Notable Cast: Anthony Mackie, Harrison Ford, Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Tim Blake Nelson, Carl Lumbly, Giancarlo Esposito, Liv Tyler, Xosha Roquemore, Johannes Haukur Johannesson
Although many fans seem to have been burned by the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) at this point, the series' transition in the wake of waning audience interest and a relatively public meltdown over its future makes the current slate perhaps more fascinating than the last half-decade. Attempting to soft reboot the MCU with a new Captain America film certainly seems like gold on paper, but the fourth film in this series within the grander franchise is far more fascinating in the larger context than “good” as a film.
Captain America: Brave New World is heavily focused on bridging the past and the future. Even the title, although perhaps hard to swallow when compared to the iconic book that shares it, seems to indicate a strange relationship between what has happened before and where it wants to be. That’s not to say that every MCU film hasn’t been aggressively obsessed with callbacks and flashforwards, but the relationship here in Brave New World is one of the most unusual.
In the wake of Avengers: Endgame, the world changed. That applies to both the film itself and the fictionalized reality its characters inhabit. There was no more Captain America. Or Chris Evans. No more Iron Man. Or Robert Downey Jr. (…at the time of its release). Disney was struggling to find their voice and plot with new heroes, despite some genuine successes in films like Shang-Chi or misfires like The Eternals. The meteoric descent of Jonathon Majors left the new era without its Kang the Conqueror and a gap for a new major villain. And while the series was retooled, pulling away from a variety of increasingly ignored Disney+ shows, they needed a breather.
That’s where Captain America: Brave New World falls into place.
A placeholder might be the best way to address the film. Despite its attempts to recreate the political thriller vibes of Captain America: The Winter Soldier with its newest Captain America, Sam Wilson – played by the relatively underutilized Anthony Mackie – Brave New World struggles to serve as the bridge between past and present that the MCU desperately needs. Its plot, which revolves around an assassination attempt on America’s newest President, Thunderbolt Ross, now cast with a relatively feisty Harrison Ford, heavily pulls its story beats and characters from two of the MCU’s most forgotten entries – The Incredible Hulk and the Disney+ show The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
If it were me, I’m not sure I would have picked those two properties to feed to fans in an effort to relaunch the MCU, but I digress. Brave New World absolutely takes the two and makes a direct sequel to both, essentially. Talk about brave. Both previous properties were met with mixed reactions, ranging from rage to meh. It’s a relatively baffling choice at first, but perhaps one of its more interesting ones. Can this film make a new claim that those previous releases are important? To some degree, yes. It’s not hard to improve on The Incredible Hulk, but Brave New World justifies some of that film's choices by uncovering its characters and treating them like the buried conspiracy that fans always treated that film. Bold, sure, but also deliriously meta in its own way. Disney has been eager to strip everything Marvel-related of its potential as a cinematic gem, but even this is pushing the limits. The problem that remains is that the film, trying to give them a bit more gravitas, is also, perhaps unshockingly, terribly flawed.
As a sequel to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Brave New World certainly focuses on the internal struggle of Sam Wilson to accept the responsibilities of his new role as Captain America. He’s not a superhuman, like his old friend Steve, and there’s a responsibility to represent ‘America’ in a new way. Unfortunately, the film rarely tries to dig as deep into this personal conflict as one would hope. It’s far too focused on its plot. The idea of a black man as Captain America is something that is brushed on here, particularly by bringing back the character Isaiah Bradley – a black soldier who was experimented on with the super soldier serum before being imprisoned, but hardly examined.
Mackie is doing a fine job in the role, as he always does in most of his films, but he’s not given nearly enough material to really dig into the role in ways that would be far more interesting. Even his relationship to the new Falcon, Torres, as played by Danny Ramirez, also returning from the TV show, doesn’t ring quite as relevant as the Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes dynamic of previous Captain America films. Not to mention that the film doesn’t want to address the bigger idea that the two new people who would lead a new Avengers team would be black and Mexican. It’s there, but Brave New World – again, despite its title – doesn’t really want to go further with it. Instead, there’s the entire “why would I put someone in danger who isn’t a superhero” disagreement between Captain America and Falcon. Great. Awesome. Yawn.
Instead, the film focuses on its plot rather than the broader character growth of its heroes. There’s meant to be a conspiracy at the heart of the film, again trying to replicate the success of The Winter Soldier in more ways than one, and I will give the film some credit for trying to juke its audience. Sleeper assassins, rogue terrorist groups, and a mystery around Harrison Ford’s grumpy Thunderbolt Ross as the President definitely bode for the possibility of intrigue, but end up feeling far more muddled and confused in their intentions. At least it addresses the oft-ignored giant stone god that started to birth at the end of Eternals? There’s a very patchy CGI action sequence around it, I suppose.
The roads of its conspiracy lead to one of the film's more perplexing choices. Brave New World features two villains to square off against our new Captain and his new Falcon. Unfortunately, the main villain of the film, which is meant to be a surprise and certainly made me go “who the fuck is that?” instead of “I can’t believe HE’S the villain,” is undercooked significantly and never really poses a threat to the heroes despite his supposed genius. The brashness of its choice and his story about being forgotten in a hole buried is humorously meta to how the MCU had previously treated The Incredible Hulk, where the character originates. So, in that manner, it’s at least an interesting choice even if the execution is flawed. Again, this film is desperate to bridge that gap from the past and make it the future. It’s certainly not working here with this big bad. It also doesn’t help that his character's look and all the scenes had to be retooled and redone after the initial photography for the film ended.
The second villain is definitely one that was, in the narrative, also meant to be a big shocker for the audience, but the marketing department said, “Nope, we need to reveal it to get people to go to the theater.’ Of course, that’s Red Hulk. While the showdown between Captain America and Red Hulk in DC is the highlight of the film in terms of action, particularly with the blossoming trees as its CGI backdrop, it’s also one that doesn’t quite carry the weight it might have if the film had better execution of its conspiracy plotting and its character growth for Sam Wilson. Since both are flawed, the ending feels more like fan service than an outright climactic battle. Sure, Red Hulk is fun to see, but it's not nearly the jaw-dropping moment it feels like it was supposed to be in terms of story and reveal.
Unfortunately, Captain America: Brave New World feels like it suffers significantly from the MCU retooling its plans for its fifth phase. The film simply fails to be the bridge it desperately wants to be, pulling elements from the past and pushing them into the future. There are aspects here of a better film, particularly if Disney focused more on its characters' struggles and growth rather than on a plot that ends up being butchered, reshot, and re-edited in the speed round for a theatrical release, but it's not this one. The action feels too CGI-heavy and unfinished; there are too many villains to focus on, and our heroes feel almost more lost in their own plot than in their own mental struggles. In terms of the MCU, Brave New World feels less Brave and New and just more Confused and Rushed. Not necessarily what one would want to see out of Sam Wilson’s cinematic debut as Cap.
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