I saw the latest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Julius Onah’s “Captain America: Brave New World” (2025) in the immersive IMAX format last Thursday. The film follows Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), now fully established as Captain America since being handed the shield at the end of “Avengers: Endgame” (2019) and accepting his new role in the series “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” (2021).
Wilson must investigate a failed assassination attempt against the now-president of the United States Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, played by the legendary Harrison Ford. The role was previously played by William Hurt, but he sadly passed away in 2022.
The film also stars Danny Ramirez as Joaquin Torres, the new Falcon, and Tim Blake Nelson as villain Samuel Sterns. “Brave New World” features strong performances from Mackie and Ford, with the occasional inspired action scene, but the film sadly is held back by an excessive use of exposition and frequently shoddy CGI.
Since the conclusion of the “Infinity Saga” in 2019, many Marvel fans and casual moviegoers have considered the MCU to be relatively lackluster, especially with box office disappointments like “The Marvels” (2023) and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” (2023), alongside negative reviews for TV shows such as “Secret Invasion” (2023) and “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” (2022). Several other films have also faced poor reception and disappointing box office results.
The two latest installments of the MCU “Deadpool & Wolverine” (2024) and the TV show “Agatha All Along” (2024) were both critically well-received. Leading into “Brave New World,” many people were hopeful that the movie could continue the trend in the right direction.
“Brave New World” featured a long production, with multiple weeks of reshoots and ever-changing storylines and scenes. And as previously mentioned, William Hurt’s death only complicated things further. Five different people worked on the screenplay for the film.
As a consequence of everything mentioned and a few not, the story of “Brave New World” was significantly impacted. Most of the dialogue seems to have to include some form of exposition, while the film also suffered from a poorly written and underwhelming villain in Sterns, who returns for his second appearance in the MCU, his first since 2008’s “The Incredible Hulk,” the second entry of this long-running franchise.
Furthermore, many characters in the film, like Shira Haas as Ruth Bat-Seraph (a lot of history here) and the great Giancarlo Esposito as side-villain Sidewinder. Despite having a budget of anywhere between $250-350 million, some scenes have poor visual effects, with one climatic scene near the end so obviously filmed on a green screen. The film also features uninspiring cinematography. These are all familiar traits of recent MCU films.
Despite all that, “Brave New World” still has an enticing political conspiracy theory at its core, one that kept me engaged the entire runtime. This aspect harkens back to what many fans consider the best MCU movie, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (2014). The action in “Brave New World,” for the most part, is tightly edited, uniquely filmed and a smashin’ good time (pun intended). Finally, to reiterate a prior point, Ford and Mackie’s performances are the two major highlights of the film, and seeing Ford turn into and fight as the Red Hulk is incredible (pun not intended)!
Marvel fans are sure to rejoice with a slight return to normalcy in the MCU, but it still has a long way to go until it fully returns to its glory days.
Rating: 3/5
