CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD REVIEW

“What should have been used to set up a new era for the MCU, feels instead like things are moving backwards.”

Not many people are aware that when I was kid, the Falcon was one of my favorite Marvel heroes, probably right after Spider-Man and the X-Men, oh, and the Fantastic Four. I thought the fact he could fly, and he had a pet bird was pretty cool, and I even dressed up one of my 12” G.I. Joe dolls as the Falcon — I often wish I had pictures of that. Anthony Mackie is a fantastic, dedicated actor, so it’s great to see him finally moving into the limelight to lead one of these movies as his Sam Wilson takes over the title role.

Directed by Julius Onah (Luce), Brave New World doesn’t so much feel like a sequel to any of the previous “Captain America” movies. Instead, it continues the story of Mackie’s Sam Wilson from “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” bringing along Danny Ramirez’s Joaquin Torres, as well as Carl Lumbly as “the forgotten Camptain America” Isaiah Bradley. Both of them play a large part in a story that revolves largely around past mistakes made by General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, last seen in Black Widow as the Secretary of State, but now the President of the United States. (Ross is also now played by Harrison Ford sans the trademark mustache.) Amidst a crisis involving a stolen wonder ore called “Adamantium,” that was taken from the “Celestial Island” from Eternals, the U.S. is now fighting with other countries to secure that precious metal.

It’s a fairly simple plot that excels whenever we see Wilson and Torres in action, but those action moments feel fleeting compared to all the developments necessary to set up the larger overall plot. Going into Brave New World, I had no idea what a large part Tim Blake Nelson’s Samuel Stearns – last seen in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk - would play in this movie. Fans of the comics will realize that he is better known as Hulk villain, the Leader, but he is used in such a different way, and he feels like a relatively weak villain compared to others, essentially just mind-controlling people around Ross to turn them into killers. I like Nelson a lot but his performance isn’t great here.

I’m also glad that the Serpent Society finally made their way into the MCU, even though these are pretty standard mercenaries with Giancarlo Esposito as Sidewinder and the large Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson as Copperhead. Shira Haas plays Ruth Bat-Seraph, the President’s head of security, who some comics enthusiasts might know as the Israeli heroine, Sabra. Here, she’s essentially turned into a mini version of Black Widow with many of the same moves and role as that hero’s introduction in Iron Man 2.

Harrison Ford already has experience playing the President, most notably in Air Force One, but his performance here is so erratic, growling at everyone in his gruff voice and generally chewing up the scenery. Those going to see the movie just for him might be underwhelmed.

It’s a strange idea for so much of the movie to use elements from The Incredible Hulk and Eternals, two of Marvel’s weaker films, as their jumping-off points, rather than creating something more in tune with the comics. As you probably know from all the marketing, Sam does face off again Ross’s Red Hulk, and it’s definitely the film’s biggest and more climactic moments, but it mostly wraps things up quickly, and then the movie ends.

The thing that bugs me maybe more than some other Marvel movies is that there are so many great stories for the comics mostly being ignored. For this, they basically borrow from recent storylines involving Sam becoming Cap and Ross becoming Red Hulk, then surround those two comic events with generally flat and bland storytelling. Other than a little bit of buddy bonding earlier in the film, the whole thing just feels so grim and bleak compared to the lighter direction the MCU movies have been going in, maybe since it’s trying to create something more relevant to our current times. Brave New World didn’t need to have jokes on the level of Deadpool and Wolverine, but some fun laughable moments would have gone a long way to making it a more fun and entertaining viewing experience.

Much of Brave New World feels like it was rewritten to throw as many ideas at the viewer as possible, but its many attempts to create a strong political thriller akin to The Winter Soldier just doesn’t quite deliver. That’s not to say that Onah is a bad filmmaker, just that he seems to have fallen into the Marvel trap of other decent filmmakers, forced to make do with what he has available to work with and very little more. There just doesn’t seem to be any filmmaking personality ala the likes of James Gunn or Ryan Coogler.

Brave New World has some good moments for sure, but the movie should have been used to set up a new era for the MCU. Instead — other than a bit of Avengers lip service — it feels more like things are moving backwards.

Rating: 6/10

Captain America: Brave New World opens on Friday, February 14, but really, we all know that it will probably have screenings on Thursday afternoon. (Note that there is an end credits scene at the very tail end of the credits.)