The Marvels
Detailed parental analysis
The Marvels is a superhero film with a resolutely light and upbeat tone, which stands out from the darker entries in its universe. The plot follows three women with powers linked to light who find themselves mysteriously connected to one another and must learn to coordinate their abilities to face a cosmic threat. The film primarily targets teenagers and Marvel universe fans, with reduced accessibility for those who have not followed the associated series.
Violence
Violence is present throughout the film in the form of hand-to-hand combat and confrontations with energy weapons, missiles and spears. It remains within the codes of mainstream superhero cinema: spectacular, fast-paced, but without gore or gratuitousness. One character is impaled by debris, but the scene is treated without visual emphasis. The destruction of planets and populations in danger constitute the weightiest stakes of the narrative, without the film dwelling on them in a traumatising way. For a child under 10 years old, the accumulation of these sequences can be a source of anxiety; for a pre-adolescent, they fit within already familiar codes.
Underlying Values
The film builds its narrative around forced cooperation between three characters with very different temperaments, valuing mutual adaptation and trust as conditions for collective effectiveness. The villain is not presented as purely evil: she acts out of desperation to save her people, which introduces an interesting moral nuance on the boundary between justice and destruction. Courage and perseverance in the face of adversity are constant drivers, without ever tipping into glorification of individual performance. This is a concrete angle to explore with a child: can one do wrong for good reasons?
Language
The language is generally clean, with two instances of the word 'shit' and a few light colloquial expressions. Nothing that exceeds what a pre-adolescent hears regularly, but it is worth noting for parents most attentive to this criterion.
Social Themes
In the background, the film addresses the question of a people deprived of their vital resources and a leader willing to do anything to recover them. This motif of collective survival and responsibility towards one's people gives a discreet political depth to the narrative, without ever transforming it into a thesis film. It is present enough to open a conversation about the legitimacy of means in the face of a just cause.
Strengths
The film draws its main strength from the dynamic between its three protagonists, whose chemistry works and generates effective situational humour, particularly in sequences where their body-swapping creates inventive choreographed chaos. The pace is brisk over 1 hour 45 minutes, which avoids the frequent lulls in the genre. The construction of the villain as a character motivated by understandable logic rather than pure malevolence is a genuine writing success for a film of this type. On the other hand, the film assumes prior knowledge of several television series to be fully understood, which limits its accessibility and may frustrate uninitiated viewers.
Age recommendation and discussion points
The film is suitable from age 10 for a child already familiar with the Marvel universe, and without major reservations from age 12 onwards. Two angles of discussion are worth exploring after viewing: ask the child what they think of the villain's motivations, whether she was right or wrong to act as she did, and explore with them why three very different people manage to work better together than each one alone.
Synopsis
When her duties send her to an anomalous wormhole linked to a Kree revolutionary, Carol's powers become entangled with that of Jersey City super-fan Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, and Carol's estranged niece, now S.A.B.E.R. astronaut Captain Monica Rambeau. Together, this unlikely trio must team up and learn to work in concert to save the universe.
Where to watch
Availability checked on May 14, 2026
About this title
- Format
- Feature film
- Year
- 2023
- Runtime
- 1h 45m
- Countries
- United States of America
- Original language
- EN
- Directed by
- Nia DaCosta
- Main cast
- Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, Iman Vellani, Samuel L. Jackson, Zawe Ashton, Gary Lewis, Park Seo-jun, Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, Saagar Shaikh
- Studios
- Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige Productions
Content barometer
- Violence3/5Notable
- Fear2/5A few scenes
- Sexuality0/5None
- Language1/5Mild
- Narrative complexity3/5Complex
- Adult themes0/5None
Watch-outs
- Death
- Strong language
- Violence