To turn the franchise in a different direction, Marvel released “Captain America: Brave New World” on February 14, but the newest addition does not do enough to slow down the dying franchise.
“Captain America: Brave New World” was announced in June of 2024 and was presented as a continuation of the story initially introduced in a previous Marvel product, “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”. The movie describes Anthony Mackey’s character, Sam Wilson, and his ascension to the Captain America throne.
The movie continues this story well enough.
Anthony Mackey’s role of an up-in-coming Captain America is very well done and there are a variety of scenes where the audience can see the conflicts that Wilson has with taking up this mantle.
Besides Mackey’s performance, the new Captain America uniform also looks fantastic. Again fans were given a preview in “The Falcon and Winter Soldier” show, but seeing Captain America fly around with vibranium-infused wings on the big screen is a whole other experience.
The main villain of the film is a character named Samuel Sterns played by Tim Blake Nelson who was experimented on by Harrison Ford’s character Thadeus Ross and seeks revenge.
Nelson’s character is simply boring.
Sterns adds no suspense to the movie and his plan to take down Ross was spoiled by the movie’s advertising team eight months before the movie even came out.
In the first trailer for the movie and even on the promo poster the Red Hulk is shown to be in the movie as the alter-ego to Thadeus Ross. What could have been a great reveal was ruined along with the entire character of Sterns.
Samuel Sterns’ whole plan was to slowly give Ross pills disguised as heart medicine filled with gamma radiation, the substance that makes the Hulk the Hulk.
This plan was made obvious the first time that Ross took a pill and offered no intrigue into the actions of Sterns.
All these mistakes ruin the villain throughout the whole movie.
A villian being a takeback from a movie makes any movie much worse. However, what makes this instance so terrible is that it could easily have been avoided.
A secondary villian called Seth Voelker is introduced in the very beginning of the movie.
This character is played by the usually fantastic actor Giancarlo Esposito most know for his role as Gustavo Fring in Breaking Bad.
Esposito’s character intially looked promising in the opening scene but with Sterns as the main villian of the movie, there was no room for Voelker.
Because of this Voelker’s character offred nothing more than a cameo.
The shame of these mistakes is that it takes away from the fantastic performance of Ford as Thadeus Ross.
Originally the character of Thaddeus Ross was played by the late William Hurt who passed away in March of 2022.
Ford took up this mantle perfectly and gave the audience a performance that allowed for a once-hated character to be humanized.
Ross’s relationship with his daughter and his struggle against becoming the Red Hulk offered a storyline to root for throughout the movie, despite what the character did in the past.
While the reveal of Ross becoming the Red Hulk was spoiled, the fight between the Red Hulk and Captain America did give that plotline a satisfying ending.
The choice of placing the fight around the Tidal Basin in Washington D.C. where cherry trees grow and where Ross and his daughter used to walk also was a very good way of giving Ross a heartwarming ending and final redemption.
The addition of a new Falcon after Mackey became Captain America was another redeeming quality of the movie.
Danny Ramirez plays this new falcon called Joaquin Torres and is a fun and comedic character who acted as a great sidekick to Mackey’s Captain America.
While his humor is nowhere near as funny as characters like Robert Downey’s Iron Man or Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool, he does make the movie a little more lighthearted.
Overall, the newest addition to the Marvel francise does not take the francise forward, but also does not take it backward.