Captain America: Brave New World has arrived on the scene as one of the MCU’s lowest-rated movies by both critics and audiences, accompanied by months of rumors swirling about extensive reshoots and production troubles. Surprisingly, the final film doesn’t show most of that baggage. There’s no awkwardly edited, clearly mushed together storylines like we’ve seen in the theatrical cut of Justice League or the third act of The Marvels.
Instead, for most of its run, Brave New World is an exciting mystery/political thriller centering on Anthony Mackie’s new Captain America. That doesn’t mean it’s without its problems (typical of Marvel Cinematic Universe movies for the past several years) Brave New World does have some missed opportunities and lacks easy cohesive connections to other MCU properties. However, it manages to stay relatively consistent and tell a focused story until the off-the-rails third act final battle, which is more than can be said of some recent MCU films.
[Warning: major spoilers for Captain America: Brave New World ahead!]
The standouts of Captain America: Brave New World
The best part of Captain America 4 is undoubtedly Anthony Mackie. He turns in a solid performance that quietly anchors the film, although he feels like less of a leading man here than he did in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I don’t think that’s due to his acting, but rather the split focus of the film, which is a straight-up sequel to The Incredible Hulk and not a sequel to any previous Captain America film.
His dynamic with Danny Ramirez’s Falcon is a wonderful evolution of their relationship in the Disney+ series. The two of them feel more like a team than Steve and Sam ever did, helped by the fact that they have the same superhero calling card. Getting two high-speed one-man fighter jets makes for some excellent action sequences.
The action scenes stood out sharply from previous MCU films by virtue of Sam’s brutal fighting style. He’s never fought this intensely in previous appearances, and Steve Rogers wasn’t putting his full weight behind his attacks the way Sam does. The difference makes sense, of course. Steve had superhuman strength and needed to pull his punches when taking on mercenaries, while Sam is relying on his tactical skills and suit upgrades to increase his fighting ability. The obvious difference makes for some visceral moments as Sam viciously incapacitates his enemies, with particular highlights including his fight scene against Giancarlo Esposito’s Sidewinder and Harrison Ford as Red Hulk.
The action scene over Celestial Island, returning at long last after its debut in Eternals, was electric and the highlight of the film. Sam and Joaquin taking on fighter jets was incredible to watch, and the entire sequence felt like something you’ve never seen in a Marvel movie. The introduction of adamantium to the MCU also sets up the famous X-Men storyline we all know, although the metal is relatively underused here.
Carl Lumbly is great as Isaiah Bradley, but the character’s storyline in the film seems off. It’s not a bad character arc, but it feels uninspired to an extent – maybe because it feels like it doesn’t really matter. Isaiah’s incarceration upsets Sam, but there’s no exploration of the injustice of the situation as it relates to Isaiah’s tortured backstory outside of a few lines of dialogue. That’s a common theme throughout the film, as some of its more interesting political ideas are vaguely mentioned but were actually explored properly in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Those themes feel redundant given that the Disney+ series was willing to go there, but the film doesn’t add anything new to the conversation.
Harrison Ford’s debut as Thaddeus Ross (formerly played by the late William Hurt) has attracted a lot of attention, and he’s certainly fun to watch, but the character’s personality feels very different. Gone is the hard-edged general we’re used to seeing, and in his place is a slightly frail old man who seems overly sentimental when compared to his previous appearances. Shira Haas has some good moments as the ex-Black Widow Ruth Bat-Seraph, but doesn’t have much to do. Her role, along with Isaiah Bradley’s and even Tim Blake Nelson’s Samuel Sterns, feel underbaked. The characters are solid with great moments, and they do add to the story, but they also feel curiously adrift, like the film doesn’t really know how to handle them.
Where this Marvel movie stumbles
On that note, Brave New World does feel kind of bland at times. The central story, revolving around an international treaty governing the distribution of adamantium, is fairly well-plotted. The international politics of the MCU are explored to a small extent, not on the level of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but more than I expected based on some negative reviews. However, there are some huge missed opportunities here.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever revolved around international politics and did so quite well, making it clear that other countries desperately wanted vibranium and were willing to attack Wakanda to obtain it. Now that adamantium is on the scene, that tense desire for power has seemingly vanished instead of increasing as a valuable new resource is discovered. The lack of Val in Brave New World is extremely unfortunate since her goal was to arm the United States with a power like vibranium. There’s an opportunity for a very interesting subplot where Val is undermining Ross to obtain adamantium for the U.S. at all costs even as he tries to broker a treaty with his allies.
Sterns even mentions that the money to purchase stolen adamantium from Sidewinder was wired through a C.I.A. shell company to frame Ross for conspiring against his allies. Val is running the C.I.A. in the MCU, and she wants vibranium! How was she not a significant character in this film? Her presence and ulterior motives would add more layers of intrigue that could further the MCU’s exploration of political topics, but instead she’s nowhere to be found.
That goes for several characters, actually. Brave New World does feel like a sequel to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier by virtue of Joaquin Torres and Isaiah Bradley appearing, but that’s where the feeling stops. The layers of the series aren’t anywhere to be found in the film, which centers itself on Ross, his fractured relationship with his daughter, and the manipulation of Sterns instead. It’s truly a sequel to The Incredible Hulk, and it’s not a bad one, but it’s baffling that this is the direction Sam Wilson’s Captain America solo movie was taken in. Where are Sharon Carter and Bucky Barnes? The Falcon and the Winter Soldier ended on a strong note with Sam and Bucky in a great place, but Brave New World splits them up and decides to be a Hulk movie instead.
Bucky’s cameo was satisfying since the film would have felt incomplete without him, but it would make a lot more sense for him to be participating in the conflict instead of randomly running for Congress, which does not feel at all like a natural extension of his character arc in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. His conversation with Sam was a fantastic scene, and it felt important to have Bucky support Sam in a moment of crisis, but that energy could have been present throughout the entire film.
The Hulk-ness of Brave New World
Given the presence of more The Incredible Hulk supporting characters than Captain America characters, it really does feel like Sam Wilson has stepped into Bruce Banner’s movie. His role in working with the government makes Captain America a natural fit to help out on missions of national importance. Sam’s role in avoiding a war with Japan demonstrates how powerful a superhero assist can be in a world that’s on the brink of conflict and constantly facing alien threats. But he’s facing Bruce’s old ally in Samuel Sterns and his old enemy in Thaddeus Ross. Sam is quite literally caught up in someone else’s story as he finds himself in the middle of Sterns’s plan to destroy Ross’s public image, all due to their shared history with Bruce Banner.
That’s what takes away from Sam Wilson’s Captain America feeling like a true leading man: he’s not even the focus of his own story. The enemies he’s fighting don’t care about him, they care about taking each other down, and he’s simply in the way. Sam’s dynamic with Sidewinder stands out because it’s a relationship that’s actually personal. Sidewinder wants to kill him specifically. He might be hired by Sterns, but he has a bone to pick with Captain America, and it makes for some juicy fight scenes and dialogue exchanges. On the other hand, Sam’s interactions with Sterns and Ross make him feel like an inconvenient thorn in their side, albeit not one they’re particularly worried about.
Samuel Sterns feels underutilized in general. He’s supposedly super smart but doesn’t really show it. While I do think his plan to manipulate the U.S. and Japan into a war simply to make Ross look bad was solid, he doesn’t demonstrate any special level of intellect or feel like a particularly intense threat. Zemo was able to destroy the Avengers with a year of planning and a fake Bucky mask. Sterns’s plan feels pretty similar, except that he’s going around claiming he’s so much smarter than everyone else without showing anything besides some flashy mind control triggers. He never becomes a threat that you’re genuinely worried about Sam going up against, which is kind of a key ingredient for hero-villain dynamics in a superhero film.
Red Hulk is a proper threat for Sam, but that’s where Brave New World falls apart. Ross hulking out and destroying the White House is a ridiculous jumping-the-shark moment for a solid action movie. The transformation feels extremely forced, clearly shoehorned in to satisfy fans but not naturally integrated with the story. Sterns has carefully manipulated the U.S. president into starting a war by preying on his insecurities and framing him for international crimes, but his backup plan is to turn him into a raging monster? If your precise manipulation wasn’t the end goal, why even bother with it in the first place?
Even dumber is the way Sam stops Red Hulk, by quickly talking him down with a poorly-written speech. Throughout the film, Ross proved that he hadn’t changed. He used Sterns to guarantee his presidency and then betrayed him by refusing to release him. Even after Sam forces him to admit the truth on the aircraft carrier, Ross was unwilling to own up to his mistakes, despite the mounting geopolitical conflict his lies had snowballed into.
Sam defeating Red Hulk by telling Ross he can see that he’s trying to be a better person was ham-fisted and came out of nowhere. Nothing Ross had done to that point indicated that he was actually trying to be a better person, he just said that he had changed while continuing to be the same old untrustworthy person he’s always been, even in the face of outright war with Japan. His hopeful ending in The Raft felt unearned, and it felt stupid to have Sam appeal to his better nature when he had a front-row seat to all of Ross’s atrocities. Working with the man who imprisoned you and hunted you down for several years because he’s now the president is one thing, but being all buddy-buddy with him in prison after you’ve discovered the true extent of the decades of malpractice he’s covered up is another.
Sam’s hopeful and idealistic nature is normally a breath of fresh air. His reasoning with Karli in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was valid, and his defense of Ross also makes sense to an extent. But in both cases he goes too far with his appeal to their better natures and by the end, he refuses to see the truth of their corruption. If this trait was addressed and explored in his solo stories it could be an interesting character arc, but the film’s ending clearly shows that it’s not an intentional character flaw because it proves him right by having Ross give himself up.
Also, Ross’s character arc centering on his relationship with Betty doesn’t really work when she’s an absent character. Liv Tyler pops up for a quick cameo at the end of the film and for a brief moment on the phone with Ross, but it would be much more impactful if she factored into the film as an actual character instead of her name being randomly mentioned every few scenes. She could have been working with Sam and Joaquin in some capacity, or helped calm her father down when he transformed into Red Hulk by appearing at the cherry blossoms like they talked about. It all contributes to fumbling Ross’s character and taking him from a well-written minor antagonist for the Avengers to a pathetic old man. It was really disappointing to see how Brave New World handled Thunderbolt Ross after his excellent minor appearances in Civil War, Infinity War, and Black Widow.
Captain America: Brave New World is a solid MCU entry
Captain America: Brave New World is a solid addition to the MCU. It’s not groundbreaking, but it’s certainly not deserving of the terrible scores from critics and audiences alike. The film itself is fairly cohesive, it’s simply unfortunate that so much focus is placed on Bruce Banner’s world instead of fleshing out Sam Wilson’s corner of the MCU. Brave New World would stand out a lot more if it featured Captain America-related heroes and villains.
Those gripes aside, the movie itself was entertaining and well-paced. The action sequences were fun and really showed off our new Captain America’s skills, especially in the incredible fighter jet dogfight over Celestial Island. Sam Wilson has really come into his own and is a great, charismatic leader. All he needs now is a new Avengers team to further expand his role as Captain America, with more of the story being driven by his actions.
I hope to see Anthony Mackie have a significant leading role in the next two Avengers films, without being overshadowed by cameos and returning legacy characters. It’s a shame he won’t get an Avengers movie to establish his own team, but he can still stand out in a crowd as long as the script gives him the opportunity to take ownership of his superhero life and break him away from the constraints of working for the U.S. government, like he did in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
