Spoiler
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- Carol is a pilot recruited by Project Pegasus to test a “hyperspeed engine” developed by Dr. Wendy Lawson AKA Mar-Vell and powered by energy extracted from the Tesseract.
- Carol is attacked by the Skrulls and the engine explodes. She absorbs its energy before being rescued by Mar-Vell and taken to Hala by Yon-Rogg, where she is brainwashed into believing she is a Kree warrior whose powers come from an implant on her neck.
- Carol is captured by the Skrulls during a mission and Talos probes her mind for information on the Tesseract. Carol escapes and goes to Earth, where the Skrulls are hiding, and crosses paths with Nick Fury, who decides to help her.
- Talos masquerades as Fury’s boss and frames Fury for being a Skrull. SHIELD tracks Carol and Fury to Project Pegasus headquarters, but Coulson lets them escape.
- Carol believes that the Skrulls are bloodthirsty conquerors, and the Kree are noble warriors defending the galaxy from them, but slowly realizes the Kree have the conquerors and have been wiping out “lesser cultures” and exploiting their resources for centuries. They attacked the Skrulls first but the Skrulls have been able to fight back.
- The big twist is that Mar-Vell and Talos both defected and had been working together to harness the Tesseract’s energy in order to end the war. Carol was not attacked by the Skrulls, but by the Kree.
- Carol, Fury, Maria Rambeau and Talos team up to retrieve the Tesseract from Mar-Vell’s space station in Earth’s orbit, where Talos also reunites with his wife and daughter whom Mar-Vell had been protecting from the Kree, but Yon-Rogg and Ronan arrive with a Kree armada to retrieve the Tesseract and destroy the Skrulls.
- Carol gets rid of the implant, unlocking her full powers, and destroys the Kree armada before confronting Yon-Rogg one last time in the desert and announcing she’s no longer under his control. The Kree are forced to retreat, and Carol gives Fury a pager to contact her if he needs help before leaving with Talos to continue Mar-Vell’s efforts to end the war.
- There is a running gag of Fury almost losing his eye in dangerous situations throughout the movie, only for Goose to unceremoniously scratch it off in the end.
- The film doesn't really have a main villain. The "villain" is the idea that people keep on telling Carol that she is less capable than she really is, and her arc is overcoming that and embracing her true power. It's all internal conflict.
- Talos is a lot fun and a total bro in the end, Yon-Rogg is okay but unremarkable, and most of his dialogue is exposition.
- Post-credits scene as previously reported (Endgame scene of Carol meeting up with the remaining Avengers and Goose barfing up the Tesseract).