‘Captain America: Brave New World’ finally moves the MCU forward again, even if the end result is a bit muddled

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Politics sure is messy these days.

Synopsis

In Captain America: Brave New World, Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) still struggles to believe that he has what it takes to be the new Captain America. When President of the United States General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford) survives an assassination attempt from veteran supersoldier Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), tension is ignited in the country.

Believing Isaiah was framed and under some sort of mind control, Captain America and his partner Joaquin Torres/Falcon (Danny Ramirez) begin an investigation to prove his innocence. What they uncover is a vast political conspiracy going back years and years, causing them to question who they can trust and who’s really in charge.

My thoughts

It’s not really news to any movie or comic book fans out there, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been on some rocky terrain ever since Avengers: Endgame. Now, I wasn’t a massive fan of the franchise, really only enjoying a handful of the movies, but there was definitely a consistency during that era. You always knew what you were going to get and that the creators at least had this all planned and down to a science.

Enter Captain America: Brave New World, the fourth Captain America film, a follow-up to the TV show The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and the 35th film in the MCU. If that sounds like a lot, well, it is, and that’s not all! There’s a lot going on in this new installment, and with a complicated production history of multiple release date delays and reshoots, there were many pieces for the crew to cobble together.

A web of politics

Brave New World isn’t just a new Captain America movie, but also a follow-up to 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, finally exploring the ramifications of that movie and resolving long overdue plot points. It’s not just plot points from that movie, either. Fans of Eternals (if there are any) will also be pleased to have some of their questions addressed. It’s the first MCU project in a while that actually feels like it moves the franchise forward, even if it does complicate matters.

Following in the footsteps of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, aka the best MCU movie, Brave New World decides to go a different direction than the other Marvel films. This one also plays somewhat like a political thriller, with terrorists, corrupt politicians, and conspiracies. They’re still superhero films with action, explosions, comic relief, and CGI, but in far fewer quantities than normal, deciding to focus more on the plot and characters.

Brave New World is nowhere near as good as The Winter Soldier, which had a more defined artistic vision and narrative, but director Julius Onah had the right intention here. Captain America is an inherently political character, so it only makes sense for his storylines to revolve around that. This also allows for a superhero film not just to be world-ending alien invasions or blue lasers shooting up into the sky. It’s undoubtedly one of the more realistic Marvel films, not just because it has an octogenarian President.

Like Steve Rogers had to do in The Winter Soldier, Sam Wilson also has to learn where his allegiances really lie. Aside from his sidekick, there’s literally nobody he can trust, not even his own Commander in Chief. He sometimes even has to do to some people what they would consider a betrayal of his morals and ethics because “It’s what Captain America would do.” This often puts him at odds with others, but again, like Steve Rogers, he trusts his instincts and does what’s right.

How Captain America navigates this tangled web of political conspiracies and how it influences his worldview is the most compelling part of it all. You can feel his paranoia during almost every conversation, where he’s constantly on edge and looking at people with shifty eyes, even if they’re most likely telling the truth. Laura Karpman’s appropriately moody score greatly heightens that sense of political intrigue.

Taking up the mantle... again

Anthony Mackie does a great job with all of this, confidently stepping into the role of Captain America. I guess he already did that on the TV show, but it’s now official with him headlining his own blockbuster solo outing. Mackie doesn’t really have the same style of charisma or charm as Chris Evans has, but he still embodies the spirit of Captain America. He maintains honor, duty, and determination, but he’s less of an optimistic boy scout, instead with a bit more grit and cynicism.

A big question Captain America fans have had is how Sam Wilson can be Captain American when he’s not a super soldier and just some regular dude. Well, the answer is just to give his suit some Iron Man and Black Panther-like tech. It was actually pretty neat to see them put some thought into how Captain America, as a normal person, would operate, also adding some stakes as he gets beat up more and can’t just mow people down.

It is time to put a fork in the emotional dilemma Sam faces on whether “he deserves to carry the shield,” though. We spent six episodes of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier watching Sam grapple with this and seemingly find some resolution, so to have these themes being repeated here makes that show seem even more like a waste of time than it already was. Mackie is effective in these scenes when he has to go to these emotional depths, but it’s time to really expand more on his character.

Many people, including myself, figured Harrison Ford starring in this would be a case of him just taking an easy paycheck so he can grumble through his lines. He’s surprisingly really good here, putting legitimate effort into the performance as a president trying to atone for his past but instead being punished by it. It’s funny that a Marvel movie is one of those projects to make Ford actually care about acting, but I’ll take whatever grumpiness we can get while the man is still around.

Giancarlo Esposito is in this playing Sidewinder, and he’s no different than the usual villain he’s typecast as. Esposito wasn’t even originally in this movie, actually being added in during one of the reshoots. I guess they felt they needed an extra bad guy for Captain America to punch or something because he hardly does anything, feeling exactly like the afterthought was. However, they did get a laugh out of me by having one of the characters exclaim, “Sidewinder?! He’s not even supposed to be here!”

Esposito’s characters are one example of the filmmakers trying to do way too much and just muddling the narrative. We already have the requisite number of characters and their respective archetypes to more than fill out this script, so why do we need one more generic archetype to add to that? Had this project had more focus in the first place, where it didn’t require reshoots, this all could have been avoided entirely and made for a more satisfying story overall.

Final verdict

Captain America: Brave New World predictably regresses into your conventional superhero shenanigans during the final act. However, it’s still far more subdued than other climactic action scenes in comic book movies. Except for when Giancarlo Esposito shows up to shoot a machine gun, all the action here has some meaning and is used to serve the characters or story.

It’s certainly a bit of a mess, which wasn’t surprising to me while watching, considering the issues behind the scenes. It was a surprise that it remained a fairly coherent and engaging politically themed action film despite all the post-production patchwork. It’s not incredible, and it’s not terrible, but instead, it’s perfectly adequate blockbuster entertainment.

In other words, it’s an MCU movie.