Captain America: Brave New World

A rampaging demagogue, ripping apart the White House while being manipulated by a freak who believes himself to be the ultimate prophetic genius. Captain America: Brave New World was always intended to be politically loaded, but the 35th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe seems painfully on the nose right now.

The Captain America in question is no longer Steve Rogers, who finally went off to try some of that life that Tony Stark was telling him to get. Instead, this is the first full movie adventure for Sam Wilson (Mackie), the superhero formerly known as Falcon who picked up the iconic shield and now faces the same issues Steve did: mainly, how to be a hero in a political world.

Two of the Steve Rogers solo adventures (Winter Soldier and Civil War) were heavily influenced by classic Cold War spy dramas. Now Brave New World makes direct reference to a classic of the genre, The Manchurian Candidate, when Isaiah Bradley (Lumbly), a forgotten victim of the super soldier program, tries to assassinate former general, now president Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Ford, stepping in for the late William Hurt), but claims to have no memory of the crime.

There’s an inversion at play here. Rogers’ Cap interrogated the idea of an America that had lost its innocence, but could still find its way again. Mackie’s Cap never loses sight of his Blackness, and so his America was born of injustice, and his optimism lies in the idea it can be fixed. In this, Mackie makes an extraordinary Captain America – arguably for the first time, since he was in transition during the Disney+ series, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Brave New World is designed to resonate with those earlier films – indeed, the covert ops mission Cap runs in Mexico feels lifted straight from the opening of Winter Soldier. Yet what’s most interesting here is thinking through how differently Sam responds to a moment than Steve would have – as when Ross offhandedly calls him “boy.” In those moments, Mackie gets to really explore what makes his Cap different and important, and it’s in these moments that director Julius Onah is a perfect fit, having sought to expand conversations around Black identity and Black excellence in the much smaller 2019 domestic drama, Luce.

Yet Mackie, and the effortlessly charismatic Ford, cannot completely overcome the overstuffed nature of a modern MCU film. There is undeniably a sigh of relief that the script finally gives resolution to plotlines that have been left hanging since The Incredible Hulk in 2008, but so many new elements are crammed in that they all feel underserved – worst of all, Giancarlo Esposito barely appearing as merciless mercenary Sidewinder. An effort to re-create the buddy-cop vibe of Sam and Steve, or Sam and Bucky Barnes, fails with Joaquin Torres (Ramirez), the second Falcon, reduced to a discount Robin. Worst of all, the rush for the inevitable final, dramatic, climactic fight scene relies on forgetting that Sam never took the Super Soldier serum. The regular guy with a shield becomes another CG-enhanced slugger.

It’s undeniable that, since Avengers: Endgame, the MCU has been spinning its wheels. Half the films felt like they were wrapping up what we loved about the originals. The other half seemed solely intended to set up future episodes and were often dead ends, either through studio inertia, pandemic-afflicted box office, or lawsuits. It’s been a long time since a Marvel movie felt like a building block with its own structural integrity. Even for its flaws, Captain America: Brave New World feels like the series may be finding its soul again.