CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD
CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD
Directed by Julius Onah
From 2008 to about 2020, I was all in on the MCU. Super producer Kevin Feige had successfully recreated the fun and excitement of picking up a new comic book. While I didn't love every movie released, it was always an EVENT. And you always had the next issue (movie) to look forward to. All of that culminated in the epic record breaking finale (of sorts) in 2019's AVENGERS: ENDGAME. That film was the conclusion fans wanted and deserved and the MCU has been in a free falling creative rut ever since.
Countless Disney+ shows and dud after dud of a movie puts more pressure on the next release to do a course correction and "save" the MCU. Last summers abysmal Deadpool was supposed to do that for me, and despite the billion plus dollars it made that film was the worst of 2024. So here just in time for Black History Month, we finally get to see Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) take on the character passed on to him by Steve Rogers (Chris Evans).
BRAVE NEW WORLD throws our hero into an even more watered down version of a "political conspiracy thriller" than 2014's "Winter Soldier". Most bizarre it functioning just as much as a sequel to 2008's forgotten and reviled "The Incredible Hulk". Harrison Ford joins the team as President Ross, a former fascist general who seemingly has turned over a new leaf in the name of unity. We'll see how that turns out!
For a film all about politics, it turns itself inside out into a pretzel to avoid any actual, you know politics. Sometimes it anti-fascist and sometimes it's "well there's good people on all sides". The muddled messaging along with the even more muddled plot (details in which I will spare you) gives the entire picture a stench of cut and paste reshoots. Character motivations are absent, let alone development or anything deeper. There could have been something to be said about a black man taking on the role of Captain America and what that means to him. But the picture is completely neutered and in the end doesn't have much to say. Speaking of, the less said about Shira Haas' Israeli black widow the better.
Despite the many flaws, the picture vibes along fine enough thanks to Anthony Mackie who absolutely deserves this in his career. The action scenes are fine to boring, with some truly awful special effects throughout. It was an OK time until the absolutely garbage finale that reeked of last minute reshoots and rewrites. In fact the whole picture has an air of just barely being put together at the last minute despite a reported budget of $180 million!
If you've seen any of the marketing you know there much hubbub about Harrison Ford (who is fine but can't save a garbage script) turning into a red hulk, and despite that spoiler I was excited for the Why and How of it all. The movie can't even get that right and it's one of the lamest part of an already pretty lame movie.
Despite all that I still look forward to seeing Anthony Mackie portray the character again, in a better movie. He and we deserve it.
⭐⭐ Out of 4
