Captain America: Brave New World

 2025, d. Julius Onah - in theatre

I have been fairly defensive about the post-Endgame Marvel Cinematic Universe movies even when most critics, and, it seems, much of the populace, has become pretty exhausted by them.

I have invested a lot of viewing time and contemplative energy into the MCU, so I want to see it succeed, but a lot of the recent Marvel entries I feel like I have to be quite forgiving and charitable towards despite seeing a lot of the same flaws that their harsher critics identify.  

It's hard, though, with films like Thor: Love and Thunder, The Marvels and Captain America: Brave New World to really invest in them when they seem so aggressively (and noticeably) chopped up and restructured, riddled with scenes that seem truncated on odd beats, weird additional dialogue recordings that don't sound like they are part of the scene, pace-halting exposition-heavy cut-in sequences, or truly, brain-meltingly ugly reshoot scenes (in an otherwise nice-looking film) that feel so out of place within the film's sequence like they were inserted from another reality.

Brave New World is riddled with these distractions, but, at its core it results in a decently engaging superhero, but largely forgettable, political thriller in a superheroic world.  

The film opens with Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross (Harrison Ford, replacing William Hurt in the MCU after his passing) having just won the Presidency. In his victory speech he hammers home the point of bringing the country, and the world, "Together." His key initiative is a global accord around mining right of the giant Celestial being turned to stone in The Eternals, which, it turns out, contains an unrefined metal that can be refined into Adamantium, a metal on par or superior to Wakanda's vibranium. 

Sam Wilson, now Captain America (Anthony Mackie), has decided to support the "Together." initiative and work with Ross, whom he was on opposite sides of during the superhero Civil War. Sam, now with an upgraded flight suit of Wakandan technology, is also reluctantly coaching his man-in-the-chair pal Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) in becoming the new Falcon, with the forgotten Captain America, Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) acting as trainer.

But at a White House event, something triggers Bradley and a number of other Secret Service agents into attacking President Ross and his diplomatic guests, setting off a conspiratorial puzzle Sam, Joaquin and special attache (and ex-Black Widow) Ruth Bat-Seraph must unravel.

The film is trying so hard to follow in Captain America: The Winter Soldier's footsteps, but it misses the key element of that film, which is having the story be of personal consequence to Sam Wilson. Sure, Sam's investment is about freeing Bradley who is clearly a pawn in all of this, but it's still a tale that's actually centered around Ford's President Ross, with the mastermind behind it all having been reported two years ago in casting leaks, so there's no surprise to scale up to.  Even the big reveal that the villain of the piece has been playing Ross for years and has set the foundation for Ross to turn into the Red Hulk, something which should have been a cheer-worthy surprise (as it's teased throughout the first two acts before erupting in the third) but was heavily part of the marketing campaign for the movie.

Throughout it all is rising political stakes as America and Japan seem to be heading towards war as they view for control of the Celestial.  It all seems a bit much for a man in a high-tech bird suit to take on, but that's what is supposed to elevate Sam Wilson, that he is the man capable of solving nations going to war and a Hulk rampaging on Washington.

There is a scene or two with Sam having to face his own limitations, having to face the pressure of being a Black man taking over the moniker of a legend and knowing there are people depending on him to succeed, just as there is a contingent of people eagerly looking for him to fail. He speaks to his imposter syndrome, the pressure that's on him, and how one slip-up is all it will take for it to be all over.  I wish this was more at the heart of the film.  Sam did spend a lot of energy in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier denying the burden of carrying the shield before stepping into it. This touches upon what he now faces, but not enough, and it seems somewhat watered down.

Captain America, whether it's Steve or Sam, is meant to lead and inspire. Steve had a super-soldier serum coursing through is veins that gave him strength, speed and agility to physically stand up in a fight. Sam may have technology, but has to rely upon his wits, his compassion, and his trauma counsellor training as much as any physical skills. There are a few examples of that here, some better than others (as those in the reshoots seem...a bit rushed and unrefined as far as speeches go).

Most of the aerial sequences are really good, but none are great. The film doesn't give us the sense of wonder of flying like Sam so much as it show Sam flying. It looks pretty cool, but it's not a visceral experience. It's a problem Marvel's been having increasingly is their sense of superpowers has devolved into a very matter-of-fact, into a given as opposed to something unique and worthy of continued awe.  Sam's new suit, containing Vibranium technology much like Black Panther's suit, allows him to absorb kinetic energy and erupt it back, as well the wings contain razor-sharp blades that can slice a car in half if necessary. In an effort to have bigger fight sequences, we find the suit doing things that test even its super-science credulity. It would be far more interesting if Sam had to puzzle his way through these encounters rather than just be CGI figures fighting CGI planes and missiles and other CGI characters.

Of course it all leads up to what the trailers promise, Captain America versus Red Hulk, and it's here where I was finally really impressed. The likeness of Ford they captured in Red Hulk is so good that I would believe that Ford actually gave a performance as the beast (can you imagine Harrison Ford in a mo-cap suit?). And the rampage through Washington, the wanton damage to the White House, all looked pretty spectacular. There was a density to it all, a sense of the heft and strength of the Red Hulk and the lack of resistance that the buildings around him could provide. 

Brave New World spent a lot of time with President Ross trying to prove to the world, but mostly his daughter, Betty (a returning Liv Tyler) that he was a changed man, no longer the might-makes-right General, but a more forward thinking, diplomatic individual. Were this solely a film about Ross, it seems right that in the end it would be his daughter who would talk him off the rage-ledge that turned him into a Hulk.  It's so clear that this is what the film was leaning towards, but in the end they understood that this resolution takes away Sam's agency as the hero of the piece and it ends with a reshoot sequence of Sam appealing to Ross in a pretty unconvincing manner.  

The shadowy adversary is the grand manipulator of the events of the film, and it's only through Sam's intervention that his plans go completely awry. So it winds up thoroughly unsatisfying in conclusion that the villain of the piece just surrenders himself in a parking lot in the ugliest reshoot of the film. I can't even speculate what the original sequence was going to be but this was a horrendous resolution to that thread and made absolutely no sense for the character. Plus, this character's story was specifically tied to Ross and not Sam, which, again, undercuts the title figure.

Mackie is really, really good here. He's the leading man of the picture, and he seems to get what it means to "level up" a character. It's a film that does level Sam up in many ways, but it doesn't do him complete justice. It robs him of focus time and again in making the events all about Ross, and having Sam doggedly stick his nose into them.  Ross should have been much more on the backburner, and the film should have had the courage of its convictions to make Ross more outright the enemy. But it seemed determined to disprove that idea "a man can never change", and it had lofty goals of striving for a healing bridge in a divided nation.

But Sam Wilson will not be the healing bridge. He's a character in a movie. Points for ambition, but double points deducted for middling execution.

These Marvel films, being confined by their predetermined release dates, are suffering as a result. If the films need to be so heavily restructured in their editing then it's clear they need more time in the scripting and planning stages. They need to be less beholden to pre-visualized fight sequences and work harder at character-centric stories and letting their storyteller take the lead over "universe expanding", or in this case, circling back on ideas and characters from the past.  

The shared universe was once a feature of the MCU, but it's now becoming a bug, a storytelling crutch that's not helping something that seems to have two broken legs.

It's a movie. It's not offensive, but it's also not great.