Movie Review: Captain America: Brave New World

Following the events of the six-episode mini-series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021), the character of Captain America – once a stalwart of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) – has been largely absent from the canon as the MCU attempts to ramp up its next phase. Now, with Captain America: Brave New World, the titular hero returns, ostensibly to infuse the MCU with some much needed gravitas. Unfortunately, while the film offers some moments that harken back to the best moments of the MCU, there remains an undercurrent that suggests the current course of the property is largely directionless and meandering at best.

In this installment, Anthony Mackie reprises his role as Sam Wilson, the former Falcon who has now officially assume the mantle of Captain America from Steve Rogers. Following a meeting with the new President of the United States Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford – who takes over the role following the passing of William Hurt in 2022), Wilson finds himself thrust into an international incident that threatens to bring the fragile peace being brokered between several super powers to a hasty end.

Director Julius Onah, whose previous features – The Cloverfield Paradox (2018) and Luca (2019) – suggested that the filmmaker would be able to continue the character development that helped build the MCU into the beloved series it has become, does not succeed in crafting a film driven by narrative heft, instead the piece seems content in merely going through the motions of a comic book film, offering little in the way of creating its own identify or place in the larger canon before it. While this may not be entirely Onah’s doing – he is working from a script contributed to by four other writers – it ultimately falls upon him to bring all of the elements together and while it works from time to time as entertainment, it does not flourish as a part of the larger whole.

Anthony Mackie’s work as Sam Wilson continues to impress. While he may not boast the leading man presence that Chris Evans did as the former Captain America, he is an imposing figure nevertheless and the racial implications of his assuming the mantle make for an interesting aspect to the story. Taking over the role of Thaddeus Ross from the late William Hurt, Harrison Ford is rather effective as the politician/tortured father who seems – at least on the surface – to only want to do the right thing by his country as well as his estranged daughter Betty (Liv Tyler, in another nod to earlier non-MCU “Hulk” films).

Anthony Mackie in “Captain America: Brave New World.” Photo by Eli Adé/Eli Adé – © 2024 MARVEL.

What is frustrating though is how the film plods through setting up the larger set-piece action sequences that prove to be the core of the movie. Marvel films used to flow organically from scene to scene without any need for a character to take a beat and slow down to explain to the audience what exactly was going on or what might be getting ready to transpire. Those days feel long gone at this point, with everything seeming as though it is being created off-the-cuff in real time without any consideration of the eventual endgame of the story.

That being said, the film benefits from a crisp look courtesy of cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau; and the film never actually slows down in the action department thanks to the editing work of Madeleine Gavin and Matthew Schmidt. Then again, those elements have never been a problem for films in the MCU as the stories carried the films from beginning to end. Recently though, these films feel as though they have been far more obsessed with adhering to the “mold” of an MCU film instead of simply being a solid film within the MCU.

While Captain America: Brave New World may harken back to earlier MCU films, it also fails to regain the momentum of the series and offer hope for a return to the epic nature of the original slate of films that captivated audiences for years.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com

An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

@miketyrkus

Mike Tyrkus

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