Cert 12A 123mins Stars 4

Strap yourselves into your cinema seat for a cosmic and colourful sci-fi action adventure ride, Disney delivers the 21st superhero smash from its Marvel Cinematic Universe.

A member of the alien elite military unit, Starforce, the Captain Marvel is on a mission to locate a secret device on Earth, where she battles shapeshifting aliens while being pursued by US agents.

The Captain is one of the lesser known Marvel characters, and even though I grew up reading comics, for UK blokes my age, the name is more likely to evoke images of former England football skipper, Bryan Robson, rather than Brie Larson’s super-powered noble warrior.

Fearless, funny and fortunately a lot less injury prone than her namesake, the Captain has to save planet planet Earth from alien warfare, solve the mystery of ‘project Pegasus’, and realise her immense potential.

An Oscar winner in 2016 for the powerful drama, Room, Larson’s intelligence and charm shining through the waves of CGI action.

She forms a sparky double act with Samuel L. Jackson’s SHIELD agent, Nick Fury, one of many fan-pleasing turns by Marvel regulars, which includes the return of Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson.

Set in 1995, this is a companion piece and prequel to Marvel’s Guardian of the Galaxy films, with the same epic scope and goofy humour, plus an adorable scene stealing cat.

And in giving a female-fronted spin on films of the 1990s, such as Men In Black and Terminator 2, this can be considered a cheeky pre-emptive cinematic strike by Disney against those franchises, which have their own female-led reboots later this year.

This is a crowd pleasing stand-alone popcorn movie which ties in nicely with April’s highly anticipated Avengers: Endgame. But if I told you how, I’d have Captain Marvel chasing me down. And I wouldn’t want to be tackled by either of them.