Review: 'Captain America: Brave New World' not particularly brave or new
Heaven help the moviegoer who hasn't watched a half dozen different Marvel project before trying to make sense this.
Sometimes movies are like people: You just have to meet them where they are.
“Captain America: Brave New World” is a flick like that.
It suffers in comparison with the previous Captain America films, but considered on its own, it’s a fine action movie.
The trick is considering it on its own.
Longtime Marvel Cinematic Universe fans probably know all the cues from the sundry related streaming series and films that flesh out the MacGuffins of “Brave New World.”
But if a person, you know, has a life, there’s a good chance a lot of this stuff makes no sense.
The plot revolves around the machinations of a super-genius villain, Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson), last seen in the 2008 “The Incredible Hulk” movie.
The U.S., France, Japan, and India are trying to negotiate a treaty over a giant alien corpse floating in the Indian Ocean — a leftover from the abysmal 2021 “The Eternals” movie.
The countries want to control the metal found in the corpse of the godlike beings — a nearly indestructible substance called adamantium, which first appeared in the movies in “The X-Men” from 1999.
Then there’s the cast.
Ford takes over the Ross role from the late William Hurt, who first appeared in 2008 and has had supporting roles since.
Anthony Mackie plays Sam Wilson, who used to be a hero with armored wings and a jetpack called the Falcon.
Now Wilson is Captain America because the original, Steve Rogers, played by Chris Evans, time-travelled back to the 1950s to go dancing with his girlfriend from World War II at the end of “Avengers: Endgame” from 2019.
Wilson took up the mantle of Captain America in “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” a 2021 Disney+ streaming series.
Wilson keeps his Falcon wings, dons red, white, and blue duds and takes the shield for a sort of hybrid Cap-Falcon.
Oh, and there’s a new Falcon named Joaquin Torres, played by the cheerful Danny Ramirez, who also made his debut in “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.”
Whew. That’s a lot to keep straight, maybe too much.
The film wisely does not spend much time trying to bring the audience up to speed on who all these people are and what all this junk is.
Either you watched all that other stuff, or you didn’t. Have ChatGPT explain it to you after the move.
The story begins with the inauguration of Ross, an unpopular figure for advocating the policies that broke up the Avengers.
Ross is trying to be a better man and make a more peaceful world. His manhunt of the Hulk left him estranged from his daughter, Betty (Liv Tyler), who happened to be in love with the Hulk’s alter ego, Bruce Banner.
Ross’ grief over this is emphasized.
A lot.
Almost hilariously so.
By the sixth or seventh mention of Ross’ daughter Betty, I wanted yell, “We know! We know!”
“Brave New World” tries to bring back some of the cloak-and-dagger routines that made “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” one of the best Marvel movies ever, but there isn’t much of a mystery.
Ross has kept Sterns prisoner since the events in “Incredible Hulk,” forcing the scientist to make special pills to keep Ross from dying of heart disease.
Sterns mutated into a lumpy green genius after “Hulk.” He made the pills but used them to slowly expose Ross to gamma radiation, which created a new Hulk in his cells.
This new, red Hulk makes a debut in the middle of a news conference, which is probably not the worst thing Americans have seen at a presidential presser.
Cap fights the Ross Hulk, which results in the smashing of the White House and trashing a bunch of cherry trees in blossom.
The film offers some aerobatic combat, but if you’ve seen “Top Gun,” you’ve seen better.
The end feels anticlimactic, but what can one expect after 35 superhero movies?
Even if the players change, you know what you’re going in for when you go to a Marvel movie.
“Brave New World” mostly delivers on that promise, but it’s a plot arc we’ve seen so many times that it’s becoming tedious.
Mackie is not Chris Evans, and it follows that Sam Wilson is not Steve Rogers.
Evans made Cap into one of the most beloved heroes in the Marvel pantheon.
Mackie isn’t there yet and this movie doesn’t move him much closer.
And that’s fine.
Mackie job is not to replacing Evans, but to make a new, different Cap.
To that end, Mackie does a fine job. Whether this threadbare product is something people still want or not will be decided at the box office.
But, in the end, there’s not much new in “Brave New World.”
Daniel P. Finney is a member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative, but don’t hold that against them. Please visit their page to view a full roster of writers and consider subscribing to their columns. Writing is hard work; people ought to get paid for it. If you enjoy it, throw them a couple of bucks. They earned it.