Captain America: Brave New World

Captain America: Brave New World is the latest entry in the Phase Five of the MCU. Considering the amount of reshoots, I didn't had high hopes for it and thought it wouldn't live up to the Captain America Trilogy and unfortunately I was right.

Starting with the positives. The cast delivers some charismatic performances particularly Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Captain America. He pours his heart and soul into bringing the best out of his character. Danny Ramirez as Joaquin Torres also delivered a hilarious and delightful performance and his chemistry with Mackie is solid. And Harrison Ford as Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross/"The Red Hulk" was one of the highlights of the film. The action sequences were entertaining even though not as mesmerising as they could've been.

Now the movie has some obvious flaws. The plot felt rushed, predictable and lacked depth with a lot of story elements feeling underdeveloped. The pacing was extremely uneven. There were moments that felt rushed while others dragged on making the film a little unengaging at times. It tries to match the storytelling heights of the Captain America Trilogy only to fail at it. The editing is noticeably choppy. The CGI was questionable at times. The villain was underwhelming which shouldn't be the case with a Marvel movie. And the ending was anti-climactic.

While it suffers from a rushed and predictable plot, boring villain and uneven pacing, Anthony Mackie's performance and the entertaining action sequences makes Captain America: Brave New World a passable action flick and another mixed bag in the Phase Five of the MCU.

Most of the reviews turned out to be true. The movie really looks like a cut of random scenes, in some places it's disgusting, and in some places it's just bad graphics and just no action sequences.

If the previous parts could boast of all of the above, then the new part is very difficult to praise for anything.

She tries to be sequels of two films at once and introduce several villains at once, not forgetting to reveal new characters and explore old ones, but the lack of a clear script and extremely poor timing simply do not allow all this to be done.

It's nice to see the old characters, but with all the flaws, the movie becomes a disappointment.

Considering the fact that the Captain America films have produced two of the best MCU films in Winter Soldier and Civil War, it is a shame that we are now left with this thoroughly mediocre and lazy fourth instalment.

Firstly, this film requires you to recall the events of a movie that came out in 2008. If you don't remember the events of this film, don't worry, as Brave New World is chock full of clunky exposition. It also requires you to remember the events of a show that came out in 2021. Without remembering some of these details, certain plot points just lose all their impact and don't carry much weight. Maybe my memory isn't what it used to be, and maybe I should have rewatched The Incredible Hulk and Falcon and the Winter Soldier before watching this, but who has the time for that.

Even ignoring these links to previous MCU instalments, the whole plot still feels incredibly messy and all over the place. There is a random collection of new characters all of whom get zero character development. Even Sam Wilson, Cap himself, gets no real development or journey in this film. It's an incredibly bland portrayal of the character, which is a shame given the great journey Steve Rodgers had. Anthony Mackie and Sam Wilson deserves more from his solo projects. Once you muddle through the clumsy link back the Eternals, and the overarching plot that links to The Incredible Hulk, you are still left trying to grapple with other bizarre aspects of the film. Why was a character seemingly central to the story like Sidewinder only added in reshoots? They can spin as much yarn as they like about the reshoots not being material to the film, but they clearly weren't happy with what they had in the can when they finished principal photography and it shows. The plot also felt very fragmented and choppy. Somehow it managed to feel convoluted yet mindlessly simple at the same time. Quite the achievement.

Now I will put my positive hat on briefly as there are some good points to this film. Despite being given very little to work with, Anthony Mackie puts in a good performance as Cap. It's clear that he could nail this role if the writing wasn't so poor, so I hope this improves for future outings. His chemistry with the new Falcon is pretty solid and there's some promise there. I do also think the final action scene is suitably chaotic, even if it does fizzle out, and the action throughout is all decent enough if nothing remarkable.

Ultimately though I really do think that Marvel has just hit a brick wall. With each film that passes, it becomes more and more apparent that Endgame was the obvious end point. The franchise should have taken a hiatus then kicked off again with a whole new cast and a whole new set of stories. It's a shame as Mackie has been let down by a poor film and poor overall franchise direction, but for Marvel diehards this film will be watchable enough.

Man, I remember a time when the MCU was good. Like, really good. Now, I feel nothing. This film got nothing out of me. Not hatred, not love, not even a whiff. Just nothing. Let's get this over with.

The performances were alright. Harrison Ford was definitely the standout in this film. I was expecting him to just phone it in, but he actually puts in the work. Not his best work, but enough to make me like his version of Thaddeus Ross. Anthony Mackie is great as always, but is honestly given very little. I'm not entirely sure Sam had a character arc outside of one scene late into the film and even that is just rehashing what happened in a D+ show. Giancarlo Esposito was absolutely wasted. Clearly added in later and could easily be cut.

As for the plot, there's nothing new here I'm afraid. It feels like this film's only purpose was to introduce Adamantium to the MCU. The antagonist is terrible, they try to connect it to earlier MCU entries but no one is really going to remember. This film was clearly altered from what it originally was. It's difficult to talk about honestly, because it feels like there's nothing here. The film wants to be an espionage thriller like Winter Soldier, but lacks the tonal consistency, tight pacing and writing to even come close.

But what about the action? It isn't great. The hand to hand combat looks sluggish and poorly edited. There's a good amount of that throughout. The CGI ranges from decent to downright terrible. It all rings hollow.

So yeah, it's probably not the worst thing the MCU has put out, but it certainly isn't far above it. I can't bring myself to hate this film, because it is ultimately nothing. A waste of time.

This movie failed to focus on a villain or a storyline despite its length. It felt like it was being used as an excuse to introduce new dynamics and catapult upcoming releases and potential projects (IDF woman, Bucky in Thunderbolts*, the new Falcon) rather than focusing on the Captain America character. Both the Winter Soldier & Falcon show as well as the trailers made it seem like this movie had specific intentions for the new Captain America, but the movie fell flat and didn't tell us anything we didn't already know about Sam. Despite the possible consequences, the villains wound up feeling low stakes and impersonal. The most interesting characters had the least screen time, and it was overall disappointing compared to the show that preceded it.