The Marvels arrives at a strange moment for Marvel Studios, the company that ushered in more than a decade of spandex-clad blockbusters. Because the (just-ended) SAG-AFTRA strike prohibited its actors from participating in promotional activities, the film is being released with little fanfare and is on track to make less at the box office than most of its comic-book predecessors. Plus, as the 33rd movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with characters pulled from both big- and small-screen projects, it’s been positioned as proof of Marvel’s overreach. It’s all in the title, really: The “Marvels” refers to the trio of superheroes with related powers at the story’s center, but it invokes how oversaturated the pop-culture landscape has become with Marvel-related work. As it turns out, though, The Marvels itself is pleasurably lightweight, its story unburdened by the off-screen drama of the studio that made it. The shortest film in the MCU at a runtime of 105 minutes, this sprightly sequel to 2019’s Captain Marvel operates like a breezy road-trip comedy set in space. Sure, there’s …