Captain America: Brave New World, for those of you keeping track, is the fourth movie in the Captain America franchise (making it the third mini-franchise within the MCU to reach a fourth movie after Avengers: Endgame and Thor: Love and Thunder). This movie is an MCU first, however, because in this case, the hero’s mantle has been passed on to a new lead. So with Chris Evans gone, how did Anthony Mackie do in the title role? He’s certainly believable as Captain America, but one or two things about the movie ended up falling short.
We last saw Sam Wilson in the Disney+ mini-series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, where he struggled with the responsibility of taking Steve Rogers’ shield. Sam became a fully realized Captain America by the end of the show, and Brave New World picks up right from there. The movie also followed up on a thread from Captain America: Civil War (from all the way back in 2016). That being the situation of Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross.
Ross was heavily involved in the Sokovia Accords, which caused the schism within the Avengers, and had an estranged relationship with his daughter, Betty. By Brave New World, he’s president of the United States. Brave New World also continued the story of Samuel Sterns, who we hadn’t heard from since The Incredible Hulk in 2008.
Oh, and also the Celestial from Eternals plays a key role.
I’ve always been of the opinion that Marvel movies should be strengthened by their connectivity but shouldn’t live or die by them. Brave New World doesn’t give us a recap of Sam Wilson’s lifestory. He’s the one and only Captain America, and he works with Navy SEAL teams to track down terrorists (which appear to be the MCU version of the Serpent Society). Sam doesn’t doubt himself, and pretty much everyone he runs into is used to calling him “Captain America”. He’s also training Joaquin Torres to succeed him as the Falcon.
Sam’s Captain America isn’t a carbon copy of Steve’s. He may have mastered kicking the shield up into his hands, but he fights differently, he incorporates vibranium wings into his costume, and he’s more down to Earth than the living legend that was Steve Rogers. Even his experience as a counselor comes into play a couple times. Sam Wilson is capable of being the lead of a movie, and Anthony Mackie has been playing him for so long that this feels natural. The only problem is that Sam went through the bulk of his character development in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. He may worry over his role in one or two key moments, but this isn’t a movie where we question whether he’s going to quit being Captain America or pass the shield to someone else. Also, minor nitpick, he ditches the white-heavy costume for one that looks more like Steve’s at one point, and I preferred Sam in a uniform more unique to him. While he may not have much of an arc, the best parts of Sam are brought out either through Joaquin (which captures a perfect dynamic between a seasoned hero and his eager sidekick) or interactions with the antagonists.
General Ross may have been in the MCU since The Incredible Hulk, but with the passing of William Hurt, Harrison Ford stepped into the role. If you’re going to recast, you could do a lot worse than Harrison Ford. Much like in 1997’s Air Force One, Ford plays a president who has to navigate his way through difficult international relationships. Adamantium has been recovered from the Celestial, and everyone wants it. Ross struggles to deal with it, and, unbeknownst to him, has been taking gamma-irradiated pills. Sam’s scenes with Ross are his best in the film. Ross wants Captain America to re-form the Avengers under the command of the United States government, but Sam knows what going down that path means. Things between them get even worse as a brainwashed Isaiah Bradley (a proto-Captain America introduced in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier), shoots at Ross. The idea of government oversight and accountability of superheroes is a continual struggle in the MCU, and you can understand the POVs of both Ross and Sam. Much like Steve Rogers himself prioritizing his friendships with Wanda and Bucky over signing the Sokovia Accords, Sam Wilson finds himself putting his loyalty to Bradley first. Comic book fans (and anyone who has seen the ads for this movie) know 
that Red Hulk is coming. I was never a fan of the gimmicky Red Hulk from the comics, but to the movie’s credit, they don’t have Red Hulk just for the gimmick. They could have easily gone for some political commentary (or maybe not considering what happened in the US elections last November wasn’t a sure thing), but instead, they treated Ross as a fully realized person. We actually worry about him transforming into a Hulk. When that moment finally happens, the movie has earned it.
But Red Hulk isn’t the only villain in the movie. There’s also Samuel Sterns, the gamma-enhanced “Leader”. I, sadly, have to put “Leader” in quotes because unless I missed it, he is never called the Leader. There’s one moment where it looks like he’s going to introduce himself with that name, but he simply says he’s the hero. The wheels of the movie were put into motion by Sterns working from the shadows. His scheme is what put Sam and Ross against each other. This is where the plot fell short. Genius super villains who plan for every eventuality and know there’s a “77% chance” someone is going to do something can get tiresome depending on their goals and the outcome. Sterns was working on an elaborate revenge plot against Ross, but he didn’t really seem to care about Sam either way. There’s no Bruce Banner in this movie, so if we can’t get Hulk vs. The Leader, where does that leave Captain America vs. The Leader? Turns out there wasn’t much to it. At least it was nice having Tim Blake Nelson back in the role.
The cast in general was fairly strong. Having both Carl Lumbly and Danny Ramirez return as Isaiah Bradley and Joaquin Torres to expand their roles from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was great to see. Shira Haas plays Ruth Bat-Seraph, a Black Widow-trained agent working security for the president. At first it seems like she’s an antagonist for Sam, but she becomes more than a stereotypical obstacle. Giancarlo Esposito was the criminally underused Sidewinder. I guess he probably had just the right amount of screen time, but Giancarlo Esposito as a smarmy terrorist works so well that I wanted to see more of it.
I feel like the Captain America movies have some of the best action sequences in the MCU. They aren’t overly reliant on fantastical weapons or powers, so there isn’t as much CGI as, say, a Guardians of the Galaxy movie. The gunfire, the hand to hand combat, it’s all so thrilling in all four movies. Brave New World, in particular, had a great aerial combat sequence over Celestial Island. It’s the most we get out of Sam flying, and with both Captain America and Falcon maneuvering around jets, it’s one of the best sky battles in an MCU movie. On the other hand, Captain America vs. Red Hulk wasn’t as exciting as it could have been. Other Hulk fights in the MCU have been more brutal and had greater destruction, which is a must for a Hulk battle.
We’ve been in a post-Blip Sokovia Accords-repealed MCU for some time now, and they still haven’t given us the new direction in terms of the government’s working relationship with superheroes. It’s also weird that’s even a topic since many heroes with actual super powers are gone. Wanda is dead, Thor and Captain Marvel spend a lot of time away from Earth, and Dr. Strange isn’t even a superhero “per se”. Sam may have a shield and armor, but they made it a point to not give him the super soldier serum. He may be Captain America, but what kind of Avengers will he be forming and how many of them can actually be classified as “enhanced”? Even Ant-Man and Wasp rely on their suits for powers. There doesn’t seem to be as big a power gap between superheroes and the military as there once was, so what is going to make the Avengers so special?
Then there’s the absence of Nick Fury and SHIELD. Between Secret Invasion and The Marvels, Fury seemed like two different people, but is he really more concerned with the goings-on in space rather than the superheroes at home? They could use a more global guiding force like SHIELD once was. This being a US problem makes it smaller. We’ll probably get more on super powered government agents in this summer’s Thunderbolts movie, but it also feels like they’re just spinning their wheels until the Avengers are finally back for the next Avengers movie. From a narrative standpoint, we are long past time for an active Avengers team. At least Captain America: Brave New World putting that responsibility in the hands of the Sam Wilson Captain America is a step in the right direction.
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