This time she’s joined by two super-empowered beings from the small screen: Kamala Khan a.k.a. Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani), a Captain Marvel superfan from Jersey City (and Disney+); and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), an astronaut (introduced as an adult in the series “WandaVision”) who’s part of S.A.B.E.R. In the interest of moving this review along — and because I had no idea what Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) was doing in space with a bunch of uniformed lackeys (other than barking orders with his usual gruffness) — here is how the movie’s production notes describe S.A.B.E.R: “a space station covertly acting as Earth’s first point of contact and defense from a rapidly expanding universe.”

Written by DaCosta, Megan McDonnell and Elissa Karasik, “The Marvels” reunites old friends and foes while introducing new characters and developments, all of which will presumably be folded into future installments, as is the Marvel way. The big fights and minor tension are principally generated by the villainous Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), the ruler (or, in Marvel-speak, Supremor) of the Kree people; she wields a mighty hammer and bears a grudge against Captain Marvel. In one of the larger set pieces, Dar-Benn takes brutal aim against other enemies. As terrified men, women and children flee and buildings fall, the scene briefly summons up visions of our world, which the movie otherwise strenuously ignores.

As is always the case with Marvel directors, DaCosta’s principal job seems to be to keep the greased gears moving as she folds in innumerable close-ups of happy, sad and mad faces, all of which are meant to remind viewers that their heroes are just like us, only super. To underscore this point, Kamala’s fangirl shtick goes on too long; the character is doodling images of her idol when the movie opens and sometime later wears a T-shirt emblazoned with Captain Marvel’s image. Once the character calms down, so does Vellani, an appealing performer with comic timing who nicely bounces off both Larson and Parris. They, in turn, have been given an unfortunate surrogate mother-daughter dynamic that is fortunately underdeveloped because all you really want to do is watch Goose, who’s indeed golden.