Brave New World Is Too Timid to Reinvent the MCU Formula [Review]

Warning: The following review contains minor spoilers for Captain America: Brave New World.

Captain America: Brave New World arrives at a watershed moment for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

There’s a (somewhat exaggerated) narrative prevalent among fans and pundits alike that the franchise has lost its way since 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. For every smash-hit like Spider-Man: No Way Home or Deadpool & Wolverine, there’s an Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania or The Marvels. The small screen MCU output on Disney+ has been equally hit or miss, too. By all accounts, Marvel Studios is positioning July’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps as a soft reset for the MCU – it’s just gotta get through projects like Brave New World first.

That’s less-than-ideal baggage to heap on any movie. Add negative buzz regarding reshoots and controversies over everything from an Israeli superhero to the supposed anti-American sentiment of leading man Anthony Mackie, and disaster seemed inevitable. Yet for all that, Captain America: Brave New World isn’t the star-spangled bin fire many feared (or in some cases, hoped for). It’s a perfectly serviceable popcorn blockbuster, albeit one that is – ironically – neither bold nor novel.

To its credit, Captain America: Brave New World wastes no time setting up its status quo. Newly-elected US President Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford, replacing the late William Hurt) is trying to broker a treaty with other world powers to share control of a recently discovered, unbreakable metal, adamantium. He also wants Sam Wilson/Captain America (Mackie) on his team, to recruit a new Avengers line-up. It all sounds rosy, until Sam’s buddy, aging super-soldier Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), nearly assassinates Ross. Sam vows to clear Isaiah’s name, putting him at odds with Ross, which is exactly what deranged genius Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson) wants…

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This gritty, espionage-infused premise – coupled with Brave New World‘s stylish title card – is enough to give even the most jaded MCU fan hope that a hybrid superhero/spy film is in the offing. Indeed, the first 20 or so minutes of Brave New World suggest that director Julius Onah and the movie’s four other credits writers are about to revive the same underutilized, quasi-grounded tone as 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier. But sadly, that’s not how things ultimately shake out. Slowly but surely, it becomes clear we’re really dealing with another “house style” MCU entry, with all the labored banter, uneven CGI, and same-samey action sequences that entails.

That wouldn’t be so bad, if Brave New World was a top-shelf “classic” MCU movie, but it’s not. For one thing, the material added during reshoots is easy to spot. The subplot involving Sterns’ hired muscle, Sidewinder never feels fully a piece of everything else that’s going on; it’s just an excuse for Giancarlo Esposito to ply his signature brand of badassery, padding out and spicing up a thin, workmanlike narrative. It also compensates for Sterns’ utter ineffectiveness as an antagonist, despite the best efforts of legendary character actor Tim Blake Nelson to elevate the part. That’s the upside; the downside is that two villains – three, once Red Hulk smashes his way onto the scene – eat up screentime that would’ve been better used developing Brave New World‘s characters.

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Don’t expect to walk away from the fourth Captain America installment with a better idea of who Sam Wilson is, or for him to grow as a person. He exits as he enters: a good dude doing his best to live up to a big legacy. And that’s fine; however, it’s not much to emotionally invest in. In fairness, Onah and the admirably committed Mackie clearly have stuff they want to say with Sam about the fight for recognition and a seat at the table. But that’s just it: these aspects of Sam’s internal struggle only surface in snippets of dialogue. It takes more than just Ross spitting, “You’re not Steve Rogers” at Sam, or a fleeting heart-to-heart with another MCU veteran, to sell an arc. Ditto Ross’s journey, which tasks a checked-out Ford with making us buy his redemption, and only gives him the odd misty-eyed moment to do it with.

The same goes for Captain America: Brave New World‘s themes: they’re only really there when someone remembers to mention them. Onah and his team have some potentially interesting ideas at play here. Juxtaposing Wilson and Ross’s struggles to redefine the way the world sees them and define a new future for themselves could’ve worked, if better fleshed out. A firebrand president in the White House, a weaponized black super-soldier, and the need for bipartisan civility also seem like fertile ground for meaningful social commentary. Heck, reflexive or not, cementing Sam’s status as Steve Rogers’ true successor because of his humanity isn’t a bad instinct, either. Yet Brave New World doesn’t have room – nor Marvel Studios, I suspect, the stomach – to properly interrogate any of this. So, they simply pay it lip service, and it leaves Brave New World feeling hollow.

Related: Captain America: Brave New World Introduces a Marvel Superhero That No One Noticed

More than that, it feels inessential – both as part of the wider MCU tapestry and as a standalone movie. Did Marvel Studios really need to spend $180 million to tease a new Avengers team, inch infinitesimally closer to the X-Men’s MCU debut, and vaguely tee up 2027’s Secret Wars via the laziest post-credits stinger in recent memory? Probably not. Similarly, if the point wasn’t to meaningfully move Sam forward as a character, it’s unclear why Brave New World even exists (beyond the commercial needs of the Marvel machine). But hey, it’s snappily paced and doesn’t overstay its welcome, so it might just tide you over until the real MCU event of 2025 lands.

Captain America: Brave New World is in cinemas now.

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Publish date : 2025-02-14 01:40:00

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