What’s it about?
Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) has settled into his role as the new Captain America, but an attempt on the life of President Ross (Harrison Ford) pulls him into a murkier world of intrigue and politics.
What’d we think?
The MCU has had its ups and downs before, some movies being better than others, and some being more significant than others. Captain America: Brave New World doesn’t do anything terribly brave or new, managing to land in the general area of “Okay, I Guess” when it really needed to serve as a solid foundation for the franchise moving forward.
The story initially leans more towards the relatively grounded tone of 2014’s The Winter Soldier, with a potentially interesting Manchurian Candidate sleeper agent plot that’s quickly discarded in favour of poorly explained mind control and clunky “I’ve been manipulating you the whole time” villain schtick. Characters do things and go to places because the script requires them to do those things and arrive at those places, and the whole thing is held together with ADR that’s as frequent as it is obvious.
I’m the first to admit that being too familiar with the production of a film can impact one’s enjoyment, but I found it genuinely difficult to watch this movie without playing “was this scene done in reshoots”. Director Julius Onah has done some great work in the past (Luce) and some paycheck work (The Cloverfield Paradox), but this seems to be another example of a studio having the major story beats and action scenes planned out well in advance, hiring a director to handle the scenes of humans talking in rooms later on in the production and affording them little to no control or creative freedom. The movie’s action scenes are mostly dull, there’s a jarring absence of internal logic or narrative momentum, and for the most part it kinda just washes over you until it ends.
Thankfully the cast elevates the movie – Anthony Mackie is solid in the lead role, Harrison Ford actually seems to give a shit, and the supporting cast is quite strong (with special mention going to Carl Lumbly as Isaiah Bradley, absolutely crushing every scene he’s in). Tim Blake Nelson is wasted in a role that needed to be more significant, and Shira Haas similarly appears to have had the majority of her scenes cut from the movie.
I’m sad to say that I was disappointed with the movie. Brave New World isn’t bad as much as it’s not good. You’re watching pieces of different versions of the movie that have hastily been stapled together, but it’s not even done terribly enough to make it fascinating (ala Madame Web). Sam Wilson deserved better, and so do we.
