‘Captain America: Brave New World' Review: Sam Wilson Gets Shafted in the MCU's Hulk-sized Desperate Attempt for Relevancy
The Marvel Cinematic Universe these days feels like watching an old friend you used to admire become washed up in real time. They can't recapture their glory days when everyone tried to be like them — an era which devalued the definition of blockbuster cinema in the long run — and due to big missteps and frankly bad movies, viewers have lost faith in them. Box office be damned. We will have to deal with this for the rest of our lives, or until Kevin Feige quits. I experienced an existential crisis during Quantumania, which by and large is the worst one — was the worst one, until Captain America: Brave New World. We were promised a triumphant Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) headlined Captain America feature, but whoops! What we got is an exponentially flatter reskin of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, if it were a sequel to The Incredible Hulk, stuffed with all the classic 2008 militaristic propaganda… but without Bruce Banner.
Image copyright (©) Courtesy of Marvel Studios
MPA Rating: PG13 (intense sequences of violence and action, and some strong language.)
Runtime: 1 Hour and 58 Minutes
Production Companies: Marvel Studios
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Director: Julius Onah
Writers: Rob Edwards, Malcolm Spellman, Dalan Musson, Julius Onah, Peter Glanz
Cast: Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Carl Lumbly, Xosha Roquemore, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Giancarlo Esposito, Liv Tyler, Tim Blake Nelson, Harrison Ford
Release Date: February 14, 2024
Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford, taking over from the late William Hurt), the newly elected U.S. President, attempts to convince newly appointed Captain America Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) to work with him and revive the Avengers. To this end, Wilson is invited to a White House event with his pals Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez), the new Falcon, and Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), a former super soldier who was experimented on for 30 years. Ross' inner circle is compromised when five members of his team and Bradley attempt to assassinate Ross. Following a chase, Bradley is incarcerated but has no recollection of his actions. As Ross handles his international obligation to pry a new material named Adamantium from the Emergence — remember, from Eternals? — in the Indian Ocean, it's up to Sam to investigate the plot against the president.
Brave New World Does Not Care About Sam Wilson
Sam Wilson has enough charisma and personality to carry a Captain America movie. When the camera is set on Wilson navigating life on his own or sharing amusing moments with the youthful Danny Ramirez as The Falcon, the film is at its best. There's room for discussion about the potential significance of a Black and Mexican man taking up the mantles of beloved Avengers, but Brave New World truly doesn't have a clear vision for its lead. The same thing happened when the writers on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier put Sam in a corner until it was time for him to resolve a gray area situation with an immaterial speech to senators to "be better." That's the same Sam that winds up here. Not the one who went up against the government alongside Steve Rogers or stood up for himself against the system that still wants to treat Captain America like the dancing USO monkey he was in The First Avenger. Wilson faces much flack throughout from his adversaries, the booming Ross and his bland former Mossa-er-I-mean-Black Widow (but still Israeli) second-in-command Ruth Bat-Seraph (Shira Haas). Frustratingly enough, he takes it in stride, willing to do his Captain duties and hardly pushing back against the powers that be.
Screenwriters Rob Edwards, Malcolm Spellman, Dalan Musson, Julius Onah, Peter Glanz — LOL, five dudes — sideline the titular character to the point where he's a nonparticipant in his own story. Brave New World is desperate to avoid the critical racial or American themes that were central to every Captain America and to Black-led entries like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Black Panther in the interest of appealing to centrist and conservative viewers and longtime Marvel acolytes. Everyone but the Black demographic that actually wants to see a Black Captain America movie. All matters pertaining to race, including the controversial Ruth, are swept under the rug in an act of utter cowardice, with no regard for Sam or Captain America's significance in an "I do not see color" manner. This is infuriating, especially given the fact that the film uses Kendrick Lamar's deeply political song 'I', from his very Black-on-Main album To Pimp A Butterfly, in the end credits for Brownie Points. Remember: Black.
Oops, All Incredible Hulk Sequels
Hey, do you give a shit about any of the characters of The Incredible Hulk? Not Bruce Banner. I'm talking about Thaddeus Ross, Betty Ross (Liv Tyler), and Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson). No? Well, too bad. That’s what you're hoodwinked into watching, but with Captain America at the epicenter. From the beginning, Brave New World (the 35th entry into the MCU) has to beg you to care about events from their 2nd movie which the studio itself did not even acknowledge until Civil War (the 13th entry), nearly a decade later. Harrison Ford is forced to refer to events from movies he didn't even star in every single moment he is on screen. When he's not doing that, he's testing the viewer's attention span, reciting what's happening in the plot with the same energy as "We're going back in time to the first Thanksgiving to get turkeys off the menu" or wondering aloud when Liv Tyler is going to show up so that when she inevitably does, one loser in the audience can cheer.
Given that the plot hinges so much on the events of The Incredible Hulk and the Diet-Winter Soldier espionage plot Sam is thrust into, it is crazy that Brave New World tries to shroud its antagonist in mystery when it's like, "Bitch we know because of the one movie you’re forcing us to remember with every line of dialogue whenever Harrison Ford is onscreen!" The movie is actively so desperate to cling onto the relevancy of its own failing legacy that it reaches far beyond what remains in the Marvel toy box. It is so disconnected from what audiences want, it thinks that resolving the loose ends of a 2008 movie in 2025 warrants a full theatrical feature. It feels like a set-up and a disservice to Mackie and even Ramirez because if the film doesn't do well, at least in Trump's America, the blame falls on the Black lead and not the executive powers that crammed a Hulk movie into a Captain America.
Re: Shoot, this stinks, man.
It is no secret that Brave New World was one of the messiest production affairs in MCU history due to the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes and extensive reshoots to shoehorn Giancarlo Esposito into the story. The sloppiest entry out of all the movies is the result. There have been reshoots before, but this one is like SONY-Marvel level quality of atrocious. The final cut makes it all the more glaring that director Julius Onah's — good filmmaker, watch Luce — direction lacks basic continuity in the action sequences, and the editing is so sloppy you can tell where reshoots began and ended. Feels like I'm repeating myself from my Love Hurts review when I say, "This plays like an assembly cut." Brave New World looks and is structured like a straight-to-Disney+ feature with shoddy, telegraphed cinematography and filmmaking. I got secondhand embarrassment while sitting in my IMAX theater.
Brave New World Takes us Back to Bush-Era Militaristic Propaganda
Whereas there's no room for commentary about a heroic Black man's relationship to the U.S government, there is a constant pro-militaristic propaganda imagery. Sam works with military officials throughout, even befriending a generic commander and plot device, Dennis Dunphy (William Mark McCullough). Wilson's background in the forces is the only aspect the writers chose to highlight, and only ever depict them in a positive light, harking back to the Post-9/11 era that had the screenplays of Iron Man and Iron Man 2 in an iron grip. But this time the subliminal messaging is, "Salute our troops. Work with corrupt leaders, even if that same government tortured your friend, put him in prison, and is about to give him a death sentence. Don't let those red flags get you down; become a plant for the red, white, and blue. Even if the war criminal leader is a Red Hulk, he is still a redeemable man. Fuck you for thinking otherwise!"
Final Thoughts
Fueled by nostalgia and American nationalism, Captain America: Brave New World is an alienating disgrace that actively disrespects its lead for a directionless, if not the poorest, attempt for the MCU to cling onto its own relevancy.
