Captain America: Brave New World
The 35th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is as insipid and tiresome as any 35th instalment in a franchise would be
Fourteen years after Captain America’s first introduction to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) through the Steve Rogers led feature Captain America: The First Avenger (which is one of the strongest features in the 35-film franchise), audiences are once again thrown into the world of the shield bearing superhero. This time, it’s Anthony Mackie at the helm as Sam Wilson, in his first big screen outing as the Avenger since adopting the shield and moniker at the end of Avengers: Endgame. Since Endgame, Wilson’s Cap got his first taste as the hero in his limited series, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which few watched and fewer actually remember.
Three years after that series, Sam Wilson is back to lead Captain America: Brave New World, which sees the studio taking its characters back to its more grounded roots after a long stretch of world ending events and intergalactic travel (you won’t be finding any multiverse madness here). Picking up in the midst of action, audiences find Wilson recovering stolen Adamantium (as quickly introduced to the MCU for the first time as it is forgotten) and returning it to Japan on behalf of the new President of the United States, Harrison Ford’s Thaddeus Ross.
After returning the Adamantium and recapping Ross’ previous involvement in the MCU by way of referencing the Sokovia Accords from Captain America: Civil War (and making one too many jokes about Ross’ “new look” as some sort of meta way to remind the audience that this character has been recast in the shadow of William Hurt’s untimely passing) Wilson is invited to a summit at the White House, where an assassination attempt is made on Ross by Wilson’s friend and plus one Isaiah Bradley. Quickly cluing on to Bradley’s involvement, or lack thereof, in the assassination attempt, Wilson is thrust into an investigation of corruption and intrigue.
With five hands in the writing pot, and a production riddled with reshoots and delays off the back of the SAG-AFTRA strikes, it’s little surprise that Brave New World is a bit of a mess. Clocking in at 118 minutes, the film is the shortest in the Captain America franchise, often feeling as such. From the opening scene, it feels as though the audience is being thrust into the middle of a film (or the fourth episode of a series) with little context to things like Wilson’s new vibranium wingsuit, which was apparently gifted to him from Wakanda at some point. From here, much of the film feels as if its counterparts have been left on the cutting room floor. Character interactions and arcs feel underbaked, action feels unanticipated and the films central focus on political intrigue and mystery never gets enough time to simmer into any true tension.
Despite the film having a pretty solid visual flair to it (although I hesitate to mark that as a positive when that should be stock standard when making a film that costs just shy of $200 million) a lot of the action is incredibly choppy and hard to follow. With some seemingly good fight choreography in there, it’s frustrating how common it is becoming for these films about superheroes to lack any real weight or impact to their punches. Further to this, the climactic action set piece to the film has some of the most abhorrent and actively bad looking sequences in a big budget blockbuster since… the last MCU film? Giving benefit of the doubt as the film was seemingly impacted by the strikes, which could have had an effect on the CGI work, it doesn’t discredit just how shocking this sequence looks next to the rest of the film, which looks pretty good comparatively.
The film's strongest aspect is definitely the performances, which are still quite superficial (what can you expect after 35 films in one franchise). Danny Ramirez is rather charismatic as Joaquin Torres, Wilson’s sidekick and next-in-line for the Falcon moniker. Anthony Mackie also does a relatively good role at leading this vehicle, with a solid performance for his first outing behind the Captain America shield on the big screen. It is Harrison Ford as Thaddeus Ross who is the standout of the film, however, showing that he still has the charisma and gravitas of the New Hollywood era that has seemingly slipped away from many of the current day stars.
Unfortunately though, none of these performances are strong enough to carry this movie out of the hole it finds itself in. There has been a slow, growing disinterest in the MCU from audiences since the end of the Infinity Saga with Endgame (again, 35 films guys…), and while Brave New World isn’t as insufferable as Deadpool & Wolverine or abrasive and anger inducing as Ant-Man Quantumania, it is unfortunately incredibly dull and vapid of the joy that was felt in the golden age of the MCU. Acting as yet another breadcrumb in this interminable series of films (and feeling little more than an expanded episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) Captain America: Brave New World does little to resurrect its dwindling universe with its smaller, contained story and instead just loses itself immediately to the sea of films and series in this consumer driven franchise.
Captain America: Brave New World is in Australian cinemas on the 13th of February.