Captain America: Safe Old World

My Thoughts and Feelings on Marvel's latest Captain America movie - SPOILER WARNING

When the first trailer for Captain America: Brave New World dropped, it pumped me up more than I expected. The trailer felt like a ticking time bomb, pumping me full of adrenaline. I was (and still am) a big fan of Sam Wilson, and seeing him get his first feature film after the disappointing The Falcon & The Winter Soldier series, I was back believing.

Cut to February 2025, and I've just left the cinema having watched the latest Cap lead his first big screen feature, a good, but flawed outing, that left me satisfied but hoping for more.

---

Preoccupied with tying up age-old loose ends.

If someone pitched you a reboot of Captain America, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the plot would be something new and exciting, setting up fresh problems and posing a new villain for Sam Wilson to contend with. Instead, Brave New World feels too occupied trying to tie up MCU loose ends and picking up plot points left behind by one of the forgotten first movies in the MCU.

Every teaser doesn't have to go somewhere, especially if it's going to come in the way of creating a fresh new narrative. It was interesting watching Thaddeus Ross undergo his transformation into the Red Hulk, but the film isn't his film. Brave New World feels like an Incredible Hulk sequel that omits the green giant in favour of Sam Wilson, but his stakes don't match what they would have been given someone more involved with those plot points. Worse yet, because the film was teased so long ago, they have to include a 'previously on' section to get everyone back up to speed with what happened all those years ago, further pulling focus from the film at hand.

The film was Marvel's chance to showcase Sam in the best light and prove why he is the new Captain America. He should have been given a story that ties itself to past Captain America lore, or set up villains unique to him, not be preoccupied with making his tale wrap up dangling threads from the forgotten parts of the MCU.

Action lacked punch

I get that it's hard to keep comic book movie action exciting. There have been so many movies out there, all toying with different powers, with heroes punching and kicking their way to save the day, but the Russo Brothers made it all exciting. Captain America: The Winter Soldier was an excellent action film with many great fights, especially the street fight with Bucky and the close-quarter elevator fight. The action was done in such a way that it felt tense and exciting, and there was a real fear that Steve Rodgers couldn't deal with the threat despite being pumped with super soldier serum

This time, we've got a hero that lacks any superbuffs, instead having the capability of flight from mechanical wings. As a result, the film should have been able to give us a tension-wrought adventure, but much like a shark without teeth, the action had no bite.

'It did the job' is the best way to describe Brave New World's action. There were moments when it tried to play with the hero's utility, such as flying around to prevent missile strikes, but it never felt like it had any urgency or adrenaline; it was merely going through the motions. I never once feared for Sam, even when characters came close, I wasn't blown away. The film even ends with the climactic Hulk fight, a battle that should have been immense, and the best I can say is 'that it was fine'. That's not the takeaway I want from a film like this. The characters had the chance to give us moments of fear and nail-biting tension with high stakes and enemies he's out of his depth against, but there wasn't any force behind the movie's punches. Heck, he even gets stabbed and just walks it off a few scenes later. The best action heroes make us feel their vulnerability, but there just wasn't any of that here.

A Tangled Narrative Web

Weirdly enough, as the film was happening, I was fine letting narrative shortcomings fall by the wayside. The plot didn't seem to add up, but there was enough there that I didn't question it too much as it happened. Instead, opting for a 'Huh, I guess that works' approach. However, as soon as I left the cinema and started to think about it, the whole thing started to unravel pretty quickly.

The film is just a big build-up to have Thaddeus Ross 'Hulk-out' and become Red Hulk. As a result, the plot feels like it revolves around this central idea and does whatever it wants to get there, picking up and dropping characters as and when needed, with Sam just along for the ride.

The Leader's entire motive is to escape, reveal the truth and push Ross into his transformation. To do this, he purposefully orchestrates a failed assassination, attempts to ignite World War 3, and then tells the world about his imprisonment after killing multiple people. He's the main antagonist of the film, operating in the shadows, and now that Ross will change, he just decides to turn himself in, not because it feels right for his character, but because the film was done with him and needed an excuse to write him out. It didn't feel natural, and the whole plan just seemed silly, even by comic book standards.

The fact that The Leader was the big bad hurt even more because Marvel had brought a villain powerhouse in with Giancarlo Esposito to play Sidewinder, but his character fell to the wayside quickly. I haven't a problem with that sort of fake-out if the person taking over has the presence to surpass them (See Killmonger and Klaue in Black Panther), but Sterns was underwhelming, becoming yet another disappointing baddie in a long list of Marvel's villains, where Sidewinder could have been explored more to challenge Sam and cement himself as a good villain beyond his comic book counterpart.

Like I said at the start, I still had a good time with Captain America: Brave New World, but I guess it was on me to expect the next Winter Soldier. I'm in no rush to watch it again, but I'm hoping Thunderbolts* can live up to the hype when it hits in May.