From August 2017 – January 2020, Keith R.A. DeCandido took a weekly look at every live-action movie based on a superhero comic that had been made to date in the Superhero Movie Rewatch. He’s periodically revisited the feature to look back at new releases, as well as a few he missed the first time through.
After the elderly, time-displaced Steve Rogers bequeathed his shield to Sam Wilson at the end of Avengers: Endgame, the question was how they would proceed with Captain America movies, which had been among the most successful of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This was further complicated by the Disney+ TV series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which had already been announced before Endgame’s release.
While that TV series had some issues with its overall plot, it did an excellent job of showing how Wilson simply taking over the mantle of Captain America is far more complicated for a Black man in the twenty-first century than it was for a blond-haired blue-eyed white man in the mid-twentieth. But that series ended with Wilson firmly in place as the new Cap, which nicely set things up for the fourth Cap movie, and the first not to feature Chris Evans. Originally titled New World Order and intended for release in 2024, some reshoots and the writers and actors strikes of 2023 wound up delaying the release until early 2025, with the title changed to the less provocative Brave New World.
The movie had three sets of writers, with Malcolm Spellman and Dalan Musson coming over from TF&TWS to write a script, apparently either a rewrite or a supplanting of Rob Edwards, who was the original writer on the film, and who still got story and screenplay credit. After Julius Onah was brought on to direct, he and Peter Glanz did a rewrite of their own.
The notion of the erstwhile Falcon taking over as Cap has its origins in the comics, with Rogers having been aged in Dimension Z and bequeathing the shield to Wilson in 2014’s Captain America Vol. 7 #25 by Rick Remender, Stuart Immonen, & Carlos Pacheco. (For more on Sam Wilson’s history in the comics, check out this piece your humble rewatcher did for this site prior to the debut of TF&TWS.)
This movie also returns Thaddeus Ross to the MCU, now President of the United States, and follows the comics’ transformation of the Hulk’s long-time nemesis into the Red Hulk, which happened in the Hulk comic series that debuted in 2008 by Jeph Loeb & Ed McGuinness (though the fact that the Red Hulk was Ross was not revealed at first). With William Hurt having died, the role is taken over by Harrison Ford, who apparently requested the role without even seeing a script because he genuinely wanted to be a part of the MCU.
Also back in this movie is Samuel Sterns, whose transformation into the Leader was foreshadowed at the end of The Incredible Hulk, which finally comes to pass in this movie, though he’s never referred to by the supervillain name. Introduced in the comics in 1964’s Tales to Astonish #62 by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko, Sterns was a manual laborer who never finished high school, but after being exposed to gamma radiation was transformed into a super-genius. He’s been one of the Hulk’s primary antagonists for pretty much the entire six decades since he was created.
We’ve also got two characters introduced in the MCU in TF&TWS, both from the comics. Joaquin Torres took over as the Falcon when Wilson became Cap, first appearing in Captain America: Sam Wilson #1 by Nick Spencer & Daniel Acuña in 2015 as a human artificially mutated with the DNA of Falcon’s bird Redwing to become a sort of human/bird hybrid; the MCU version is not superpowered—Torres is an Air Force officer who now wears the Falcon’s old suit. Isaiah Bradley was established in the 2002 miniseries Truth: Red, White, and Black by Robert Morales & Kyle Baker. In the comics, the super-soldier serum was originally tested on several Black men, of whom Bradley was the only survivor, before it was used on Rogers. In TF&TWS, it was reversed: several Black men were experimented on after Rogers went down in the Arctic in Captain America: The First Avenger. Bradley was the only survivor, and he was put in prison when he rescued some soldiers against orders.
In addition, the film’s plot revolves around the partial emergence of the Celestial Tiamut in the Indian Ocean at the end of Eternals.
Introduced in this movie are the mercenary group SERPENT and another graduate of the Red Room that created the Black Widows, Ruth Bat-Seraph, respectively versions of the comics’ Serpent Society and the Israeli superhero Sabra. Early drafts of the film had SERPENT actually being the Serpent Society from the comics—introduced as the Serpent Squad in 1973’s Captain America #163 by Steve Englehart & Sal Buscema, changed to the Serpent Society in 1985’s Captain America #310 by Mark Gruenwald & Paul Neary—with several snake-themed villains teaming up. Later drafts boiled it down to just Sidewinder—the leader of several iterations of the Society—whose snake-themed costume was eschewed for more standard body armor, the organization simplified to a band of mercenaries.
Sabra was introduced in The Incredible Hulk #256 in 1981 by Bill Mantlo & Buscema, intended to be, in essence, the Israeli Captain America. The character’s inclusion in this movie was met with controversy, and the role was changed significantly to that of an Israeli-born woman who was trained in the Red Room, who now works as security advisor to President Ross, thus avoiding any potential references to current events in the Middle East.
Back from The Falcon & The Winter Soldier’s first season are Anthony Mackie as Captain America, Carl Lumbly as Bradley, Danny Ramirez as the Falcon, and Sebastian Stan in a brief cameo as the Winter Soldier. Back from Black Widow is the character of Ross, now played by Ford. Back from The Incredible Hulk are Tim Blake Nelson as Sterns and Liv Tyler as Betty Ross. New to this film are Shira Haas as Bat-Seraph, Giancarlo Esposito as Sidewinder, Xosha Roquemore as Leila Taylor (a Secret Service agent, based on a love interest of Wilson’s from the comics), Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson as Copperhead (another Serpent Society member simplified into a mercenary from SERPENT), Takehiro Hira as Japanese Prime Minister Ozaki, and William Mark McCullough as Dunphy, the leader of a SEAL team that provides support for Cap.
Stan will next appear in Thunderbolts*. Mackie and Ramirez are both set to appear in Avengers: Doomsday.
Captain America: Brave New World
Written by Rob Edwards and Malcolm Spellman & Dalan Musson and Julius Onah & Peter Glanz
Directed by Julius Onah
Produced by Kevin Feige, Nate Moore
Original release date: February 14, 2025
“Let’s get this over with, I got shit to do today”
Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross has been elected president of the United States. In his acceptance speech, he harps on the word “together,” which has apparently been his campaign slogan, hoping to bring people together in the wake of the Blip and the emergence of the Celestial in the Indian Ocean. That Celestial has provided an impressive cache of an unbreakable metal called adamantium.
Five months later, a sample of refined adamantium has been stolen from the Japanese by the mercenary group SERPENT, who is planning to sell it to a buyer in Mexico. Captain America, backed up by a SEAL team and eventually also by Joaquin Torres in his Falcon suit, is sent to retrieve it, and to rescue the hostages SERPENT’s leader Sidewinder has taken. They’re successful, with only Sidewinder getting away. The buyer never showed.
Returning to the States, Falcon is bugging Cap for more training, so Cap brings him to Baltimore to meet Isaiah Bradley. While there, Cap gets a call from the White House: He and Torres are invited to an event there. Cap only agrees if Bradley is also included in the invitation. Bradley is reluctant to accept, especially given Ross’ history. Cap agrees with his concerns—Ross hunted him, Steve Rogers, and Natasha Romanoff for years between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War—but he needs to work with Ross, and he insists that Bradley come along.
The trio are taken in a limo, and also take some selfies as they enter. Cap is immediately whisked to the Oval Office to talk to Ross, who wants Cap to form a new Avengers team. Given that Ross’ pushing of the Sokovia Accords was a big part of what broke the Avengers, Cap is skeptical.
Ross then delivers a presentation on adamantium. He’s been working with other nations on a treaty to control and regulate its production and distribution. In the middle of his talk, several phones start playing “Mr. Blue” by the Fleetwoods, after which Bradley and five others—all military, law-enforcement, or Secret Service—start firing on people in the room. The other five are taken into custody in short order, but Bradley is able to get away. Cap gives chase, but when he catches up to him in Lafayette Square, Bradley is confused with no memory of what happened. He doesn’t want to be taken into custody, but Cap convinces him that running would be worse.
Cap barges into the Situation Room to ask that he be allowed to investigate what’s happening, but Ross has his security advisor, Ruth Bat-Seraph, on it. It’s a conflict of interest for Cap, and Ross tells him to stay out of it. He also rescinds his Avengers idea, and basically tells Cap to go screw himself.
Cap visits Bradley in prison, promising to clear him. While driving home, Cap asks Falcon to dig into Bat-Seraph. Then he’s ambushed by Sidewinder. Cap manages to take him out, and Sidewinder is arrested, saying only that he found the buyer and the buyer sent him after Cap.
Sidewinder had called the buyer to mistakenly inform him that Cap was dead (he in truth bailed out of the SUV before Sidewinder blew it up). Cap brings the phone to his headquarters, where Falcon is able to trace his last call to Camp Echo One, an Army base in the middle of nowhere. In addition, footage from the White House security cameras shows that Bradley and at least one of the other would-be assassins had flashing lights sent to their phones before the attack. Bat-Seraph sees the same thing when she looks at the footage.
Ross is struggling to hold his international coalition together after the shooting at the White House. Most concerning is that Japan has pulled out. Ross then calls one of the guards at Camp Echo One, who assures him that the prisoner is safely tucked away and that he’s looking right at him. We then see that the guard isn’t actually looking at anyone…
At the prison where Bradley and the other five would-be assassins are being held, one of the guards hears “Mr. Blue” and immediately shoots the other five prisoners. Before he can kill Bradley, Bat-Seraph takes him down.
Cap and Falcon head to Camp Echo One, using the Redwing drones to sneak past the guards. Once they get into the basement they find an empty prison cell, a fully stocked laboratory, and a computer. Falcon is able to determine that whoever has this lab has figured out a way to use mind control on people. There’s also full medical data on Ross, as well as some pills that are earmarked for the president.
Right after Falcon digs up some video of him giving a lecture at a university, the prisoner reveals himself to be Samuel Sterns. He’s now green-skinned and with a mutated head. Ross has kept him prisoner here for eighteen years, ever since he was arrested following the Hulk and Abomination’s rampage through Harlem. He’s been helping Ross, but Ross promised to free him when he became commander-in-chief, a promise he has yet to fulfill after five months in office.
Sterns is controlling the guards and they attack. Cap and Falcon—with the aid of Bat-Seraph, who was sent there to retrieve Cap and Falcon—take out the mind-controlled guards. But Sterns is now in the wind. Sterns calls Ross—who is on Air Force One en route to meet with Ozaki in Japan to get him back on board—to taunt him.
Some FBI agents show up to arrest Cap and the Falcon, but then a radio plays “Mr. Blue” and the FBI instead tries to kill them. They barely get away, heading to the facility where Sidewinder is being held. Falcon comes up with a way to block the mind control, but he isn’t sure it’ll work on anyone who’s already been programmed. He plays “Mr. Blue” to make sure none of the folks at the prison are programmed.
Cap then meets with Sidewinder, who says that Sterns wants revenge on Ross. He then gives the pills to Dunphy, who says he has a guy who can test the pills to see what they do.
Ross meets with Ozaki, and it doesn’t go well, as Japan has intelligence that the U.S. stole the adamantium. Ross denies it, and points out that he wouldn’t have sent Captain America to retrieve it if he stole it. Ozaki doesn’t believe him.
Japan then moves ships into the Indian Ocean to take possession of Celestial Island. Ross has the Navy respond in kind.
Cap and the Falcon fly to the Indian Ocean to meet with Ross and try to help de-escalate the situation. In private, Ross admits to everything Sterns accused him of, adding that he had been dying. Sterns was able to cure him of the heart problems that were killing him. He also used Sterns’ intellect to further his own career, helping him rise to Secretary of State and then to the presidency. He also mentions his daughter Betty, who hasn’t spoken to him since Harlem, and waxes nostalgic about taking her for a walk amidst the cherry blossoms.
Two American fighter pilots hear “Mr. Blue” over their radios and start firing on the Japanese. Cap and the Falcon try to bring the two rogue fighters down without any more bloodshed, at which they are generally successful, though Falcon is badly hurt.
While this is going on, Sterns calls Ross and tries to goad him into losing his temper. But he’s interrupted by the news that the Japanese are standing down before Sterns can finish the job, to his irritation.
Sterns also kills Dunphy before he can reveal what his guy’s test of the pills revealed.
Cap visits Falcon in the hospital, where he’s joined by Bucky Barnes, a.k.a. the Winter Soldier—who is apparently running for Congress. Cap is feeling adrift and like he isn’t worthy of the shield—especially since, unlike Rogers and Bucky, he isn’t super-powered—but Bucky gives him a pep talk.
When he leaves the hospital, Cap is confronted by Sterns, who is turning himself in. His endgame was to humiliate Ross in the Indian Ocean, but Cap’s victory there stymied him. So he’s moved on to Plan B. He tells Cap that the pills he gave Ross didn’t just cure his heart problems, they’re also infused with a lot of gamma radiation.
Sterns is arrested, and Cap heads to the White House, where Ross is giving a press conference saying that the Celestial Island Treaty is back on. However, it’s interrupted by the speakers playing the contents of Ross and Sterns’ most recent phone conversation, which is damning. The Secret Service tries to take Ross away, but he loses his temper—
—and starts to transform. He grows in height and musculature, his skin turns red, and he stands revealed as a Hulk—albeit a red one.
Cap arrives, and they fight, trashing the White House. Cap leads the Hulk away from there, radioing Bat-Seraph to evacuate the Hains Point Loop Trail. When they arrive, Cap tries to remind Ross of his visits there with Betty to see the cherry blossoms. One huge fight later, Ross calms down enough to revert to his normal self, though the park is pretty well trashed, as are Cap’s wings.
Bradley is exonerated, and Cap greets him upon his release. Then he visits Falcon in the hospital, the two of them discussing the possibility of restarting the Avengers. And finally, Cap visits the Raft (where Ross had previously imprisoned Sam and others in Captain America: Civil War). First he sees Ross, before leaving him with Ross’ other surprise visitor: Betty. While father and daughter catch up, Cap talks to Sterns, who says that there’s something bad coming.
“Should’ve taken that serum, Bucky’s full of shit”
This film was lukewarmly received, and my first instinct is to say that I don’t understand why, as I really enjoyed it. But I do understand why, and watching live-action superhero movies for all these years has made me come to a conclusion about these movies.
The audiences, for the most part, are much less interested in a standard, run-of-the-mill, everyday superhero story. It’s telling that there’s been precisely one Avengers movie that’s actually been about the Avengers being the world’s greatest superhero team: Age of Ultron, the least well-liked one. It’s not a universal thing, but particularly in the MCU, the storyline that would be the next issue of the comic book is not always all that well received.
Other complaints I’ve seen about this movie are that it ties too closely to a mere television show and two of the lesser entries in the MCU, one of which is almost two decades old. The former is an argument I automatically dismiss; I really thought we got past the arrogant movies-are-so-much-more-sophisticated-than-that-silly-TV-stuff bullshit attitude twenty-five years ago.
The latter is at least a more understandable complaint, but it’s also one I don’t subscribe to in the least, because this is a shared universe. That means it shares everything. And this movie picks up on one major event and one long-dangling plotline, both of which I see as virtues. The emergence of a Celestial in the Indian Ocean is absolutely going to have some major consequences, and the fact that it was in the abject failure that was Eternals doesn’t change the fact that it happened in the universe and is far too big to be ignored. And the greatest disappointment of the lack of a sequel to The Incredible Hulk was not following up on the teased transformation of Samuel Sterns into a green guy with a big head and a bigger intellect. Tim Blake Nelson is a superlative Leader, even if he’s never called that. True, his look is not great, but that’s an irrelevancy as far as I’m concerned. Nelson absolutely was the Leader, the master manipulator, the person who has multiple plans and sees so many probabilities. (In particular Nelson reminds me of the Leader as written by the late great Peter David during his superlative and lengthy run on The Incredible Hulk from 1987 to 1998.)
Anyhow, Brave New World is a fun little Captain America movie. Does it deal particularly seriously with the issue of a Black Captain America? Not enough, probably, but that’s what we had the six episodes of The Falcon & The Winter Soldier for. Frankly, that was something that needed the storytelling space of a TV series to do it justice, rather than trying to cram it all into a movie that needed to have a bunch of action scenes in it.
The first half of the movie is more appealing than the second half, as the plot so dominates everything in the latter portions that the charm of the early part of the movie is muted. The first half gives us Anthony Mackie at his most charismatic, continuing the work he did in his prior appearances to make Sam Wilson the best person around. Where Rogers inspired loyalty that comes from pure awe, Wilson inspires loyalty that grows out of friendship and respect. In addition, Wilson’s banter with Torres is a delight, as is their shared banter with Bradley. The friendship that has developed between Wilson and Bradley, and shown throughout the early part of the film, is the best part of it. Wilson needs Bradley’s cynicism and Bradley needs Wilson’s optimism. Plus, it’s Mackie and Carl Lumbly, and every time two actors this great are together, it’s always going to be amazing.
Speaking of amazing acting, we have Harrison Ford, who plays Ross as the evil Mirror Universe version of the president he played in Air Force One—or maybe of his Jack Ryan. Either way, it’s a bravura performance, one that continues nicely from William Hurt’s portrayal of the character, and also improves on it. (Hurt never did anything for me in the role in any case—Sam Elliott was so much better in the role in 2003’s Hulk.)
The movie is a bit crowded. There’s really no reason for either Bat-Seraph or Sidewinder to even be in this. Not that I ever object to Giancarlo Esposito, and he is his usual brilliant self—his role is an entertaining combination of two of his other roles, mixing the physical danger of The Mandalorian’s Moff Gideon with the intellectual scariness of Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul’s Gus Fring. But Sidewinder was a character added in the reshoots, and you can kind of see the seams, as excising Sidewinder from the movie would change very little of it.
The second half of the movie loses a lot of the charm, focused as it is on moving the plot along. Aside from his scene with Bucky—which is agonizingly short, these two make such a good team, Sebastian Stan should’ve had a much bigger role—there’s very little of Cap being a person, as he’s too busy being The Superhero. And while I love that this movie picks up themes from The Incredible Hulk and Eternals, that also reduces the personal stakes for Cap some. Yes, there’s the antagonism against Ross, but that’s always been a background element. Ross has been a side character for most of his MCU appearances; he hasn’t been the primary antagonist since 2008. The conflict between Ross and Wilson is much more abstract than the script wants it to be.
On top of that, the final product is very obviously aping the plot structure of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which is risky, as that’s a top-five MCU film, and Brave New World, um, isn’t. And it would’ve been better off not hewing quite so close.
We’ll be off next week for the Thanksgiving holiday, but in two weeks we’ll see Sebastian Stan for more than a brief cameo as we take a gander at Thunderbolts*.
Ug man Eternals was so bad – I don’t know if they could have but maybe just acting like that movie never happened would have been better? I enjoyed this and I expect the ties to the TV show (which I don’t think did well) along with ties to the eternals are what sank it at the box office. These being the lead in just took out any excitement to see the movie for many people I expect.
And who is saying movies are more sophisticated than TV? I mean the marvel movies are um not bastions of sophistication…and the marvel TV shows have actually been more sophisticated than the movies in many ways …
It’s not that movies are better than television. It probably has more to do with the baggage of the interconnectivity of all this MCU stuff now. Which can be a selling point but also a weakness, or at least enough to give audiences pause. What, I gotta consult the manual just to understand this movie? Maybe not the movie’s fault. Maybe it did a good job handling that. I don’t know, I didn’t bother to see it. But that attitude is out there.
There’s also the fact that comic book movies just don’t sell quite like they used to. And thank God for that! It’s the natural order of things, for the next generation to shrug at what their parents worshipped and slobbered all over to an embarrassing degree. Go make the next big thing, kids.
People who assume they “have to” see the earlier stories being referenced are just demonstrating that they don’t understand how exposition works. Every story depends on events that came before it, whether they were depicted in earlier stories or not. It’s the job of the storyteller to explain everything the viewer or reader needs to know, since even if they did see the earlier stories, they might not remember their details. One of the most basic rules of series writing is to assume that any story in the series is the audience’s first. The goal is to make it accessible for newcomers and veterans alike, because it would be stupid to deliberately erect barriers to exclude a portion of your potential audience.
Unfortunately, Marvel does not do that well. If you didn’t see WandaVision – the scarlet witch didn’t work really at all …
This was moderately entertaining, and I like Anthony Mackie and Sam Wilson, but I found the movie somewhat unsatisfying. It was too much an exercise in tying off lingering MCU continuity threads rather than anything deeper. I mean, I’ve wanted for ages to see Tim Blake Nelson get to play the Leader, but I’m not sure a Captain America movie is the best place for that, or for introducing adamantium or acknowledging that, yes, there is a giant stone hand sticking out of the planet now. Too much of the plot was about neatening up the shared universe rather than telling a story that had anything to say about our world. I mean, you’d think a movie about the U.S. President being a reddish-hued rage monster who makes secret deals with supervillains and smashes part of the White House would feel extremely relevant to our world, but it’s just too mired in the accumulated baggage of its world.
It also bugs me a bit to see adamantium introduced as an exotic element, rather than the advanced steel alloy it is in the comics. I mean, adamantium only makes sense as an alloy, something that doesn’t become indestructible until after you mix the ingredients together in the desired shape. If it starts out indestructible, how can you melt it down and make anything out of it? (I have the same issue with beskar in The Mandalorian.)
Also, something being “infused with gamma radiation” makes no sense. Laypeople have an annoying tendency to confuse radiation with radioactive material, which is like confusing light with a light bulb. Gamma radiation isn’t a substance, it’s high-energy photons emitted by radioactive substances like cobalt-60 or cesium-137, or by superhot things like supernovae and quasars.
I’m sorry, but when I see the name “Bat-Seraph,” I imagine a version of Bat-Mite on a higher angelic rank.
I don’t know enough of the linguistic nuances to be sure, but I think the better rendering of that name may be “bat Seraph” – without the hyphen and with a lower case b. (I did confirm that “bat” translates as “daughter of” in Hebrew, whereas “ben” is “son of”. And there are probably variances in custom among different Jewish subcultures….)
Hmm, that makes sense. It does make it look less like the championym of a member of the Bat-Family.
Seraph is broadly Hebrew, of course. I assume that the use of Bat is, as well. The X-Men have or had a literal Angel, a mutant with wings, so why not. No doubt B.S. prefers explaining a culturally significant name to Americans ten times a day over going with something like USAngel. As for comics science, where I’ve seen Iron Man taking delivery of gamma photons in crateloads, regular movie physics isn’t much better. Comics adamantium is utterly indestructible, but that isn’t realistic. Antimatter, for instance, is rather a sledgehammer to hit it with, but why wouldn’t it work? Do adamantium atoms form an impenetrable force field? But the point is fair that a super-metal that doesn’t bend is impossible to make anything out of. Unless what they’ve got is “secondary adamantium”, of course. By the way, what is MCU Captain America’s shield made of? I think in comics they made adamantium trying to duplicate the shield, and, come to think, I thought the comics Isaiah Bradley got super-serum after Steve Rogers did, in racially dubious attempts to re-create the lost formula. Steve was still first, unless you count Protocide.
Cap’s shield in the comics is made of a unique part-vibranium alloy that’s stronger than adamantium, but was created by accident and has never been duplicated. You’re correct that the inventor’s attempts to recreate it led to the invention of true adamantium. In the MCU, the shield is pure vibranium.
And yes, the Marvel Database wiki says that Bradley and the others were experimented on after Steve, not before.
Nice discussion — I also enjoyed this more than I thought I would (and I only watched it after it was out on Disney+). Helps that the performers are almost all at least quite good and most of them are great.
To be perfectly honest, I think the film’s lukewarm reception had as much to do with the state of the MCU as it did any of the film’s faults. My own interest in the franchise kind of fell off a cliff a couple years ago, and I don’t think I’m alone. However, I did watch this film, and I thought it was fine, though I think it really suffers from the fact that Harrison Ford’s Ross is more interesting as a character than, you know, Captain America, especially since this is this Captain America’s first movie. I really enjoyed The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but I imagine someone who didn’t watch that might come away from this movie not really caring about Sam Wilson.
Dunphy is the name of Caps sometimes sidekick D-Man, iirc
Forgive me, but I must speak from my lens. I feel that Steve Rogers was the definition of Captain America. All that comes afterwards is simply a pale imitation, a pretender. I grudgingly watched the Disney+ Captain America series after the Captain America passed the baton, and I watched the fourth Captain America movie. Both the series and the fourth installment lacked entertainment value, Mackie sucks as an actor, and I won’t watch any more with him as Captain America.
I think this would have been a better Hulk movie. It seems like they took Hulk’s antagonists and tried to weave them into a CA film. This is the first Marvel movie that I have felt bored with during my first watch in the theater. Maybe if the Red Hulk twist had not been publicized, then I would have felt more drama? The eventual trigger for Red Hulk (a politician getting embarrassed on live TV) just did not work for me. This is a very, very kind review in my mind of a bloated, poorly plotted, and boring film. I agree that the acting was good though, Mackie is great, as is Stan.
A Hulk movie wasn’t likely to happen, if I understand the rights situation correctly. Universal still retains the rights to a Hulk film; they’re just not interested in making a third feature. Marvel can only involve the character as a guest star, and they left plenty of story room between installments in case anyone did want to make Planet Hulk or Joe Fixit or what have you.
I have to assume Universal was OK with them taking all the leftover 2008 material and wrapping it up in a Cap film. Otherwise it seems not merely inelegant but rude.
In retrospect, it was an alright entry to the MCU. Sure, Brave New World was always going to stand to scrutiny, being the fourth Cap movie, having to live up to the legacy of three truly great films. And it certainly doesn’t come close to the likes of Civil War and Winter Soldier. But otherwise I agree that there was no reason for this one to have had such a lukewarm reception. I’ve heard people throwing around self-proclaimed “truisms” like “superhero fatigue”, but I don’t buy that excuse. Deadpool and Wolverine broke records after all.
Same here, I’ve also seen people bemoaning the prospect of having to do homework to follow the plot, and to be blunt, that’s their personal problem. We all knew back in 2008 when that first Iron Man came out that we were going to get an interconnected universe, just like the comics. Anyone who’s read one of those know just how much baggage these characters and stories have, to the point where the editor constantly puts on the pages references to comic number X in order to explain why Cyclops isn’t helping Storm fend off the brotherhood on Days of Future Past.
That’s certainly not this film’s problem. The plot itself does the job in situating the viewer on what happened before, the whole Celestial angle from Eternals, plus references to the plot of recent show explaining why Sam is the new Cap. The viewer doesn’t even need to watch those in order to follow this one.
All that aside, I feel the reason this movie doesn’t deliver as strongly as the previous ones is obviously because this really isn’t a Sam Wilson story. Sure, he’s investigating and helping to settle the newest crisis. But the story doesn’t emotionally affect him or take him to new place the same way the older films had direct impact on the mental and emotional situation of Steve Rogers. Sam’s arc was more or less complete during the show four years ago. A few more rewrites, and this film could have easily swapped him with someone like Rhodey’s War Machine with the same outcome. To reiterate, Sam does not have an arc here. Even the big hook to bring him into this story – the hypnotic-induced violent act and subsequent imprisonment of Isaiah Bradley – is just that, a hook. It doesn’t have any long term effects, and the fact that gets a nice pardon and quick release at the end only serves to underscore that.
This was a really a Ross film. Clearly, when Hurt died and they recast the role with Ford they decided to give him more to do, most likely throwing out a lot of Spellman’s and Edwards’s work in the process. It’s his story through and through, from his desire to put the messes from his past behind him to his eventual paying the price for them by becoming Red Hulk, getting better and finally getting in touch with Betty. So we’re essentially resolving loose ends from the 2008 Incredible Hulk, which I imagine was in the works for a while and put on hold due to Marvel’s issues with Universal Studios.
And if there is a character whose placement is ideal for resolving loose MCU ends, it certainly can and should be Captain America. His position as settling real-world crisis is perfect for it. And Civil War was a masterclass on that front when it introduced us to the Black Panther and the world of Wakanda.
There are definitely flaws, but the biggest one for me was Sidewinder. Because he was a last-minute rewrite added in reshoots, we got very little of him. But what we got was thrilling, leaving me wanting to see more of him. I hope they bring him back for future films. Esposito is too precious a resource. 10 minutes of screentime is not nearly enough. Same with Bucky’s cameo (though thankfully they made up for that in Thunderbolts).
And the second half with the battle in the Indian Ocean felt lacking, because now we know it was a red herring plot before we got the real climax with Red Hulk. They do try to inject some stakes by making Falcon a near-casualty, and I do appreciate the writers using Japan as an antagonist in the Adamantium arms race for a change – finally a break from China and Russia.
You are far kinder to this film than I would have been.
I think in the early stages of Marvel’s MCU the continuity was a strength, but over time it meant that the MCU’s world diverged further and further from ours as world-shaking events added up (alien invasion! S.H.I.E.L.D. falling! AI run amok! The Blip! Celestial sillbirth!) and they have the choice of either not really following through with the implications and just letting these fall to the wayside or else slowly let the MCU become too different from our world.
The only event that has really received the amount of attention it should is The Blip. Everything else gets a reference or passing mention now or then and that’s all.
The comics have the advantage of rebooting somewhat whenever the creative teams change or there is a “crisis” of continuity. Maybe a looser connection between movies would work better in the long run?
In the case of Brave New World, I also don’t like how many ties Captain America and the Falcon have to the US military. To me that means they would have to be firmly in the chain of command and can’t just zoom off to do the right thing regardless of orders (and I never understand why Sam could keep the wings after leaving his paratroop unit in the first place). And if they were going to be in the military, at least the theme of whether to obey orders versus do the right thing should have been much stronger IMO.
It just wasn’t about Sam Wilson – it was about Ross, who’s presented as trying to make up for having been a terrible person in the past, and sad that he’s estranged from his daughter.
My problem is that he’s still being a terrible (and kind of racist) person now – to Sam, to Isaiah Bradley, to Sterns; I just don’t feel sorry for him, and that made the film fall flat for me.
I thought this was a pretty good movie, all things considered. Yes, it does try to go to the same political thriller well as “Winter Soldier,” but it really doesn’t have a lot to say about the times we live in, and suffers by comparison. And yes, the seams do show in terms of the reshoots.
All that said, Anthony Mackie has a fun charisma and works well with Harrison Ford. The action sequences are fun and exciting. The movie flew by almost too quickly for its own good, but better that than dragging needlessly on as a lot of films in this genre do.
I can’t really agree that this movie did not deserve its lukewarm reception. It seems about right to me. The movie isn’t terrible. By the standards of recent MCU outings, it’s better than many. But it made no real impression on me and I doubt I will ever think about it unprompted.
With a little more work, this could have been a decent Hulk movie, or it could have been a decent Captain America movie. But it can’t decide which it is, so it ends up being neither.
I do agree that Giancarlo Esposito’s performance here leans into what he did in The Mandalorian. But, for me, that’s not a good thing. I think that was the worst performance I’ve ever seen from him and I don’t want to see more of it, thanks. Moreover, as you say, the business with Sidewinder doesn’t add anything other than running time and an action set piece that is… adequate, but not remarkable.
Also, Ross’ semi-redemption, which is the closest thing this movie has to an emotional core, is unearned. OK, he wants his daughter to accept him as a human being. That’s a good start and there are some hints about how he is trying to change, but it wasn’t enough for me.
“The audiences, for the most part, are much less interested in a standard, run-of-the-mill, everyday superhero story. “
I am curious what you think the audience is more interested in. I have seen nearly all of the MCU movies and TV shows. I am baffled by the ones that are hated. I like some more than others, naturally, but I can’t seem to understand why some are championed and others dismissed. Would love to hear your take on it.