Captain America: Middling New World
Providing Sam Wilson's (Anthony Mackie) first big-screen appearance of Captain America, transforming President Thunderbolt Ross (Harrison Ford) into Red Hulk, and laying the some connective tissue between past and future films such as finally pulling on the Celestial thread left over from The Eternals, Captain America: Brave New World proves to be another middling entry to the MCU post Avengers: Endgame as I'm not sure making a good film, rather than a serviceable one, ever made it past the planning stage.
Not trusting the audience to make connections from 2008's The Incredible Hulk, the film consistently talks down to the audience making the connections for them in the most explicit and awkward ways possible through dialogue to overexplain Ross, his connection with Betty (Liv Tyler), the Hulk, and the larger MCU. You can see the panic in the script which likely started with the death of William Hurt and having to recast the central character to this film, arguably more so than Captain America, with a new actor. The script bends over backwards to overexplain, reintroduce, reestablish the character, and then do it all again. And again.
It doesn't help that the film's plot feels like a mishmash of a Disney+ TV-movie with a higher budget, pulling on threads of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, with most of the money earmarked for the final act to allow for introduction of Red Hulk. Like Thor: Ragnarok, Captain America: Brave New World is largely a Hulk movie in all but name including introducing Tim Blake Nelson as The Leader who manipulates events for his own ends to get revenge against Ross. Sadly, the character we get on-screen more resembles Peter Sarsgaard's Hector Hammond from 2011's Green Lantern than the classic Hulk villain.
The best thing, by far, about the film is Anthony Mackie showcasing how well he has transitioned into the role of Captain America. We get a couple of costumes for him, some new wings and tech, a new partner (Danny Ramirez), and a budget Black Widow stand-in (Shira Haas), but it's the character of Sam Wilson that really shines through. We also see the doubts and fears of not being able to live-up to Steve Rogers' legacy still creep in from time to time. Mackie is a big enough star, and Wilson is a strong enough character, to build a film around. Sadly, he got saddled with this one.
Captain America: Brave New World isn't a horrible film, but its not exactly a good one either. It serves it's purpose in continuing the MCU building out its timeline and providing some screentime for a couple of characters likely to play large roles in what's to come, but that's about it. Another not-quite-substantial piece to the already shaky foundation of the latest phase of the MCU, it's easily the weakest of both the Captain America films and the Hulk films.
Watch the trailer- Title: Captain America: Brave New World
- IMDb: link
