Movie Review – CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD

Last night I went to see the newest entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Captain America: Brave New World.

The movie picks up where The Falcon and The Winter Soldier left off, with Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson fully installed as the new Captain America. The story starts with Cap leading a military mission in Mexico to recover a stolen canister from a terrorist group called Serpent and their leader Sidewinder. With the help of the new Falcon, Joaquin Torres, Cap defeats Sidewinder, saves a priest and some nuns, and recovers the stolen canister which contains a newly acquired element called Adamantium.

As a thank you, Sam and Joaquin are invited to an event at the White House by newly elected President Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross and Sam brings along the OG Captain America Isaiah Bradley as his special guest. At the event Ross explains that Adamantium was discovered and harvested on “Celestial Island” (that is the frozen Celestial stuck in the middle of the Indian Ocean from way back in Eternals). Ross is trying to cement his legacy by organizing an international treaty to harvest and share adamantium for the benefit of the entire planet.

Things go sideways at the event when Isaiah and a few other military personnel suddenly attempt to assassinate the president. Sam is able to talk Isaiah into giving himself up to the authorities and then sets about trying to discover what led to the sudden attack. What Sam finds is that everything: the stolen canister, the run in with Serpent, the attack on the President has all been orchestrated by Samuel Sterns. Sterns was used as a scapegoat by Ross after the events of The Incredible Hulk. Ross kept him imprisoned and then later used Sterns to develop a pill that could heal Ross’s failing heart with the promise that if he did he would allow him to go free. But when that didn’t happen Sterns set a plan in motion to destroy Ross’ legacy and turn him into the thing he hates the most. The first part of Sterns’ plan, to destroy any hope of a treaty and incite a war between the United States and Japan over control of Celestial Island and adamantium nearly succeeds, but is ultimately foiled through the intervention of Captain America and The Falcon, though Joaquin is critically injured in the battle. The second part of his plan goes off without a hitch. It turns out the heart pills that he’s been feeding to Ross are loaded with gamma radiation, and when Ross’ epic temper is brought to the boiling point, the Hulk Hunter becomes a Hulk himself. With a Red Hulk ripping through Washington DC, Sam is forced to contend with his lack of superhuman ability and find a way to embrace his humanity as Captain America. 

My take:

Going into this movie I was…apprehensive to say the least. Even though I enjoyed The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, I’ve never been that jazzed on the new Captain America or the actor who portrays him: Anthony Mackie. When it comes to the MCU and Marvel Comics in general, Captain America is my guy. I love Steve Rogers and I really enjoyed Chris Evans’ portrayal of him. I knew that when he came back all old after the events of Avengers: Endgame it was likely the shield would pass to Falcon, even though, as a fan of Ed Brubaker’s comic run circa Winter Soldier, I personally wanted to see Bucky have go as Cap. Combine that with the overwhelming glut of MCU content since Disney+ came into existence, and a lot of the recent movies being objectively terrible (I’m looking at you Antman and The Wasp: Quantumania). My hopes for this Captain America movie were not high. I was sure it would likely be another disappointment.

But I was wrong. This movie is great. Surprisingly great even. In my opinion this movie is exactly what the MCU needed to get back on track, because for the first time in a long time the direction that things are heading seems clear. For me this Multiverse chapter of the MCU has been like driving in the fog, I had no idea where the hell we were or where we were going, but with this movie it’s like we can kinda start to make out some shadows in the distance. It’s comforting, when for so long it’s felt like stuff was just happening. I gotta give props to Anthony Mackie, he gives a great performance here and I actually think I like Sam Wilson now. I think his arc in this movie of finding his own way as Captain America was good. Harrison Ford was awesome as President Ross. I’m kind of sad William Hurt didn’t get a chance to take Ross through to the Red Hulk, but I think he’d be proud of Ford’s performance. I’m really excited to see what they do with this character going forward. An unexpected joy for me in this movie was Danny Ramirez as Joaquin Torres. I loved that they didn’t follow the normal superhero trope of introducing him and then slowly but surely by the end he gets his chance to become the new Falcon, he just is Falcon from the get go and he’s great at it. Mackie and Ramirez have great chemistry and it really shines in the bonds and interactions between their characters.

My favorite thing about this movie, as I alluded to before, is how it serves the entire MCU story. The past, present, and future. Prior to watching it I was talking to a friend who had seen it and they mentioned that they wouldn’t have thought that the movie to rewatch prior to this one would have been 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, but for anyone else who hasn’t seen it this turns out to be sage advice. The Incredible Hulk has long been the black sheep of the MCU. Even though it has a direct crossover with Iron Man, whatever aspirations they had for a Hulk franchise died when things fell apart with Edward Norton and with stricter Marvel IP licensing that have prevented further solo Hulk movies from being made. Despite more recent inclusions of Tim Roth’s Neil Blonsky AKA The Abomination in Shang-Chi and She-Hulk, the movie has largely been forgotten and ignored in the MCU canon. Until now. An argument could be made that Captain America: Brave New World is as much a sequel to The Incredible Hulk as it is a continuation of the Captain America franchise. The inciting historical event that drives the conflict of the film is the battle in Brooklyn between Hulk and Abomination which led to the creation of The Leader AKA Samuel Sterns, played by a returning Tim Blake Nelson. We also get to see the return of Liv Tyler’s, Betty Ross at the end of the movie, further cementing (hopefully) that the Hulk’s world is here to stay in the MCU and opening the door for future solo Hulk adventures. I would love to see a live action Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.! Just throwing it out there Feige. Make my dreams come true!

In the present we finally get to see an acknowledgement of the Celestial stuck in the middle of the ocean that has been a long time coming. That was a huge thing to do in Eternals and it’s wild that a reference hasn’t been made to it in every MCU show or film that has come out since it happened. I thought it was an interesting twist to have that be the source and introduction of Adamantium, which further drives the push towards the future state of the MCU and the introduction of the X-Men. Because for the uninitiated, Adamantium is synonymous with Wolverine, and while Wolverine has technically entered the MCU in Deadpool & Wolverine, it’s clear that that world is not the MCU’s Earth-616. It’s currently unclear to me if “mutants” exist on MCU Earth-616 at all, although we have Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver (RIP) who are meant to be mutants, and after doing research into Shira Hass’ character Ruth Bat-Seraph, it looks like she is also a mutant known as Sabra in the comics, so maybe? In any event I’m super excited for mutants to finally become a big part of the MCU and Brave New World really kicks the door open in that regard.

In closing, I really enjoyed Captain America: Brave New World. It was fun to watch, it didn’t drag at all, I enjoyed the reintegration of The Incredible Hulk plot points and characters, and I thought the new characters added a lot. I think the title of Captain America is in good hands with Sam Wilson and I look forward to seeing how his journey progresses. I’m also now really intrigued by the upcoming Thunderbolts* movie, because apparently Bucky is running for congress now? Did I miss something? Anyways, I think if that movie follows a similar tone to this one then it could be great as well. The only things I didn’t like about this movie were: no Seth Rollins, Giancarlo Esposito was underutilized (hope to see him again in the future), and the CGI can be a little hamfisted at times. Like I’m not confident Liv Tyler actually showed up on set for this movie or if she did a self tape in her house and sent it in or if they just generated an image of her with a computer.

Final rating: 7.5/10