Movie Review: Captain America: Brave New World

***Mild spoilers for Captain America: Brave New World follow***

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7Muh5ZfmmmwRiXVBG5KqNw?si=hNJFTdmBRrmb8RmsJkUX6A

I tend to look back at The Falcon and the Winter Soldier positively because that show is the epitome of making the best of a bad situation. The show originally centered on the Flag Smashers trying to unleash a killer pandemic to wipe out half the world's population. Unfortunately (for multiple reasons) the COVID-19 pandemic broke out during production so they had to change things on the fly to remove references to that. The show was such a success for Disney+ that it led to the immediate greenlight of Captain America: Brave New World (originally named Captain America: New World Order which was questionable even at the time). What's apparent is that Marvel Studios wanted to make Sam the new Captain America but were not quite ready to go all in on the political implications of  that decision leading to a messy fourth movie that will likely end the franchise.

The biggest issue that will be abundently clear to anyone who watches Captain America: Brave New World is that this is very obviously not the movie that was meant to be made when production began. Whether it is that they originally had Ross be more of an overt Trump stand-in (I suspect this was the case) or they just wanted to have Ross be more of a victim or sympathetic character, fundamentally the imagery of the third act does not gel with the portrayal of things through the majority of the movie. In fact, in their quest to say nothing about politics in reality, they do oddly touch on the real relationship between Trump and Elon Musk. Very specifically they say Sterns has been pulling the strings to help get Ross elected while at the same time, Ross thinks he has complete control over Sterns. The whole time, Sterns is just using Ross for his own means including starting international armed conflicts with America's allies. At least Sterns doesn't take control of the Treasury's payment systems, that would be ridiculous.

As for the issue with Ruth/Sabra, considering the extent of reshoots that were done on this movie I'm not entirely sure why she's still in the movie at all. Aside from the actress's political views, most of what makes the character unique are completely stripped away. The character is Israeli (which is only mentioned once in passing) but she's not a mutant or a Mossad agent. Instead, she's a Widow from the Red Room. Considering we know a Widow who is working for the Director of the CIA and Ruth's scenes aren't the hardest to reshoot, why wouldn't they have just replaced her with Yelena? Going further, why was it not Yelena from the beginning? Considering that the central question Sam is dealing with is whether or not to rebuild the Avengers, Yelena being there would have made a lot more sense.

Maybe the reason was because they didn't want the movie to be entirely a wholesale reskin of Captain America: The Winter Soldier down to several specific plot points. Having the role of Natasha be played by Natasha's sister may have been a little too on the nose for what they were trying to do.

The inclusion of Ruth speaks to a larger issue with this movie (and the MCU as a whole really) where they are so focused on introducing new things rather than developing existing things. Take the Serpents who Sterns calls in to steal the Adamantium from the Japanese to kickstart the plot, why were they not Hydra or AIM or remnants of the Flag Smashers or even the Clandestine or some group related to the Power Broker or some other evil organization we've seen before in the MCU. It just makes everything feel more isolated and less connected which is a poor choice when there are only two movies left before Avengers: Doomsday.

In that same vein, the idea that Sam is grappling with the idea of restarting the Avengers as a team feels very weird considering the time constraints the MCU is dealing with both in the canon of the movies and in real life. At the end of Avengers: Endgame, there isn't really a sense that the team is broken up for good and, in fact, the post-credit for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings shows there is an Avengers team with Captain Marvel and Bruce Banner who then invite Shang-Chi to join. Why does the movie act like this doesn't exist? Why are there only two more releases (The Thunderbolts* and The Fantastic Four: First Steps) between now and the next movie with "Avengers" in the title and we are just now getting around to thinking about reforming a team.

I've said before the "Multiverse Saga" of the MCU comprising of Phases Four, Five, and Six really will likely be remembered as the Studio Interference Saga. It's the point where Disney kills the goose to get all the golden eggs out that they can. It's clear that this movie had a message and it was stripped away leaving this movie worse off for it and the universe-unifying plot point of reforming the team and the post-credit scene both show that there is no unified plan for how they're getting this saga across the finish line. The phrasing of the post-credit actually feels like it was shot when Kang the Conqueror was still meant to be the overarching bad guy because Sterns' warning mirrors the language of He Who Remains at the end of Loki season 1.

The movie isn't all bad and there are some enjoyable moments but it's a mixed bag. The highs definitely hit higher than the highs of the worst movies like Thor: The Dark World, The Incredible Hulk, and Thor: Love and Thunder, and the lows don't quite hit the same lows but it's still far from Marvel's best, and is easily the worst of the four Captain America movies. This is a movie I'd like to read the original script of because the third act reeks of political subtext that was removed. Like come on, Captain America fights the President of the United States at the White House because the president hulks out during a press conference because he can't handle tough questions. It's clear what they were going for and it's a shame the context leading up to the ending was cut out because this could have been one of the all-time great Marvel entries if they stuck to their guns and didn't bow to the phantom audience.

★★★★

Captain America: Brave New World
Directed by: Julius Onah
Written by: Rob Edwards, Malcolm Spellman, Dalan Musson
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Harrison Ford, Danny Ramirez, Carl Lumbly, Giancarlo Esposito, Tim Blake Nelson, Shira Haas
Release Date: February 14th, 2025
MPAA Rating: PG-13

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