Ticketworthy! - Captain America: Brave New World

You have to feel a little bit for Anthony Mackie. Much like his character, Sam, in Captain America: Brave New World, he is inheriting a legacy and trying to fill some legendary shoes. Also like Sam, he does a pretty great job while also making the role his own. Unlike his character, however, he has very little help.

The most obvious comparison for Brave New World is its predecessor, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Both are political thrillers that are less superhero and more spy movies. That’s where the comparisons stop though, as Brave New World seems to have no idea what made the previous movie so good. As a result, it is an absolute mess saved entirely by a couple of standout performances.

As Sam Wilson, Mackie carries the shield left behind by Chris Evan’s Steve Rogers. The good news is the uniform fits well. Sam is a commanding, likable, earnest hero who proves more than capable of leading a franchise the size of Captain America. I can even see him heading up a team-up movie like The Avengers.

That said, if the goal of the movie was to highlight how capable Sam is of handling threats at the level Steve did, I can’t say it does a very good job. The main baddies in this move are Tim Blake Nelson’s Samuel Sterns and Harrison Ford’s President Ross. Stearns is a mutated mastermind that routinely manipulates Wilson and his allies, only being thwarted whenever his plans become so convoluted that of course something goes wrong. This happens multiple times and it always feels less like Captain America has outsmarted the villain than Stearns’ plan just never made any sense to start with. On the flip side, when dealing with Ross’ Red Hulk, Sam is hilariously outmatched physically having to rely on tech from Wakanda to even stand a chance.

All of this is fine, but the movie goes out of its way to hammer home the fact that Sam never enhanced himself with a Super Soldier Serum because he doesn’t need it to be Captain America. Except, he really, really does. Every time Sam triumphs against a super-powered threat, it’s because he has some kind of enhancement, which kind of muddies the message of the movie.

By contrast, there are several scenes where he is forced to contend with ground-level threats, like Giancarlo Esposito’s Sidewinder. In my opinion, Sidewinder should have been the main villain of the movie. He is cunning, ruthless, and dangerous enough to pose a real threat while being someone Sam can realistically go toe to toe with. Their fight scenes are fantastic. Where this movie shines is in moments like that, or the great aerial dog fight sequence later on, that showcase what Sam is capable of on his own, without all the extra flair.

All of the additional characters are acted well enough, the cast is solid. Something about Ford’s take on Ross never quite clicked for me, but that may have been the script more than Ford himself. The standout has to be Danny Ramirez as the new Falcon, Joaquin Torres. Ramirez is energetic and funny and makes literally every scene he is in better. He and Mackie play well off of each other, much in the same way that Mackie complimented Evans so well in the past. I’m hopeful that Marvel realizes what they have in Ramirez and give him more to do in the future, because he’s one of the better new additions to this universe in a while.

The movie is let down though by its mess of a script, poor pacing, and some truly underwhelming CGI. Honestly, there’s no excuse for being this far into the MCU and having CGI that looks this bad. Marvel has enough money to make a good-looking movie, you have to wonder why they aren’t using it. Alternatively, if they aren’t going to make the effects better, why have them at all? The best parts of Captain America movies are usually when Cap is handling some kind of practical threat and showing off his skill and intelligence. There’s just no need to involve giant CGI monsters. Let Thor handle that.

I hate to be down on this movie, because Mackie is doing his best, and he deserves much better than this. Hopefully he’s given more chances, because I’d hate for this to be his legacy. I know Marvel is capable of better, I’ve seen it. Maybe instead of trying to push into a brave new world, they should take a look at the past and remember what they used to do correctly.