Watch out! The President is a giant red monster bent on destruction! Meanwhile, the latest Marvel film Captain America: Brave New World features the Red Hulk! BOOM! POLITICAL!
All hilarious jokes aside, the 35th film in the MCU (oh my god) feels quite divorced from actual politics, as it features a president who can speak in coherent sentences. Brave New World has the air of a political thriller but no real weight, a vaguely propulsive story that sends the new Captain America, Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), across the globe to determine who is trying to assassinate President Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford). What he does not know, but we all do from every trailer and poster, is that the real plan is to turn Ross into the Red Hulk. If only the surrounding film was as fun as that result.
This film has limped to release after countless reshoots, additions, substractions, and delays. Clearly no one had any idea what Sam Wilson’s first outing as Captain should be. What they landed on has very little to do with the former Falcon, as it’s somehow a sequel to The Incredible Hulk and Eternals, two of the biggest stains on the dirty baby blanket that is the MCU. The new president has spent decades trying to kill a private citizen just because he turns into a big green monster. His big diplomatic plan once in office is a treaty with several nations to claim the Adamantium harvested from the Celestial corpse in the Indian Ocean. Wasn’t sure when that was going to come up again, but here is as good a place as any. Numerous military officials and soldiers, including the forgotten Black Captain America Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbley), are being brainwashed and attempting to kill anyone around them. Someone is controlling things from the shadows: Tim Blake Nelson with a gruesome green brain head, as promised 17 years ago in the aforementioned Hulk movie. Exhausting.
Carl Lumbly is maybe too good for this movie – it’s heartbreaking to watch him be brainjacked and forced behind bars, maybe too dark for a movie where, again, the President turns into a Hulk. Especially since the Hulk stuff is the best part! Harrison Ford is strangely locked in as a man terrified of becoming the Hulk, realizing he has no control of his rage. The money really woke him up this time. I’ve nothing against Anthony Mackie, but he cannot take up the screen the way he needs to. It’s not his fault, since this thing has been cropped and screwed within an inch of its life to come out somewhat competent (every instance with Giancarlo Esposito was clearly added months later), but I wish there was more he could do.
Brave New World isn’t the recovery fans wanted – it’s not much of anything at all. At the very least, it was nice to see Liv Tyler on the big screen for ten seconds.
Captain America: Brave New World
2025
Dir. Julius Onah
118 min
In theaters everywhere Friday, 2/14!
