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The newly elected President of the United States is a thin-skinned — and easily manipulated — egotist willing to risk America’s future, jail its citizens, and antagonize its allies to achieve his own self-serving goals. He rages at reporters whenever they dare to question him, he believes in Western imperialism as a matter of cause, and his unfeeling ruthlessness has made it all but impossible for anyone to love him on a personal level, least of all his own daughter. His skin mysteriously turns a strange color that seems to defy the laws of science, and he’s liable to transform into an unthinking monster at a moment’s notice, causing the infrastructure of the American government to crumble around his feet.
In other news, Julius Onah’s “Captain America: Brave New World” stars Harrison Ford as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, a gruff old man who ascends to commander-in-chief on the promise of bringing the country together in the face of an ongoing alien threat. BOOM. Got his ass. MAGA nation found dead in a ditch.
The good news is that the withering and not-at-all-labored first paragraphs of this movie review will surely humiliate the Trump administration into abandoning their crypto-fascist assault on the pillars of American democracy. The bad news is that the unmistakable topicality of the MCU’s latest installment — its political relevance made all the more pronounced by a series of delays that postponed this blockbuster’s release date until after the inauguration — isn’t enough to make “Captain America 4” feel like a film of its time.
Marvel has long been struggling to recapture the monocultural dominance that it enjoyed through the first three phases of its existence as a movie studio, and while the 35th chapter of its signature mega-franchise takes agonizing pains to lay the groundwork for a fresh iteration of the Avengers, the listless and deeply unengaging “Brave New World” is far too preoccupied with its own past to deliver any real excitement in the present — let alone have any real hope of stoking enthusiasm for the future.
To judge by this “Brave New World,” the MCU is so entombed by its history that it would sooner revisit its darkest chapters than take the risk of writing a new one (and also doesn’t leave Aldous Huxley any room to roll in his grave). In a movie full of baffling decisions, none of them are more bizarre or fundamental than the decision to reboot the Avengers by returning to the 2008 boondoggle where Marvel tried to boot them up in the first place — only to repeat so many of the same mistakes on a much larger scale.
Yes, the first proper MCU film since “The Marvels” is a direct sequel to “The Incredible Hulk,” as some of the most forgettable characters from this mega-franchise’s early years — along with a handful of equally forgettable characters from its Disney+ shows, and a smattering of new ones who fail to register altogether — are dusted off like an old treasure map that might still point the way to untapped riches. It doesn’t. By the time Anthony Mackie’s Captain America squares off against a CGI abomination in a climactic fight scene that’s eerily similar to the one set in Harlem some 17 years ago (and only slightly less ugly to look at), what’s meant to feel like a ret-con and/or a mulligan ends up feeling more like a terrible case of déjà vu.
At least the Hulk is red this time. That’s different.
Of course, the biggest difference with “Brave New World” is that its Hulk isn’t the hero. That honor nominally falls to Sam Wilson, who President Ross tasks with rebuilding the Avengers in order to defend the world from extraterrestrial shenanigans (like the massive Celestial who rose to the surface of the Indian Ocean at the end of “Eternals,” the other beloved MCU film that backstops this one). The only trouble is that Sam doesn’t feel like he’s worthy of carrying the late Steve Rogers’ shield. And that’s probably because he isn’t.
Where the first Captain America was lovable, haunted, and driven by clear purpose, the latest one is… uh… nice? Patriotic? It’s tough enough to save the world as an unenhanced superhero (an inadequacy that Sam isn’t sure how to shake), and though his Wakandan falcon suit definitely helps to level the playing field, there’s no technology on Earth that can compensate for the character’s abject lack of depth or detail. Mackie squeezes everything he can out of his cheeky smile and clenched grimace, but this is a film about a new generation of Marvel characters trying to prove themselves worthy of the legacy they’ve inherited from the founding fathers of the superhero genre, and the only thing Sam is able to prove here is that the MCU has forgotten how to earn our enthusiasm.
At this rate, the MCU won’t be able to get it back until it fully disentangles itself from the streaming programs that have diluted Hollywood’s most consistent spectacle into the stuff of mega-budget content slop. Easy to follow but impossible to care about, “Brave New World” draws most of its pathos from a movie that nobody remembers and a miniseries that much of its audience never bothered to watch (2021’s “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”), both of which would have to be extremely fresh in your mind in order to make this story feel like it was standing on solid ground. Danny Ramirez brings a puppy-like excitement to his role of first lieutenant Joaquin Torres, but this makes no effort to introduce him on its own terms. That proves doubly true of Carl Lumbly’s Isaiah Bradley, “the Forgotten Cap,” whose governmental mistreatment is at the heart of a film so concerned with saving America from its own worst impulses.
The action kicks off when Sam, Joaquin, and Isaiah are invited to join President Ross at the White House, where Isaiah is hijacked by some mind-control business — less reminiscent of “The Parallax View” than “The Incredibles 2” — that makes him an enemy of the state. It’s up to Sam and Joaquin to prove their friend’s innocence and find out who’s behind the plot before the bad guy can sabotage President Ross’ efforts to equitably share the Celestial’s resources with the rest of the world’s leading nations. Democrats and Republicans don’t exist in the MCU, but it’s worth noting that Ross’ campaign messaging is blue-coded in every sense, and his newfound ambivalence towards the “America First” ideology he displayed in “The Incredible Hulk” is motivated by a desire to show his absent daughter that he’s not the ruthless man he used to be.
That should be easy enough, considering that he’s literally not the man he used to be (a committed and sincere Harrison Ford replaces the late William Hurt, even in the snippet we see from “The Incredible Hulk”). But another minor character from that Phase 1 film isn’t so convinced that people can change, and he’s willing to bring the United States to its knees in order to prove that Ross is still a savage beast at heart.
I’m talking, of course — of course — about Tim Blake Nelson’s Samuel Sterns, who’s possibly the saddest villain the MCU has ever had. His skin is “Wicked” green, his brain is visible on the top of his head, his superpower is that he’s the world’s greatest actuary, and his only weapon is a 1958 slow-jam by The Fleetwoods. Never has a movie been in more desperate need of a Nazi to punch (the only marginally compelling setpiece involves Sam and Joaquin trying to avert a skirmish with the Japanese air force). Giancarlo Esposito’s Sidewinder does what he can to add some physicality to the action, but the character is so clumsily grafted onto this story that I was shocked to discover he isn’t a holdover from Disney Plus.
Frustrating as it is that “Brave New World” falls short with its fight scenes (and lacks anything else in the way of memorable imagery), the problem is hardly unique to this particular movie. The MCU has struggled for spectacle ever since “Endgame,” and though “Eternals” may have rubbed fans the wrong way, “Brave New World” is smart to recycle what it can from the only recent Marvel film that had any real visual ambition.
That it’s able to create even a second-hand sense of scale is almost impressive in the context of a plot so cobbled together that every other scene feels like it belongs to a different film, especially when none of those different films are comfortable addressing the real-world implications of the story that runs between them. “Brave New World” doesn’t suffer for shying away from the uncanny Trump of it all, but the fact that it sparked controversy for including Mossad agent Ruth Bat-Seraph — only to write that detail out of Shira Haas’ character while offering no other explanation or purpose for her role in this movie — perfectly epitomizes the MCU’s failure to find a moral center for itself amidst the mess the Avengers left behind, both on-screen and off.
It’s fitting enough that “Brave New World” is a film about (and malformed by) the pressures of restoring a diminished brand. It’s even more fitting that it’s also a film about the futility of trying to embody an ideal that the world has outgrown. Sam Wilson might find a way to step out of Steve Rogers’ shadow, but there’s still no indication that the MCU ever will.
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures will release “Captain America: Brave New World” in theaters on Friday, February 14.
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