Warning: This review contains spoilers for “Captain America: Brave New World.”
Everyone loves Captain America: the man of red, white and blue.
Everything about the character is iconic and spectacular. The shield, the suit and the man behind the name: Steve Rogers. When we first heard Sam Wilson was taking the mantle of Captain America, we weren’t thrilled seeing a new man behind the shield.
Regardless, this movie has been teased for four months, so we were interested to see how he would handle this role. While early reviews were not great, we hoped that Marvel would deliver us with a great Captain America film, after long-awaited anticipation.
“Captain America: Brave New World” was released on Feb. 14. It follows Sam Wilson, played by Anthony Mackie, taking up the mantle of Captain America as the controversial Thaddeus Ross, played by Harrison Ford, takes the presidency. The overarching conflict of the movie is that the giant celestial from “Eternals” has provided the world with adamantium, which Ross needs to distribute carefully with the powers of the world. Meanwhile, Wilson investigates the Leader, played by Tim Blake Nelson, the mastermind trying to ruin Ross’s legacy and ensue chaos.
“Brave New World” definitely felt rushed. The movie had so many different interesting subplots filled with potential, but almost none of them were developed properly.
We will admit that the overarching conflict was pretty interesting. The film explored the political effects of adamantium really well. It was fascinating to see how each part of the Leader’s plan clicked into place and how Ross’ reactions played right into the Leader’s schemes. We enjoyed watching Wilson uncover the hidden plot and rush to stop Ross from escalating a global conflict.
However, we cannot say the same about some other storylines. Introducing adamantium should’ve been an amazing move on Marvel’s part, as they’re finally bringing the unbreakable metal coating Wolverine’s claws into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). However, adamantium isn’t explored or explained at all, with the movie simply describing it as an alternative to vibranium. If you had no prior Marvel knowledge at all, you’d be completely in the dark about adamantium, which is odd since the entire movieline revolves around the political access to the coveted material.
Another major plotline that was heavily advertised was Wilson trying to fill Captain America’s shoes. Want to guess how they address this? They don’t. He receives a motivational speech, throws a quippy line and it isn’t mentioned anywhere else. A storyline revolving around Wilson questioning whether or not he should take the Super Soldier Serum in order to live up to the impossibly high bar Rogers set would’ve given him so much more depth and character.
Another one of the main issues we had with the plot was how the Leader, the main antagonist, received the short end of the stick. Marvel set him up to be a phenomenal villain. He had an extremely personal reason to sabotage Ross, and his personality was both menacing and mysterious. Unfortunately, he came nowhere near his potential. He hardly gets any screen time, we barely see his planning process and his reveal and conclusion felt underwhelming at best. He had simply given himself up at the end of the movie, being an anticlimactic end for one of the smarter villains in the MCU. It would’ve been a more interesting end for the Leader to escape, leaving in question of his plans and whereabouts.
The movie’s character development primarily revolves around Ross as he tries to prove to the world that he can negotiate a proper treaty despite his rocky past, being infamous for his military actions. Surprisingly, we really enjoyed how Marvel handled his character arc. You could see the anger, impatience and frustration building in Ford’s performance, especially in relation to the Leader’s mastermind plan. But, having Ross face his mistakes and address them was incredibly satisfying. In addition, the ending he received was nothing short of wholesome, giving the character some much needed depth.
The development of other characters left something to be desired. Wilson, the main character of the film, experiences very little inner conflict. Despite what the trailers would have you think, he rarely questions whether or not he can live up to the Captain America name and almost never considers taking the Super Soldier Serum. We found his character to be incredibly shallow, with little to no character development throughout the movie. Mackie’s performance was definitely good but nothing spectacular.
Before Wilson played Captain America, his main role under tutelage of Rogers was the superhero Falcon. Just like Wilson took the helm for Captain America, Joaquin Torres took the mantle for the Falcon. We thought that Danny Ramirez’s role as the Falcon was a good addition to the movie, but his role could have been more substantial in this movie to show more of his combat capabilities. We get to see classic hero and sidekick dynamics, but near the middle of the movie, he gets shot in combat and becomes seriously injured. This brings the major question of whether he will be a prominent hero in the Marvel franchise, and also leaves the question of his fighting prowess unanswered.
We felt similarly when we saw the movie’s action scenes. The CGI involved was very cohesive, and we had little to no problems about it. All of the action scenes involved had great fight choreography with amazing moves. We also loved the revamped inclusion of character-specific abilities, which was shown through Wilson’s previous role as the Falcon when taking on the new mantle of Captain America. Wilson’s previous combat abilities relied solely upon his wings, but in the new movie he gains Captain America’s shield and Vibranium wings.
However, we found that Wilson underused the Vibranium wings during the fight scenes, only making real combat use of them in two fights. There were a fair amount of opportunities while fighting where he could’ve used them, which would’ve made up for his lack of the Super Soldier Serum. In addition, we also fail to see the new Falcon skill set and how he is unique and different from his predecessor, Wilson.
One of our favorite fight scenes was the fight between Red Hulk and Captain America. Everything about this fight was amazing: the CGI, the blows exchanged and the explosive power shown. This fight perfectly hit all the right notes, especially with accurate representation of both the Red Hulk’s and Captain America’s power. We thought the only let-down in this scene was the ending. By the time Ross transforms into the Red Hulk, the main plotline had basically concluded and most loose ends were tied.
Andrew:
While I do think that the movie had plenty of problems, it was overall pretty enjoyable to watch. The action was fun and exciting, and the overarching plotline, though a bit underdeveloped, was interesting and Ross’ characterization was handled well.
The movie almost didn’t feel like a Captain America movie due to the heavy emphasis on Ross and the lack of Wilson. However, my biggest complaint definitely came from the ending. Marvel made Red Hulk the face of pretty much all the promotional material, yet the movie felt as if the show writers had a completed movie before the marketing team forced them to squeeze in Red Hulk’s involvement.
If the marketing team hadn’t been so focused on plastering Red Hulk on all the promotional material, the movie might have been half decent. At the end of the day, it’s a pretty fun film if you’re looking for an action-packed Marvel movie to enjoy, but I wouldn’t put it anywhere near my top 10.
Ash:
The movie definitely could’ve been better.
To start, there were definitely parts of the movie where the expectations were overhyped compared to the delivery the movie provided. I would say that although the movie fell short of many expectations, I was very happy with the development of the MCU storyline. I think that this movie had the right ideas but the wrong execution and could’ve been improved with a little more character development and internal conflict behind the characters.
On the other hand, there were definitely some upsides to the movie. Like the fights, such as Captain America against the Red Hulk. In addition, the introduction of new villains, like the Leader, made new exciting scenes and possibilities with the cliffhanger at the end of the movie.
Although the movie was mediocre, I do think that the movie itself was necessary for the future development of the MCU, and I am very excited to see the development of the MCU with new villains and superheroes being introduced like Wilson, Torres, the Leader and Red Hulk.
