Captain America: Brave New World Review

 

Captain America: Brave New World is a comic book movie based on the Marvel Comics' character Sam Wilson. The movie serves as the third sequel to the Captain America film series, a continuation of the miniseries The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and the 35th movie in the MCU. Marvel Studios worked on production, while Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures as per usual distributed. The movie is written by Rob Edwards, Malcolm Spellman, Dalan Musson, Julius Onah, and Peter Glanz with Julius Onah also directing.

The story is, President-elect Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross was almost assassinated by one of Sam Wilson's friends. Thinking there's something at play, Sam suits up as Captain America and goes on his own to find out what's going on. Little does he know, this conspiracy is bigger than he thought.

Initial Reaction

Now the movie was on my Most Anticipated list, the trailers looked good. Sure I'll always be a Steve Rodgers fan and I do this day don't agree with Sam being the new Cap, but hey who knows? Maybe we'll get a good movie?

Cons

My biggest problem with Brave New World is the villains. One villain, who I won't spoil, is the mastermind behind everything but, other than revenge he's just not interesting. Then there's Sidewinder played by Giancarlo Esposito. Now Giancarlo is a tremendous actor, a true talent, but I'm sorry, anybody could've played this character. Yes, that's how generic that villain was. Anybody could've played him and everything about that character would've been the same.

Middle Ground

Let's start with the action. Now there's this great fight scene with Sam and his sidekick flying around and battling jets, that was awesome. It was handled nicely. As for hand-to-hand...that's where we have problems. Some fights were okay, but there were few that just weren't good. Those ones made the actors looked sluggish. Then we have Shira Haas' action scenes (she plays someone named Ruth). Now I hate to come off as a total dick, especially since I'm by no means a seven foot tall giant but I'm sorry, when I saw this in theaters nobody took her fight scenes seriously. She's just too small. Whenever she was fighting in honesty looked like a kid beating up adults. Yeah, that's how tiny she is. Then there's the story. We get two character story arcs. Now Sam's could've have worked but it was done before. It's basically him thinking about if he's good enough to be the new Captain America. But like I wrote previously he went through this in the Falcon & Winter Soldier miniseries. But if you didn't see that, then they just make the problem forced. Almost all of the lines are some variant of Sam saying "Am I good enough to be Captain America?". The one who did get a good arc is Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross. He grows threw some actual growth and truly wants to change as a person. But the sins of the past are challenging him. So I was way more engaged with his arc than Sam's. But the biggest issue with the story is it might as well have been a sequel to 2008's criminally underrated The Incredible Hulk. I mean it, Sam is dealing with Hulk's villain, there's plot points from Incredible Hulk brought here, and Sam is butting heads with Ross when it should be Bruce Banner/Hulk doing that. Then there's the nothing burger that was the post-credit scene. Basically if you know a plot element or the general story to previous MCU movies like Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange 2, and Deadpool & Wolverine, then you pretty much know what the scene is referring to and can just skip it.

Pros

One of two things I liked was the tone. Sure there was some comedic moments, but the movie thankfully plays it straight. Then there's the pacing. The movie is a breeze to get through and doesn't waste any time.

While I don't hate Captain America: Brave New World I don't think it's worth rushing to theaters to see. So if you are planning to see this, just take your time, or wait for it to come to streaming. Whatever you prefer.

My final rating is, Okay.

That's all for now. Due come back on Monday, Feb 17th, for my review of the newest Scott Derrickson/Apple TV+ movie, The Gorge. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.