Freud asked, “What does a woman want?” And Marvel seemed to have found an answer with Captain Marvel, which made a billion dollars telling the story of a gaslit supergal who rose up and triumphed over all the dudes who ever told her she wasn’t strong enough to play with the big boys, needed to smile more, shouldn’t be so emotional, etc. And who also wound up being able to, you know, fly into and blow up intergalactic spacecraft like a leather-clad blonde bombshell. But it seems she got a bit carried away a la Tony Stark, who accidentally created the monster Ultron in the second Avengers when he tried to build a world peace machine. Now, the Kree colonizers she once defeated call her the Annihilator, and they’re setting out to restore their ravaged homeland with one half of a magical pair of bracelets. The other half is in the keeping of one Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, aka Captain Marvel’s super-powered super-fangirl. (The brief animation of her sketchbook art depicting a meetup between Captain and Ms. is easily the most charming and attractive part of this otherwise grating and ugly film.) Oh, and there’s a third Marvel-woman, not because of character development, or story arc, but maybe because of Three Stooges-style hijinks involving space/time switch-outs, and definitely because of multiverse/sequels. It’s probably a good thing: star Brie Larson seems pretty checked out here — almost as checked out as the jokers who came up with the idea of once again tapping the Beastie Boys for the soundtrack. “Hey, they’re on a spaceship! Let’s use ‘Intergalactic!’” (It’s illustrative of a laziness that permeates the film, which seems more interested in cutesy diversions like playing “Memories” over images of space cats than it does about making the viewer care about anything.) Or maybe Larson’s just annoyed to be playing the most powerful woman in the universe who is also somehow trapped in a marriage of convenience to the prince of a multi-culti Bollywood planet where everyone communicates in song. “I’m feeling so many feelings right now,” swoons Khan at the sight. I was feeling just one: curiosity. Is this what a woman wants? (2023) — Sgt. Tiki