‘Captain America: Brave New World’ Reveals A Franchise In Crisis

In some ways, you could call Captain America: Brave New World a ‘timely’ film – after all, it features an American President with a questionable track record taking office, and he even transforms into a huge monster with a bright skin tone on the colour wheel. Yet that real-life allegory only feels accidentally poignant Brave New World, the latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the fourth Captain America film overall. 

It’s no secret that the once-oppressively popular has been going through a rough patch these past few years, and Brave New World encapsulates these struggles perfectly. Having undergone several rounds of reshoots and primarily connected to some of the least-liked MCU films, it’s not difficult to wonder who the film is even for as it continues the franchise’s recent trend of treading water.

Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), formerly the Falcon, is now Captain America, and while he struggles to live up to Steve Rogers’ legacy, Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross (Harrison Ford) takes office and is looking to work with world leaders to secure adamantium, a new material that comes from the dead Celestial who appeared in Eternals. However, the two are caught up in a (Red) Hulk of a conspiracy that seeks to turn America against the world, and Ross into a monster. 

The floundering Marvel machine

If you’re a bit lost on that explanation of what the film’s about, I don’t blame you. Brave New World makes the extremely odd choice to be a sequel not to the previous Captain America movies or The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but instead to two of the MCU’s least-liked entries: Eternals and 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. As such, Sam Wilson’s Cap is largely sidelined in favour of a narrative with a lot of different parts that rarely cohere in a meaningful way. 

Anthony Mackie, to his credit, does all he can given the apparently shoddy stitchwork that’s happened behind the scenes of this movie. His arc is pretty predictable as it repeats a number of notes from his own Disney+ show, but Mackie is charming enough that he still makes a solid lead for the film even as many other elements flounder around him.

Harrison Ford is also weirdly good here – now in his 80s, Ford is a solid replacement for William Hurt in the role of Thunderbolt Ross as a man under the intense stress of a presidency. He and Mackie also have some solid chemistry, bouncing off each other in some of Brave New World’s most pivotal scenes.

Yet it’s all in the service of a film that shoulders the burden of the MCU’s many problems, and very little of what made the franchise a household name. The story is very clearly trying to capture the spirit of previous Captain America films The Winter Soldier and Civil War, back when it felt like Marvel Studios could do no wrong. 

Brave New World fails to investigate Captain America

Despite its potentially incendiary visuals of a dangerously unpredictable president taking over the White House and lip service to the various crimes of the American state, Brave New World shares the woefully apolitical stance of pretty much every Marvel film. Part of this is because a number of Marvel films depicting the American military has collaborated with the US Department of Defence to ensure a net-positive portrayal of the military, and I have no doubts Brave New World is the same. 

The film postures towards commentary about the country its Captain comes from – after all, Brave New World revolves around a valuable resource that the US wants to get their hands on – but never says anything particularly engaging in its depiction of a conspiracy born from the evils of the American government. 

That’s before mentioning just how messily crafted Brave New World is. There’s been plenty of criticism online about the way the film looks, with trailers that have had… underwhelming visuals. I can assure you they are not much better in the final product, with a third act full of weightless action that can only be described as looking quite bad.

A film for… who?

It ties into the tangible sense that the film has gone through a number of rewrites after various poor test screenings that have attempted to make the film more palatable, and less politically charged. The result is a film with a deeply bizarre sense of editing and narrative that’s afraid to commit to anything. Be it the vastly different version of Sabra, a controversial Mossad-aligned Israeli superhero in the comics played by Shira Haas whose role in the movie was drastically changed mid-production, or Giancarlo Esposito’s Sidewinder who was added to the movie entirely through reshoots, Brave New World feels like it’s been constantly retooled.

As a result, Captain America: Brave New World feels like a film that won’t seriously please anyone. MCU fans will be confused by its connections to largely maligned entries in the franchise and underwhelmed by its attempts to recreate past glory, and anyone else will find its story impenetrable and its filmmaking lacking. 

Even if it’s not the worst Marvel film ever made, Brave New World is the most indicative of a franchise in a serious crisis of identity and faith. Though Thunderbolts* and the new Fantastic Four look somewhat promising, Marvel simply can’t afford to keep putting out movies of this calibre; otherwise, it won’t just be their biggest villains threatening the end of their universe.

★★

Captain America: Brave New World is in cinemas now.