Captain America: Brave New World Review

The Manchurian Idiot

Captain America: Brave New World could have been an email. It is one of the most baffling Marvel films in recent years, as I am just so confused about who this is for. It's not an offensive film, but it's not good either. It is an absolutely nothing burger that treats me and the audience like we are on our phones the whole time with little to no respect for our intelligence. There are some bizarre choices here that I would like to dive into, but before I do, it needs to be stated that Anthony Mackie deserved so much better for a character that is endearing and interesting but is not well served by this project.

Since Avengers: Endgame, we have seen the Marvel product and brand take some bad hits and regress exceptionally in some areas, and it's become a popular pastime to dunk on it. I have been a fan of several Marvel films and TV shows post-Endgame, including Guardians 3, Across the Spiderverse, and Loki, but the overall quality hasn't been excellent, to say the least. Captain America: Brave New World is like a chef on Chopped being given the worst assortment of ingredients, but then that chef gets switched out every 2 minutes, and then at the end, they're like, here's your protein, Captain America. This film went through development hell with almost half a dozen different writers, reshoots, and cast additions, and it's a miracle the film got even put out into theaters. I will do my best to empathize with this troubled production, but it's also hard for me when you have the great Mickey Mouse backing you.

Captain America: Brave New World follows Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) taking on the mantle as the new Captain America serving the newly elected President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford). After accomplishing a covert mission for the President to retrieve this precious metal, Sam is honored by the President and brings his former Super Soldier mentor, Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumby), to the event. At this peace talk event, Bradley goes rogue and tries to assassinate the President, and it's up to Sam and company to clear his mentor's name and uncover who is behind this plot against the President.

I usually don't focus too much on the plot in my reviews and more on the technical, direction, and performances, but this script is awful. I hate bad writing, and I hate it even more when a writer treats me like a child. The film is influenced by movies like 3 Days of the Condor and The Manchurian Candidate, but there is no mystery! It is clear right after Bradley tries to assassinate the President that he is not himself, and no one at any time until an hour later in the film realizes it must have been mind control. The Marvel Universe is very well-versed in brainwashing and mind control. Sam, your best friend, Bucky, was brainwashed and was a sleeper agent. How do we not put this together immediately? I wish they did a better job of making the mystery a tad more interesting instead of making the whole middle of the film a forgettable empty shell that we already know where it's heading. The entire movie is so weird. It's just an exposition dump about other Marvel projects like The Eternals and other loose ends that Disney is trying to tie up before getting to Avengers: Secret Wars. Characters have no personality; they are just there to explain the plot to us and what's happening or where we are in the movie. Hey guys, I know where we are. I am watching the film.

There are just wildly bizarre choices with Captain America: Brave New World. You decide to make a sequel to The Incredible Hulk (2008), a film that came out during Obama's first term, and advertise that the big mystery of the film is that President Ross is the Red Hulk in all your marketing. The film makes you want to believe this is a huge secret and significant reveal, but Disney had no faith in this project, which they decided to tell us from the jump. Making Red Hulk the main threat to Captain America is also insane. I don't need to dig into my nerd bag and talk about power scaling, but I'm supposed to believe Sam's Captain America, who could barely fight off a group of regular soldiers, could hold his own against RED HULK. I won't spoil the main villain, either. It's not that it matters, but he falls into the lazy writing category. Oh, he's just a super genius, so I'm supposed to buy all these wild coincidences he just orchestrated, and all of them went to plan because he saw the stats? Please get out of my face.

Anthony Mackie is as good as he can be in this. He has that fantastic charisma and presence that I've come to love from his rendition of Captain America. The film does nothing to explore him as a person or even approach the themes of racism and what it means to be a Black Captain America. The film's politics, in general, are so milquetoast. It's essential to support the President no matter what? Looking at American exceptionalism and even forgiveness for significant figures in history, even if they've committed awful war crimes, everyone deserves redemption. I am all for rehabilitation and prison abolitionism, but maybe I'll put an asterisk on presidents. I'm rambling and reading into things that aren't there because the movie isn't trying to say anything.

You can tell this movie was chopped to bits. There are so many scenes in which actors do not appear in the same shot. There are so many lazy, just over-the-shoulder conversations over and over again. Action that's not dynamically shot and feels flat and weightless. Overuse of ugly CGI that could pass as a PS2-era cutscene. It's a nonsensical plot strung together to close loops on earlier failed projects and make way for the next phase of Marvel. It's a filler episode of anime that doesn't involve the extraordinary cast playing a game of baseball together. It's a shame because Harrison Ford is trying his all, and Anthony Mackie worked well together to give this story some gravitas. I wish they would have made it a more street-level or secret society story, but at the end of the day, we just got a lore dump that should be an email.

Final Score: 4/10

Written by Kevin J. Pettit