Captain America: Brave New World Review: The MCU Needs a Shake-Up

The MCU is in a tricky spot these days.

With recent missteps like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels (and most of the Disney+ shows), the very fans that built the MCU into the largest film franchise of all time have begun to grow wary of much of Marvel’s recent film and TV output.

As the 35th (!) film in the ongoing MCU project, Captain America: Brave New World should have very little to prove. Unfortunately, the fourth film in the Captain America franchise (and one of the final in the fifth wave of the MCU) is saddled with tying up various loose ends from the past 15 years of MCU history and given little runway to forge a new path forward for the character.

Directed by Julius Onah (The Cloverfield Paradox), Captain America: Brave New World is the first film in the franchise to feature Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) as the new Captain America. Chosen by Steve Rogers to follow in his footsteps, the film is meant to kick-start a new era for the character, introducing one of the few Black leading roles into the MCU and setting the stage for the next phase of the MCU.

Unfortunately, rather than serving as a victory lap for Sam Wilson, Captain America: Brave New World is a disjointed mess that seems to be struggling to justify its own existence.

Taking a page from 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier (one of the strongest films in the MCU), Brave New World strives to be a political conspiracy thriller in the mold of 3 Days of the Condor. Sam Wilson and Joaquin Torres (the new Falcon) are tasked by US President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) to stop the sale of classified stolen material by the Serpent Society, led by the mysterious Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito).

Captain American and The Falcon then find themselves in the middle of a complex web of intrigue involving Sam’s former trainer Isaiah Bradley, a retired super soldier who was experimented on and then discarded by the US military, a mind control plot, a mysterious ringleader known as The Leader (Tim Blake Nelson), and a rampaging red-tinged Hulk (Ford).

With a whopping five writers credited to the script, Captain America: Brave New World is over-stuffed with plot lines and characters yet still feels mostly inert. The first hour moves along briskly as it sets up the mystery at the heart of the story, but the second half of the film devolves into a sub-standard MCU smash session as Falcon eventually squares off with the Red Hulk.

There are some moments of fan service here that do work (the MCU finally references the Celestial in the middle of the ocean that has gone unremarked upon for years now), and the hints towards future MCU character appearances are a fun touch.

Anthony Mackie is as charismatic as ever, and the film could have used more of his banter with Joaquin Torres, who injects the film with its few bursts of energy.

Other than those few bright spots, Captain America: Brave New World is a slog. The washed-out color palette is drab and ugly, and the film feels edited to within an inch of its life. You can feel how the film was re-cut and pieced together over time (something the extensive re-shoots can attest to).

Worst of all, the film just isn’t much fun. There is so much going on at all times, but little of it holds any interest. Characters come and go with little warning or explanation, and the main battle sequence that the film’s marketing has pushed to the forefront is brisk and fairly inconsequential.

The themes of the film are also murky; the notion of an out-of-control monster in charge of the White House is an idea ripe for exploration, but the writers never approach those potential perils. Instead, like most things in the MCU, it simply devolves into a massive CGI Boss Battle.

Hopefully, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige is simply asking filmmakers to clear out all the cobwebs that have been lingering in the depths of the MCU before setting the stage for the next (sixth) phase of films. If this is the best that the MCU can do after 35 films, it may be time for a major shake-up.

Captain America: Brave New World is in theatres now.