At this point you’re either off the Marvel train or have accepted you’re riding it until the end of the line.

“The Marvels” is a sequel to 2019’s “Captain Marvel,” and features Brie Larson reprising her titular role, this time paired with Teyonah Parris and Iman Vellani, who have recently gained superpowers of their own and are struggling to control them. Nia DaCosta takes over directing duties, while Zawe Ashton, Gary Lewis, Park Seo-joon, Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, Saagar Shaikh, and Samuel L. Jackson also star.

Unlike seemingly many people, I actually liked “Captain Marvel,” and have enjoyed Brie Larson’s MCU performances, however like most people I have slowly started to get tired of the MCU putting out inferior products with underbaked screenplays and unfinished special effects. So maybe the recent string of ups and downs lowered my expectations, but I found “The Marvels” a light, colorful, and fun-enough superhero romp (though that’s not without flaws).

There’s camps of people who didn’t like Brie Larson’s performance as Captain Marvel, but I thought she delivered a good blend of dry humor and intensity. She’s a little less invested this time around, but still has some amusing chemistry with Teyonah Parris and Iman Vellani. Speaking of Vellani: the absolute star here. She seems so happy to simply be in a movie of this magnitude, and her cheery disposition shines through into her character, herself fangirling out about working alongside her superhero idol.

The special effects here are pretty decent, especially compared to the likes of recent MCU outings like “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and “Thor: Love & Thunder.” That’s not to say this looks as realistic, lush, and finished as an “Avatar,” but there are only a select number of shots where I thought the effects and green screens looked a bit wonky. There are also some nice bits of camerawork, direction, and edits that distinguish this from just any other cookie-cutter Marvel movie, and I appreciated that.

The plot, what little there is, is held together by duct tape; this is very much the style-over-substance theme park ride that Martin Scorsese spoke of. But unlike “Quantumania” this isn’t a mess or drag, but just more of a vibes over plotting ordeal. The villain, as Marvel is known to do, is underdeveloped and gets just one obligatory flashback monologue to serve as character development. Samuel L. Jackson is also largely wasted as Nick Fury, though he gets to drop a few fun one-liners.

The thing that bugs me a tad is that unlike previous films that do mini recaps of the Disney+ shows (“Multiverse of Madness,” “Quantumania”), “Marvels” drops Parris and Vellani in our laps with just a single throwaway line as to how they got their powers and what they’ve done with them. It’s worth noting there is a full 30 second recap of the first “Captain Marvel” film with clips and all—likely because they assume not many people will remember the 2019 film—so there was clearly an opportunity in this (admittedly short) 105 minute film to fit in a flashback to catch us up to speed on the characters that many of us are meeting for the first time.

“The Marvels” doesn’t ask too much from its audience, and while it’s still in the bottom-third of the MCU, it’s better than half of Phase 4 and fun in its own right. I still think Marvel needs to take some time off and create a roadmap leading up to the next big team-up movie (which one could argue should be the crescendo on the series as a whole), but so long as the movies look finished visually and have amusing moments of jokes and action that don’t feel like a rejected SNL skit, I won’t complain (too much).

Critics Rating: 6/10