Like all kinds of freaks, I grew up reading Marvel and other comics, I was one of the first in line at the comic book store where the owner saved new issues for me each week. Comics were my cultural life, along with Buddy Holly and my portable radio.

It still startles me – and it pleases me – to see a woman setting out to save the universe. For all of my youth, the heroes were all men, usually iron-headed and humorless.  Women were being saved every day.

Stan Lee always brought some wit into the stories, he never took himself too seriously.

Today, it was a kick for me (and Maria also) to go to a movie and see Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) playing the first female-led superhero film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the new  Captain Marvel.

There have been solo female Captain Marvels in the comic versions, but never in a feature film.

Superhero movies are coming into their own as a genre, I’m hooked.

I especially loved the last Spiderman, Wonder Woman and almost all of the Avenger series (the next of which, also featuring Carol Danvers) is coming out in seven weeks. The bar is getting higher, those were very good, colorful, full of amazing visual theatrics, funny,  taut, even well-written films.

I’m sorry to say that the new Captain Marvel doesn’t hold up to the standard set in those movies, at least for me.

I found it fun, charming at times, but also flat.  Something was missing.

This superhero is plenty nice, and plenty tough,  but lacks the charisma and strong character of Wonder Woman’s Gal Gadot or Spiderman’s Shameik Moore.

In Captain Marvel (pronounced Mar-Vell),  Carol Danvers succeeds is saving the universe, or most of it (I’m not giving away the plot) from an awful if incomprehensible danger. And all by herself, with the exception of an old pilot pal from training school.

The real war in this movie was against monstrous villains, but against gender cliches, and that may be more important in the long run.

Through the movie, Danvers is challenged by men (and by a software AI villain)  telling her she is too emotional to be effective and successful, the familiar trope used against women for centuries and in the corporate world every day.

She demonstrates forcefully – this is a very satisfying part of the movie, and it’s real heart – that emotions are not a weakness, and  in fact, can be a powerful weapon in the right hands. The more faith Carol has in herself, the stronger and more effective she becomes.

I know that’s what I told my daughter. I hope she believed it.

Disney purchased Marvel Comics last year for $4 billion and has become the rare corporate behemoth that does some good with it’s money. A whole generation of young women – and men – will see a very different kind of hero than I got to see, they are pioneering in producing stories and films about women who shatter stereotypes.

And who save themselves. This has to have a profound effect on our society, a long way from Snow White and Cinderella.

They helped push that stereotype for years, it’s only fitting that they are paying reparations.  Speaking of stereotypes, some things don’t change. Danvers is blasted all over the universe and beaten up a dozen times, not a single hair was ever out of place. Hollywood can only go so far.

Curiously, the movie weaponizes emotion, it turns out to be deadlier than bombs and missiles and the soul-draining barrage of rays and blasts and  explosions. The movie is not too long, for once, nor does it take itself too seriously.

A cat was deployed to provide some fun, but other than that, the movie had a sort of relentlessly even and predictable series of brawls, fighting that never seems to kill people or resolve much until later.

There were few laughs, and little of the irony that always marked the Marvel comics and the best superhero films.

I thought Lashana Lynch, who played a long-lost pilot friend of Danvers, and her daughter, played by Akira Akbar, stole a good part of the movie. They did have lots of character and charisma, they really stood out, they sparkled.

Superheroes have been pushing diversity for some time, they have helped set the stage. I am enjoying the new diversity in Hollywood films, it is both apparent and refreshing.

The movie, directed by Anne Boden and Ryan Fleck, seemed well aware of its duty to be a positive role model for women. There are no timid or dependent women in this film, or any of the Superhero films.

At times, Captain Marvel  veered towards a message movie, but it’s a message that’s long over due and glad to see. I hope the next step for female Hollywood heroes is to accept their strength and rightful place in the world and  just go kick the crap out of bad guys.

This movie, like others before it, upends the stereotype of the damsel in distress, waiting for the prince to show up and give her a kiss. If I were in deep trouble, I would be delighted to text Carol Danvers and have her come and bail me out.

The most sympathetic characters in the movie do need rescuing, all of them, and so does Samuel Jackson playing FBI Agent Nick “Fury” Korath. The universe itself needs a hand as well. Our Carol Danvers is up to it. There is also one of the first AI (Artificial Intelligence) evil doers, played by Annette Benning.

I predict we will see a lot more of them.

Brie Larson is a terrific rescuer, brave and determined and unafraid to use her amazing intuition. She just has to get to know herself.

One curious but interesting feature of the movie was the digital rejuvenation of Samuel Jackson, who appears here as a young federal agent about 30 years younger than he was in his last movie. I did a few double-takes, seeing such a famous star being cinematically photo-shopped in so obvious  a way.

He looked about thirty years old. Perhaps time will soon have no meaning in the movies, and stars will never fade or die.

Besides her emotion, this Captain Marvel ends up sporting some pretty amazing firepower, she literally spits fire from her hands, feet and head, and sails through the skies like a ballistic missile or Superman on speed.

I accept that I am one of the very few SuperHero lovers who still squawks about the plot lines, which makes absolutely no sense at all in this movie, and I would suggest not even trying to follow it. Just go along for the ride.

You will not succeed in remembering the plot, and you will not be able to recount it to a living soul afterwards.

There were a couple of surprising plot twists that boosted the final quarter of the movie quite a bit. Otherwise, the writing was disappointing to me.

This is the last movie the legendary Stan Lee (who has a brief cameo on a subway train) was involved with, he died a few months ago. It does have a familiar comic book feel to it, which is why the plot doesn’t really need to make sense. The comic books never made sense either.

The bottom line is that this is a fun  movie to go and see, a nice way to spend a couple of hours away from Facebook and Twitter and those nasty tweets. I’d give it a B-minus. It is fine to take children too, the violence is so stylized and cartoonish that it doesn’t really even seem like violence, and has little sting.

Superhero characters take a phenomenal beating, they are radiated, blasted, tossed about like feathers in the wind, and indestructible until necessary. But they hardly ever bleed, or even die.

I’m not going into the plot, but I thought the ending did not do justic to the idea of the brave yet compassionate female superhero.

It was mostly about humiliation and dominance, something women know too much about. It would be said if this new iteration of heroes ended up being just like men.

I certainly recommend seeing it, it is, like all superhero movies, an entertaining distraction.