Captain America: Brave New World

Image credit: socalcitykids.com

So after the epic bout of finality that was Infinity War plus a few movies to test the waters of new characters and see how best to further the tales of those characters who’s stories hadn’t quite finished, the Avengers cycle feels like it’s starting anew with Captain America: Brave New World – a mirror film that I think audiences were a bit dubious about, but honestly stands as a solid instalment in the MCU saga.

The film follows Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) doing his best to follow Steve Rogers’ footsteps as the new Captain America. Saving the world one international threat at a time, Sam comes up against his biggest challenge when President Ross (Harrison Ford) asks him to recreate The Avengers Objective. Sam’s conflicting thoughts on the job are put on hold when an assassination attempt on Ross sends him on a hunt for a villain whose schemes of revenge against Ross are so grand that they could even spark war.

This movie has been only warmly received as far as I’m aware, which is a fair response as it really is a generic Marvel movie. All films adhere to the unspoken/unwritten codes of their genre to deliver a certain type of cinematic experience to its audiences – you go to a Marvel or superhero movie with the expectation of a mixture of action, comedy, and a little drama. Brave New World delivers all this, but does not go above and beyond, making it a safe film that people can’t be mad about because it’s what they expected to see in the cinema.

What I personally liked about this movie was that it was a return to bare bones narrative conflict and action. There is no multiverse mayhem to muddy the waters, no aliens, no space travel, no Lovecraftian horror that could open a third or fourth eye – it’s just an exceptional man trying to find the truth and save his country. Even the arrival of Red Hulk – not a spoiler, he’s literally on the posters - doesn’t come until the third act and isn’t even really made that a big a deal of. This movie was really just about Sam finding his feet as a great hero’s replacement and learning how to make the job his own.

Image credit: comicbook.com

In a very sweet dramatic scene, made better with a metafictive gag after the emotional talk, Bucky Barnes says to Sam, “Steve inspired hope in people, you inspire ambition”, which really sums up the film and Mackie’s performance. His Captain America is also an everyman, but an everyman that has gone through trauma and is determined to see the bright side. Where Steve Rogers’ overcoming adversity schtick was physical, Sam’s is emotional and manifests in an attractive, almost magnetic, emotional pull to the man once you meet him.

Harrison Ford replaces William Hurt as Thaddeus Ross and I really enjoyed his performance because, even though we’re primed to not like Ross due to his past actions in other Marvel films, in Brave New World he is a man shooting for redemption and there is something about Ford’s face that houses this amazing internal conflict between being absolutely enraged and desperately heartbroken. Ford can flit between the two emotional states with superhuman speed and because of that natural softness he has in his features, he turns Ross from a loathed character into a liked character.

There have been hints of Disney’s plan for the MCU in a lot of the films that have come out since Infinity War: a bunch of Doctor Strange escapades across the multiverse, the Fantastic four are coming, the X-Men are coming, and even an Avengers Junior team, oh and let’s not forget about the Eternals. Whether all of these ideas come through is anyone’s guess, but Captain America: Brave New World seems to have really raised a torch to light the path we’re set to follow.

Director: Julius Onah, 2024

Cast: Anthony Mackie, Harrison Ford, Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Carl Lumbley, Giancarlo Esposito, Xosha Roquemore, Tim Blake Nelson, Takehiro Hira & Liv Tyler