Captain America: Brave New World Review
In pursuing the intrigue and high-stakes of Winter Soldier, this new Captain America iteration replaces nuance and great action with CGI mess, nonsense dialogue and a plot that jumps around like a third of the film is missing.
Sam Wilson aka Captain America (Anthony Mackie), after a successful mission against Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito) with his new sidekick Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez), is invited alongside Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) to the White House to meet President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford). But Bradley goes off the deep end and starts firing at the President, and after he is imprisoned, Sam decides to investigate what exactly triggered him; in the process finding out about a more sinister, behind-the-scenes villain whose terrible new tech may have infiltrated up to the highest levels, intent on creating a global crisis.
Brave New World had a lot of production dramas, which is potentially something that needs to be considered in the assessment of the eventual end-product. That’s because the film shudders and jumps from plot point to plot point without a lick of sense, and certainly with no strong and cohesive vision.
The villain is a palpable waste, an early Marvel superhero movie returnee who visually and performance-wise just simply doesn’t fit the tone or quality level expected from these films. It’s a fake-looking villain that undercuts any of the seriousness this film is going for.
There’s a plethora of other issues. The buddy dynamic between Sam Wilson and Joaquin Torres never works, the actions of President Ross never make any sense, the action is hamfisted and slow (and when it’s not, it’s full of unbeatable toys and tech that make any tension obsolete), and the mystery of who did what is just not that good. To top all that off, the appearance of Red Hulk is saved until the final act, the film’s big bad ending, but the trailers and posters have shown you all there is to see.
Above all else, however, there is the dialogue, which is a constant struggle to sit through. Whether it’s painful exposition, delivered with sledgehammer subtlety, or the frequently mis-timed and mis-aligned humour and one-liners, the film is an absolute chore to listen to.
Overall, this is certainly not the sort of Marvel project that makes you angry at how far they have fallen. But it is undoubtedly tough to hold your interest in it; and even tougher to be enthused about it.
