Captain America: Brave New World – REVIEW

Anthony Mackie in Captain America: Brave New World


Since this is the first MCU movie I’m actually talking about and reviewing, I might as well start off with a little preamble on where I think this franchise is heading. Right now, it feels like Marvel is too big to fully collapse like the past DC movies, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn't at least concerned. I understand that their original plan with Jonathan Majors playing Kang as the big villain pretty much fell apart at the seams, so even if it’s cope, I think they’re still trying to figure out what exactly is happening with these movies. To me, the past few MCU movies have been fine. Not disasters or masterpieces, they ended up somewhere in the middle: watchable while they’re on. There are some that have risen above that like Deadpool & Wolverine, the last Doctor Strange movie, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, and that’s not even mentioning the shows. Loki hit hard for me, but the rest I’ve seen have just been okay. Except for Secret Invasion, that’s really the only big disaster for me and is easily the worst thing to come out of the MCU.

Okay, got that rant out of the way. We’re now focusing on Brave New World, the first time Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson is leading a movie as Captain America. The big course correction here is the emphasis on the “universe,” which was a strong point of everything pre-Endgame. Even if the characters aren’t entirely connected, it’s like a piece of the puzzle. Brave New World feels like it’s tying up the loose ends of the MCU. Even if it’s a little sloppy, I was nodding my head in appreciation that it felt like this was connected to a massive world again. I’m a sucker for that kind of stuff, alright? Since this was in the trailers, I feel like it’s fair to say that the plot revolves around the massive Celestial that came out of the Earth’s core back in 2021’s Eternals, which became a running gag in the fandom of learning when anyone was going to acknowledge the corpse of a giant space god sticking out of Earth. I won’t spoil specifically why the U.S. and other countries are gaining from Celestial Island, but it’s so valuable that an evil mastermind is using this conflict to manipulate the newly-elected president, Thaddeus Ross, to go to war with other countries over it. So, Captain America has to find out what’s happening to Ross and stop World War III.

Seeing that this post has multiple paragraphs would usually mean that I do have something to say about this movie, whether it’s positive or negative. I have to admit something, though. Brave New World is an insanely mixed bag, maybe the most mixed bag out of the recent MCU movies. The positive things here are great. I think making Sam Wilson the successor to Steve Rogers is absolutely the right move, and he’s fleshed out in some interesting ways, including an aspect of his life that really wasn’t mentioned since his first appearance in The Winter Soldier: counseling veterans who came back with PTSD. It’s not like it’s a plotline, but it’s nice to see that be looped back around to show how Wilson talks with different people. Harrison Ford might also have one of my favorite MCU performances in recent memory as Thaddeus Ross, replacing William Hurt after his passing in 2022. He’s essentially the second main character here, and his presence gives every scene he’s in this grandeur, almost like seeing Robert Redford in The Winter Soldier. Even some of the action sequences are fun too, even if it isn’t breaking new ground. That’s the problem, though. I’m not saying that every single Marvel movie has to be a big cameo-filled crossover, but you can’t half-ass something like this. I keep saying The Winter Soldier because Marvel Studios have been trying to capitalize on how beloved that movie’s become, specifically the crime thriller tone of that movie. Brave New World comes the closest to it, and it does benefit from it, but the twists and turns are so predictable that it just gets… boring. While it feels like Mackie, Ford, Carl Lumbly as the forgotten super-soldier Isaiah Bradley, Danny Ramirez as Joaquín Torres (the new Falcon), and director Julius Onah put in the work to make something special, the lackluster story makes Brave New World comes too close to collapsing way too often. It’s fun in short bursts, but Brave New World not only has been done before, but done better.


Ryan’s Grade: B-