 2nd episode.
the final episode was a grand climax with Kamala's friends helping her dodge Damage Control in creative ways. Kamala's message to Kamran about "there is no normal, you just do your best with what you have" was sweet and well delivered. It was also heartwarming that the community sides with Kamala against Damage Control...however, that would've felt more earned if she had done more things as a superhero in Jersey City.
So overall, its a "C+" show. Strong beginning and ending, largely weak middle episodes. I hope we get more seasons, and that this isn't just a springboard for the Marvels movie.