Let’s talk about some good stuff first though.
The Good
Art is subject to interpretation and each person has the liberty to take whatever they want from a piece of media. For myself, I very much enjoyed seeing a brightly-colored, barely sentient, insecure “strongman” operating on rage and misinformation trying to take us into open war with our allies and literally destroying the White House on screen.
I can imagine there was more that didn’t make the final cut, because Captain America: Brave New World has been famously plagued with re-writes, re-shoots, and re-edits after not only testing poorly with audiences but also in response to a changing political landscape. I’d love to see what the first version was, because after The Falcon & The Winter Soldier actually had some meat on its bones in terms of racial dynamics in the context of patriotism, I can’t imagine the original vision for this film was set to throw it all away. But I’ll come back to that later. In terms of The Good, the imagery and symbolism was delicious to me and I ate it right on up.
Also, Julius Onah as a director seems to like an actual fight scene. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is in my Top 5 films from the MCU because the fight scenes feel like fight scenes with actual human stakes. They feel more like a 90s Action Thriller as opposed to CGI sparkles and explosions. Brave New World has that vibe, partly because Sam Wilson is not Bucky Barnes or Steve Rogers — he doesn’t have the super serum. He is a regular person like you and me, so when he gets stabbed, it feels like it means something. When you see him bandaged up or favoring a broken rib, it means something.
And while we’re here on the human stakes, not every movie can be about saving the world from an intergalactic threat. The Infinity Saga grew to be so large that it fully sped past a war between worlds and headlong into wiping out half of all life in the cosmos. After that, I quite enjoy when Marvel goes small. It’s a tough tightrope to walk though — how do you make interesting stories out of comparatively micro conflicts in a wider cinematic community where seemingly nothing really matters on Earth in the context of this huge universe with multiple timelines? Perhaps the hardcore viewers and professional critics say Marvel is failing at this, but for me, a casual person who just likes a popcorn movie, I think a Marvel film focused on Washington, DC and the potential of a regular war between nations is a nice change of pace.
Also quite enjoyed watching somebody else’s city get tore up so we can leave NYC alone. DC now joins San Francisco in the Let New York Rest club.
Casting in this film is another bright spot. Anytime I see Xosha “My favorite color is fluorescent beige” Roquemore in a movie, I’m just tickled to death, let alone showing up in a Marvel movie as the President’s right hand Secret Service agent. Shira Has was another unexpected casting choice. One of my top ten performances of all time is Shira Has in Unorthodox where she plays a woman desperate to get out from under the thumb of her Orthodox Jewish community, so seeing her kicking ass in the MCU was the last place I expected her to pop up. And Danny Ramirez — the new Falcon and my new husband — was an excellent choice.
He was pretty good in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, but he really showed us who he is in Brave New World. His charisma just leaps off the screen (and unfortunately outshines Anthony Mackie at every turn) and this drab little movie definitely needed his creativity, uniqueness, nerve, and talent.
The Bad
And yes, it’s kind of a drab little movie. Not so much a showcase for the New Captain America as much as it’s a sequel to The Incredible Hulk, a movie I remember absolutely nothing about. I mean nothing at all to the point where I went and read a summary of the movie after Brave New World. For anyone who didn’t watch the The Falcon and the Winter Soldier series, this movie is supposed to be our introduction to Sam Wilson as Captain America, but you don’t get the vibes of the first Iron Man, the first Thor, Black Widow, or Black Panther. Those films were about their title characters and this movie is not. It highlights the difficulty of having so many TV shows come out that are so connected to the movie universe.
When Marvel shows first started rolling out, the general vibe from the studio was that the TV shows were just extras you could watch, but they wouldn’t affect your enjoyment of the films. That still holds true for a Moon Knight or Echo or She-Hulk because these are not integral characters to the movie universe, but can you really take one of your central movie characters and explore his world and his origin in a TV show? And then give him a movie where he’s supposed to be introduced to the movie public without retreading the same ground you laid out for the television public?
I’m quite interested to see how people who don’t watch the television shows felt about Brave New World. Without watching the TV show, I’m not sure how much people will care about Sam Wilson. Also, Anthony Mackie didn’t seem miscast in the MCU, until now. I never thought of Chris Evans as a great actor until watching Anthony Mackie stepping into the role of Lead Avenger. Because of that, I don’t know how much of this ensemble can be allowed to rest on his shoulders which leads to the sidelining of Captain America within the greater Avengers network — it feels like we’re heading down a sidekick path for Cap even as he’s supposed to be stepping into his own as an aspirational figurehead for American patriotism.
(Sidenote: the entire time I was watching Anthony Mackie trying to bring emotional depth to Sam Wilson, I was wishing Aldis Hodge had been cast instead.)
The Ugly
And that’s where it gets ugly: there is no way to get a groundswell of support or buzz from the general non-comic-book public because Sam Wilson is no T’Challa. Black people turned out for Black Panther because we got to see a Black man leading his own comic book movie. Technically, this is the same thing and even a little more history-making. Not only is this Black man leading his comic book movie, but he’s also doing it as a representative of America as opposed to the blonde-haired, blue-eyed stand-ins we’re used to. There’s the problem though — no Black man wants to represent America right now other than those lifetime members of the Coon Brigade like Tim Scott and Clarence Thomas. Quiet as its kept, a lot of the MCU does have an undercurrent of patriotism where America ultimately saves the world. Even in Endgame, we have a galaxy of heroes coming together, but it’s a white man from the US who makes the ultimate sacrifice that snaps everything back to how it’s supposed to be. That patriotism is harder and harder to swallow the more the general public wises up to the true nature of the United States.
Aside from the unfortunate real world timing, even in-universe it’s a big stretch of the imagination that a Black Captain America would be possible. We’re supposed to believe that Sam Wilson has a Black mentor who was not only experimented on by the US government but also unjustly locked up for decades by that same government, but that Sam Wilson is also willing to wear that government’s flag on his back to help the US in its quest to control resources on the other side of the planet? It’s one or the other, but not both. That duality does not exist in any Black person who is invited to the cookout. If the mantle of Captain America came with the power to change the direction of the country, it would be more believable, but Captain America is just a symbol of American Patriotism and weapon of the US military. I can’t imagine a likable Black man who wants those titles.
Final Thoughts
The MCU doesn’t make terrible movies and Brave New World is not nearly as bad as some of the reviews would like you to think. I believe those reviews fall into two camps: the ones who believe Wokeness is ruining the MCU (even though they won’t admit it in their opinions) and those who believe it’s the MCU’s responsibility to make movies that are even more Woke and expect far too much nuanced socio-political commentary from what is essentially a popcorn flick.
You can make the argument for either position.
The MCU is now so big and so complicated with so much material that only the most die-hard fans will continue to keep up. This means the return on the investment is getting smaller and smaller because they will lose viewership with each project if those projects continue to build upon themselves — if you miss a few, you probably won’t jump back in. In order to appease those die-hards and to continue making money, they would do well to stay away from too much commentary about the world around us.
For the other position, there are hundreds of millions of people in the US alone who do not engage with comic book movies because they’re popcorn flicks — why waste the time? The MCU could simply make better movies that have something to say in order to grab new audiences.
Whether you feel Marvel should or should not inject a little more meaning into their films, take the reviews and the scores and the tomatoes with a grain of salt. Most critique of Marvel is unjustly harsh for reasons that have nothing to do with the actual likelihood that a person reading the review would enjoy the movie if they went to go see it.
Brave New World is a solidly mid-tier Marvel movie with some great fight scenes, a couple of charismatic side-characters, and just enough plot to tie up some lose ends and set up some exciting developments. It might be a disservice to Sam Wilson, but such a flawed character doesn’t need a lot of service in this particular season of America anyway.
Score: 3.5 / 5
Leave a Reply