Captain Marvel’s Honest Trailer Takes Aim At All The 90s References

Nick Fury’s last course of action before being dusted at the shocking end of Infinity War was to call on Carol Danvers. But before we could witness her join the Avengers in the battle against Thanos, fans were treated to her origin story. Captain Marvel was a $1.1 billion box office success about the titular hero … and grunge looked good on her!

Now that the movie has made its way to home release, she has her own Honest Trailer and it’s a particularly hilarious episode that targets all the ‘90s set pieces, just how “emotional” Carol is and Fury and Goose’s relationship. Take a look:

The trailer starts off just as Captain Marvel does, with that heartbreaking tribute to Stan Lee as “Epic Voice Guy” John Bailey gets a bit emotional. Since this movie was the first MCU flick since the comic book legend’s passing, it really turned up our tears by featuring his cameos instead of the heroes as the Marvel logo hit screens. Lee’s actual cameo in the film was also a sweet one that involved Captain Marvel flashing a smile at him before her train fight sequence.

The video moves into making jabs at the confusing distinction as to who the “first avenger” is. It’s technically Captain America, but the name “Avenger” was Carol’s call sign and Fury’s inspiration to start the team. As the voiceover guy starts to get confused between the generations of heroes before her, he settles on “she’s the ‘90s one”! It’ll get back to that though.

First, the Honest Trailer points out how just about every character tells her to keep her emotions in check when she’s clearly not much of an emotional type. As they say: “she likes to keep it in neutral.” After showing a series of scenes with Carol emoting some flat reponses, the commentary jokingly tells her to calm down.

Maybe it’s because she had amnesia, or because the Kree she was dealing with just weren’t used to dealing with humans in general. They got lucky though, because Carol doesn’t break down or get too angry the whole film.

The video also characterizes Jude Law’s Yon Rogg as her “problematic Yoda” and Lashana Lynch’s Maria, who is her “Marvel issued black friend”. With the exception of Black Panther, just about every MCU movie has one black character in a supporting role, so it's a solidi call out.

Another jab is at Annette Bening’s character who is a bit muddled as both Dr. Lawson and the Supreme Intelligence. Nick Fury steals the show but the trailer also points out how some scenes can’t quite mask the fact that Sam L. Jackson is 71 years old.

A great segment in the video goes deeply into the ‘90s references in Captain Marvel, which are a bit forced. The movie includes Blockbuster, Alta Vista, Street Fighter 2, Gameboy, Trolls, Mallrats, Nerf guns, Nine Inch Nails, Radio Shack to name a few.

To close out, Honest Trailers point out how next to other female superhero origin stories made in the past (besides Wonder Woman of course), its Citizen Fucking Kane, poking fun at the trolls who were against the film due to its female protagonist. They’ve been keeping track and there’s still over 50 more films with a male superhero at the center.

As tradition goes, the movie gets its own Honest Trailer title which is “Brie Kree Phone Home”. Anyone else want to just call it that from now on?

Captain Marvel is now available to own on Digital and Blu-Ray.

Sarah El-Mahmoud
Staff Writer

Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.