It’s been a while since I’ve properly watched a Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movie. I skipped over Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania partly due to its COVID-era release and partly due to my lack of interest in seeing Jonathan Majors awkwardly ham it up. I skipped The Marvels because as much as I love Monica Rambeau and Kamala Khan, I’m not partial to Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers. However, the MCU’s tease of maybe including Deadpool one day after Deadpool & Wolverine and the many hours I’ve played of Marvel Rivals have pumped me up for more superhero actions (I’m a Peni main, by the way).
Given the personal distaste for Majors and Larson I shared, I can understand if longtime Marvel fans are apprehensive about watching a Captain America film without Chris Evans. Anthony Mackie has some big shoes to fill now that he’s inherited the mantle.
Captain America: Brave New World finds Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) firmly established no longer as Falcon but as Captain America and doing his best to serve his country in a world where the Avengers have been disbanded. After the controversial Hulk-hunting General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford) is elected President of the United States, he pushes for an international treaty regulating the harvest of the new (to the MCU) supermetal adamantium. When Ross is the subject of an assassination attempt that implicates his friend and former Captain America Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), Sam takes matters into his own hands to investigate the deeper conspiracy that threatens to result in war and a new colonization race.
Despite ostensibly being a movie about Captain America, the plot never truly focuses entirely on Sam. Much like Captain America: Civil War felt like another Avengers movie, Brave New World is more of a sequel to the 2008 The Incredible Hulk and 2021’s Eternals. It’s great to see characters and plot points from the often-overlooked Hulk (which I really enjoyed) resurface, and the MCU finally addresses the events of Eternals, which saw a giant Celestial emerge from the Indian Ocean and almost destroy the planet. It’s interesting to me that the MCU is using Eternals to introduce adamantium and the X-Men, with the corpse of Tiamut the Celestial being the source of the metal on Earth. Unfortunately, this all comes at the cost of Sam’s story, and, like with the movies of MCU Phase 1, it feels like this movie and the characters are just a vehicle to set up a new Avengers storyline. It’s not Sam’s story; he’s just along for the ride.
Marvel is still struggling to escape the shadow of Steve Rogers and Chris Evans. While I thought the whole point of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier show was to hand the title of Captain America to Sam Wilson definitively and to allay his doubts that he is the man for the job, he goes back to dwelling on it in the film. I assume that by now, Marvel wants us to move forward and accept Sam as the bearer of the iconic shield, but how are we supposed to do that if they keep bringing up the past?
The best part of Captain America: Brave New World is the characters, played by an immensely talented and passionate cast. It’s easy to write off superhero films as merely popcorn flicks that exist only for spectacle and not for substance. Still, the cast does a commendable job of bringing significant emotional weight to the story.
Though we got a taste of what Mackie brings to the role through his previous MCU appearances, especially in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, this is really Mackie’s first chance to claim the mantle of Captain America, especially for audience members who may not have Disney+ or just were not interested in the show. Mackie’s Captain America shares many traits that Evans brought to the role, such as an unshakeable sense of justice, dogged determination, and the ability to inspire others. However, Mackie can also make Sam seem more human and relatable than Steve Rogers was. As iconic and almost synonymous as Rogers is to the Captain America mantle, much of his story was tied to the serum that granted him his superhuman abilities. Sam Wilson doesn’t have that, and though he does possess advanced tools and weaponry, he’s still only a human in a suit trying to make a difference. Whether by the nature of this fact or Sam’s added layer of doubt and struggle without taking the serum, he feels more plausible and relatable as a hero, reinforcing the idea that anyone could be a hero like Captain America. He’s charming, optimistic, and human and carries a real sense of hope throughout the movie. He’s a lot more fallible, so even though he’s not stopping an alien invasion, it makes his victories seem all the more significant.
Harrison Ford’s portrayal of President Thaddeus Ross is likely one of the film’s biggest draws for pop culture enthusiasts like me, many of us jonesing for more Harrison after Troy Baker’s impeccable impressions of his younger self in the recent Indiana Jones video game. Ross’s character arc in Captain America: Brave New World is one of redemption. Though audiences may associate the character with the blustery, “shoot first and ask questions later” attitude portrayed by the late William Hurt, Ford’s take on the character is calmer and more calculated in his approach. At this stage in his life, Ross is motivated by his estrangement from his daughter Betty (Liv Tyler) after his obsessive quest to capture the Hulk and seeks to show her that he has changed for the better. Ford is able to easily portray all these emotions, from the charismatic politician to the desperate and emotionally wounded father to the leader genuinely seeking peace and a redeemed legacy. Then, at once, the simmering rage and conniving manipulation hiding under the surface make you question his motivations and whether he really has changed. In other words, the role is a successful redemption from Dial of Destiny.
Also along for the ride at Cap’s side are the new Falcon Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez), Ross’s Black Widow-trained head of security Ruth Bat-Seraph (Shira Haas) and Carl Lumbly’s Isaiah Bradley. Ramirez matches Mackie’s upbeat energy with a chipper and irrelevant exuberance as the comic relief sidekick. Haas’s Ruth is a much more focused and taciturn role, which fits the character, though we do get glimpses of cheekiness and snarkiness that hopefully develop more if we see her in future films. Lumbly, though, shines as the heart and emotional center of the film. As was revealed in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Bradley was the first Captain America, but rather than gain the accolades that were given to Rogers, he was hushed up, experimented on and locked away by the very government he served. In Captain America: Brave New World, we see Bradley trying to pick up the pieces of the life he has left, making connections with people who respect him and finally seeming to get the public recognition he deserves, only for it to be wrongfully snatched away from him. The injustice of it all, with the tender and broken yet dignified air that Lumbly imbues in the character, is very moving.
(*Please note: This next paragraph is a minor spoiler so skip over it if you’d like.)
For those of us who have seen and remember The Incredible Hulk, the reveal that Tim Blake Nelson’s Samuel Sterns, aka Mr. Blue, is the villain is a bit telegraphed; however, it makes sense as a tie-in to the Red Hulk storyline. Unfortunately, there isn’t much payoff beyond the reveal of his gruesomely mutated head. As a villain who bases his plans on percentages and likelihoods of specific calculated outcomes, he’s overcome very easily as his plans go awry, and he doesn’t do much in the film besides randomly showing up places or talking to the characters through phones or radios. Nelson is normally a fine actor, but he’s incredibly bland here. I suspect this is due to the script and character not having much room for exploration. In many ways, his character makes this Captain America film feel like another rehash of the last one: an angry, evil scientist/genius that was wronged and hidden away in a secret base by the United States government enacts an evil plot that Cap then foils. The only real difference is that Sterns stands in for Zola and Baron Zemo here, except he has even less to do.
Giancarlo Esposito also portrays a minor villain as the hired gun, Sidewinder. Esposito channels a bit of his Gus Fring energy again with Sidewinder’s matter-of-fact malice and straightforward evil, which serves the plot but doesn’t make him very memorable. Knowing how good a villain he can be, this role shamefully wastes Esposito’s talent.
Regarding action sequences, the bread and butter of superhero films, Captain America: Brave New World, is a mixed bag that averages out to be just okay. Considering how action films in recent years like John Wick, Sisu, Nobody and Love Hurts have raised the bar for crisp cinematography and inventive fight choreography, it’s disappointing to see that Marvel hasn’t progressed beyond nauseatingly shaky camera movement and rapid jump cuts to attempt to convey a sense of dynamism and energy in their fights. The film fares much better with its CGI-focused action sequences. An aerial dogfight pitting Cap and Falcon against military jets has plenty of tension and excitement that, while feeling a little similar to other film scenes of aerial combat, still manages to retain a unique flair. The highly teased climactic fight between Captain America and the Red Hulk is full of destructive spectacle. Though ultimately, it feels a little too short, it is just as enjoyable as I expected.
Captain America: Brave New World’s story flounders because it doesn’t seem brave enough to let Sam have his own story as Captain America. While in the complexly interconnected world of the MCU, it’s expected to have tie-ins, callbacks and some level of set-up for future projects, that’s all the movie seemed to be. On the positive side, the film is still a very good time at the theater. For the most part, the action sequences are exciting and offer plenty of visual flair. Strong performances carry the whole project from Mackie, Ford, and Lumbly and the proper balance of fun jokes with gravitas.
If this were the final test to see if Mackie could shoulder the responsibility of being Captain America, then he would have more than earned his wings.
Rating: 7/10