‘Captain America: Brave New World’ Review: Bad New Movie

To say this phase has been tumultuous would be an understatement. From the highest of highs seen in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 to the lowest of lows in Echo and Secret Invasion, patience is wearing thin for audience members. This has led to a lot of weight being laid on Captain America: Brave New World, the fourth entry in the now quadrilogy which was originally led by Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers, who passed the mantle onto Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson back in Avengers: Endgame. The movie has suffered a lot in the media, with rumours (albeit incorrect ones) of expensive reshoots, and a controversy based on the history of Shira Haas and her character Ruth Bat-Seraph. But did this movie beat the odds? Find out in our full Captain America: Brave New World review below. 

Captain America: Brave New World follows the adventures of Sam Wilson, who has now passed down the mantle of Falcon to colleague Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez), whilst stepping up to fulfil the role of Captain America. In the film, he embarks on a journey once his friend Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) is mind-controlled and falsely sentenced to death for an attempted assassination and is forced to stop a plot pushed by a familiar but long-unseen villain. 

This review contains spoilers for Marvel Studios’ Captain America: Brave New World. 

From the very get-go, it’s very obvious this movie was butchered in both the edit and writing stages, with the two developmental processes combining in a borderline unwatchable experience on par with failures such as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. While the rumours of the entire film being reshot was greatly exaggerated, it is clear that the entire story was reworked several times over during post-production, leading the editors to piece the film together in a way that inevitably is incoherent. The result is a story that focuses on Sam Wilson as a protagonist but not as a character, leading him to not have an arc and end back where we started. 

Not only is our protagonist hollow and uninteresting, but his entire supporting cast (bar one) is useless, with sidekick Joaquin doing nothing, and even failing at that, leading to a critical injury late in the film. Similarly, Ruth’s (Shira Haas) role was so reduced in the edit that her character and her actions have been rendered completely and utterly irrelevant, drawing precious screentime away from characters that should have, could have, and would have been more important. Carl Lumbly’s talent is heavily underutilized here, as he is locked in a prison cell for the vast majority of the runtime, and the moments he is allowed to speak are tainted by a script that concerns itself with joking about mobile devices rather than his character.

The film opens with an action piece not dissimilar to that of 2014’s The Winter Soldier, where Sam is sent on a mission to stop the illegal activities of a terrorist cell. This time, he fights a group called Serpent (the result of the comic book team Serpent Society, led by fan favourite actors Rosa Salazar and Seth Rollins, being cut from the film). The group is led by Sidewinder, who introduces Giancarlo Esposito to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but disappoints fans by not allowing his brilliant acting abilities to be showcased, relegating him to a bland role that doesn’t affect the plot in any way. 

In this restructuring behind the scenes, the in-film politics and antagonistic relationship between the overarching villain, Sam Wilson and our twist villain fell in the balance. Reprising his role as Samuel Sterns, returning to the MCU for the first time in 17 years is Tim Blake Nelson. This time, he is back as The Leader, promised as a threatening comic book character, but delivered as a weirdly quirky and flat villainous force only interested in making Thaddeus Ross angry, following a false promise of freedom at his hands. His character, famed for a big forehead akin to Megamind’s in the comics, looks more similar to Neil Sandilands’ The Thinker in The CW’s The Flash. It’s a look that seems realistic following what happened to the character, but looks stupid just a whole. This is made worse, by a weirdly placed filter that adds a fuzzy effect over the character in certain scenes, placing him out of focus despite being the direct subject of the frame.

Speaking of Ross, Harrison Ford is easily the highlight of this forsaken film, bringing his skill and charisma to a movie that needed it heavily. The character of Ross does not work well as an antagonistic force, instead working well as a President trying to do better. He’s largely driven by his daughter Betty (Liv Tyler), who makes a very forced cameo towards the end of the film, and definitely seemed like she did not want to be there. Ford delivers a strong performance, only dragged down by the poor writing ever present within the film. Marketing and discussion regarding his role in the film has long surrounded depictions of the United States’ current President Donald Trump, but in reality, the character of Red Hulk is nothing like that of the POTUS, but instead a man aiming to change himself for the better. It’s a more enjoyable rendition of the character than that of the late William Hurt, making for a much better and more understandable experience.

In a visual sense, the film could be worse, but it is also far from good. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is now 35 movies into its tenure, spanning an impressive 17 years. You would think that the studio would understand how to make some good greenscreen and allow time for ample visual effects completion. Here, the VFX is as bad as it’s ever been, not allowing the decent enough cinematography to thrive but instead being held back by an onslaught of ugly and fake-looking computer-generated imagery. This is especially obvious in the second act action set-piece in the Indian Ocean near the continental Tiamut landmass. There’s also praise and issues to be found in the lighting. Indoor sequences thrive with some of the blue and red lighting, particularly the assassination and lab sequences, whilst exterior scenes look awful, usually involving Sam Sterns in some capacity. 

One of the most important aspects of an action thriller is the action. Through conversation, it seems to me that this is the thing that will make or break the film for some people, given that its the one factor that most people are excited to witness. The aerial combat scenes in the Disney+ Falcon and the Winter Soldier series were one of the highlights and have become a draw when combined in conjunction with Mackie’s Wilson, so my surprise was big when I realized there wasn’t too many fights utilizing that form in the film. There are around five separate scenes making the action in an action film few and far between, with only two of them being interesting to watch (the Tiamut dogfight and the Red Hulk showdown). I would say that only the finale fight between Red Hulk and Captain America held any weight, bearing the only sign of quality out of the numerous scenes throughout the film. It’s no surprise as to why this was so heavily marketed despite its short duration. 

In other technical aspects, the needle drops chosen for the film do not work entirely well, being unpleasant to listen to in a lot of places, with music supervision only knowing what to do with the end song: a memorable placement of the song “i” by Kendrick Lamar. One scene that takes place in a limousine features a pretty forgettable song, and in conjunction with some poor dialogue is one of my least favourite moments in the film, despite working on paper. The dialogue seems to be an issue throughout this film, lacking in the humour field, where characters come across as stupid and self-absorbed rather than the initially envisioned comic relief. 

Captain America: Brave New World is a new low for the franchise and continues a disappointing pattern for the Marvel universe. While Mackie attempts to save this mess, only Harrison Ford manages to rise above, giving an eccentric and loveable performance, in a movie mawed by reshoots, rewrites, and a bad edit. 

Captain America: Brave New World is directed by Julius Onah and stars Anthony Mackie as Captain America, Danny Ramirez as Falcon, Harrison Ford as Red Hulk, Tim Blake Nelson as The Leader, Shira Haas as Sabra, Giancarlo as Sidewinder, Liv Tyler as Betty Ross, and many more. The film begins playing in theatres starting this President’s Day weekend.

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