Ford and Mackie do their best, but this is one of the weakest official MCU movies and feels like a Disney Plus show.
PLOT: The new Captain America, Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), is approached by the recently elected president, Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford), to re-assemble The Avengers on the eve of an important accord between multiple countries. However, when his old friend, Isiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) tries to kill the president, he realizes Ross may not be all he seems.
REVIEW: Things sure have changed in two years. Think about it – on President’s Day weekend back in 2023, Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania hit theaters, and its $106 million opening was considered a massive underperformance, with many even calling the film a flop. That’s how hot Marvel was then – a $100 million plus opening was considered weak. However, the bar was lowered – A LOT – by The Marvels, while several big-budget Disney Plus series further weakened the brand, and now, Captain America: Brave New World seems to be opening with perhaps the least fanfare ever for a movie in the MCU.
Granted, there have been a lot of stories about how the film was plagued by many rounds of reshoots, while there’s been a noticeable lack of enthusiasm around Sam Wilson’s big-screen debut as Cap. Indeed, Captain America: Brave New World is pretty mediocre for a Marvel movie, with it feeling almost like it should have been a Disney Plus series rather than a movie, as it lacks the scale and excitement one usually feels with the franchise. Even worse though, is the fact that it almost completely lacks any sense of fun.
Much has been made about how this is meant to be in the vein of The Winter Soldier, but that film had a more compelling storyline that – even at its most complex – was always grounded by the main theme, which was the bond between Cap and Bucky. Brave New World doesn’t give Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson the same kind of stakes, with his bond with Carl Lumbly’s Isiah quickly written out of the story in favor of just letting Cap do his own thing, leaving the movie feeling like nothing you haven’t seen before.
One can’t really blame Anthony Mackie, with Sam Wilson lacking the kind of epic build-up Steve Rogers got, with his feuds, displacement in time, lost loves, etc. Wilson, who also doesn’t have any superpowers, feels a bit like Hawkeye in that he’s a more regular kind of guy in a world populated by absolutely iconic performers and characters. He’s never been given the material other characters have, although Mackie does his best. He fares well in his scenes opposite Harrison Ford as Thaddeus Ross, as their antagonism and grudging respect for each other actually kind of works. Still, when Sam is paired with the woefully underdeveloped new Falcon (Danny Ramirez), the film starts to feel an awful lot like TV.
The movie could have benefitted from a few established characters being brought back in to carry some of the weight, with Shira Haas’s Ruth Bat-Seraph little more than a stand-in for one of the Black Widows (the movie could have used Florence Pugh’s Yelena as a co-star). Much is being made about Tim Blake Nelson’s return as The Leader, but he always feels like a B-level villain who’s only around to lead in to the big battle everyone wants to see – Cap vs Red Hulk.
I’ll say this – bringing Red Hulk in is what makes the film worth seeing, as it’s fun watching the grumpy Ford do his thing in Hulk mode, and Ross is a lot more fleshed out here than you’d think. Again, Ford and his chemistry with Mackie give Brave New World a pulse, but too much of the film feels assembly line, and the seams where the reshoots come in are pretty obvious.
My biggest gripe is that for all the comparisons to The Winter Soldier, the action is weak, with virtually none of the action scenes any better than what you’d see on a Disney Plus show, as no Marvel director since the Russo Bros have had as good of a handle on superhero carnage as they had. One can’t blame Julius Onah, as, like The Marvels’ Nia DaCosta, I’m sure his control over the final product was limited.
Brave New World is definitely proof that Marvel needs to shake up the formula, as years of Marvel shows on Disney Plus, and too many uninspired films have diluted the brand. While not a disaster, Brave New World feels like more of a chore to sit through than it should be. If you manage your expectations, there’s some fun to be had watching Ford and Mackie go mano-a-mano, but Marvel movies shouldn’t feel this dull.
