CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD neither brave or new

“Steve gave them something to believe in, you give them something to aspire to.”

The new CAPTAIN AMERICA adventure is neither Brave nor all that New.

This weekend saw the release of CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD, the long-in-development 35th entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) that acts as the first solo film starring the new Captain America (Sam Wilson, played by Anthony Mackie) against a conspiracy enacted by the monstrous Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson) to turn the newly-elected U.S. President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) into a terrifying threat against his own country. 

Directed lazily by Julius Onah (The Cloverfield Paradox), BRAVE NEW WORLD is the kind of movie you’d expect to watch at 2 p.m. on a Sunday on FX. A film that serves one purpose and one purpose only, which is to set up Adamantium in the Marvel Universe. 

If that sounds familiar, it’s because that resource is what makes Wolverine’s claws (among other things). 

Attempting to set itself up as a political thriller akin to it’s much better counterparts THE WINTER SOLDIER (2014) and CIVIL WAR (2016), BRAVE NEW WORLD lacks the characters and plot that made those two entries stand out, and does a gigantic disservice to Mackie’s Wilson who came into his own in the much-better Disney+ series “Falcon and the Winter Soldier”. 

Where WINTER SOLDIER had Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff (the Black Widow) attempting to uncover a deeply rooted conspiracy at the heart of S.H.I.E.L.D., allowing their chemistry and character development to really shine and CIVIL WAR had a whole roster of Avengers centered around some powerful acting, BRAVE NEW WORLD is a film that moves so incredibly fast, you don’t realize until the credits roll that nothing actually happened. 

Everyone ends the film exactly where they started. 

The biggest disservice (despite how bland the film is, visually) is that we don’t have any of the camaraderie between Wilson and his sidekick Joaquin Torres aka The Falcon played by a smiling Danny Ramirez (TOP GUN MAVERICK) as opposed to Steve and Sam, Steve and Bucky, or Sam and Bucky…or any of what made Mackie such a relatable character from his miniseries which saw him spending time with his sister and her kids back home in Lousiana. 

Ford’s Thaddeus Ross, taken over from the late John Hurt, is fine here. The film’s “villain”, Tim Blake Nelson’s Samuel Sterns (returning nearly 20 years after being teased in THE INCREDIBLE HULK) is…there, and a waste of Nelson’s incredible talent. 

The film’s secondary antagonist, Sidewinder, is played by the always-talented Giancarlo Esposito and somehow this film found a way to waste even him. 
Two other glaring errors are the introduction of Xosha Roquemore’s Leila Taylor, a CIA agent and bodyguard to President Ross who, in the comics, is a romantic interest to Wilson but is introduced and played off like she’s nothing. 

The other baffling choice is the introduction of Shira Haas as Ruth Bat-Seraph, a Mossad superhero in the comics named Sabra who shows up for a few scenes here and essentially stands in the background. 

There was once a much different film here, probably one that enhanced all the elements that were left tattered in the Disney editing room when this film was called NEW WORLD ORDER many many reshoots ago. 

It’s also worth noting that Mackie has said he originally thought he was going a second season of “Falcon and the Winter Soldier”, which this feels like the chopped-up version of, and that he was disappointed by the pivot to a feature film. 

BRAVE NEW WORLD, neither brave nor new, is a fine movie to leave on in the background. It is, by and large, the equivalent of a "filler episode" with a handful of pretty good fight scenes that will distract audiences long enough while the movie shuffles cups around to fool you into thinking you're unraveling some grand design.

Those seeking the next chapter of the Marvel series which aims to be as good as it look should just wait for this summer’s FANTASTIC FOUR and THUNDERBOLTS.