The Movie: Captain America: Brave New World
The Director: Julius Onah
The Cast: Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Carl Lumbly, Xosha Roquemore, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Giancarlo Esposito, Tim Blake Nelson, Harrison Ford
The Story: Sam Wilson, the new Captain America, finds himself in the middle of an international incident and must discover the motive behind a nefarious global plan.
The Rating: 7/10
The Review:
Marvel has officially begun marching towards the culmination of whatever phase we're in right now (I think it's phase five?) by continuing story lines and plot threads that go all the way back to the early days of phase one all the way up to the more recent movies as well. I hope you know what I mean when I mention the phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) because I'm not even 100% sure any more. That being said, I was really happy to see how this movie really focuses on the characters and telling a good story rather than just taking things to the biggest, most explosive scale possible.
Brave New World is a very brave movie because the filmmakers don't pile superhero on top of superhero just for the sake of throwing as many of them into the movie as they can because they think it will increase ticket sales. The story is about Sam Wilson and Thadeus "Thunderbolt" Ross and the uneasy alliance, and sometimes opposition, that they have been navigating for some time. I can't really go much into the story and a lot of the other characters involved because I always want to keep things spoiler free but I will say that, like I mentioned at the beginning, we get to see storylines and characters from all through the history of the MCU have a part in how this story plays out.
Because this is a Marvel movie, we all know to stay all the way through to the end of the credits because there will most likely be a bonus scene or two along the way. The reason I mention this now is because, as I was sitting there, I really noticed how there was so many different special effects companies listed as having taken part in the creation of this movie which has become standard practice over the years and I wonder how much of an impact this has on why there has been so many complaints about the quality of special effects, especially from Marvel. I mean, there must be some lack of cohesiveness as these different companies are piecing all of their work into what is supposed to be a seamless visual narrative.
That being said, I didn't feel like there were any glaring deficiences in how the movie looked although there was a consistency in that my eyes never 100% bought into what they were seeing on screen. I've also been thinking more and more lately whether what really matters or not and is that even something to critique? I mean, these are kid friendly comic book movies that feature some pretty outlandish stuff, especially when it comes to the more cosmic side of he MCU, so I feel like there should be some leeway given if Red Hulk's chest hairs don't look 100% natural or if that explosion didn't blow apart all the little pieces of the White House in the way our brain's think it should have.
No, I'm not going to nitpick because why. Let's just have some fun with these movies like we used to when things were first getting off the ground and I feel like that's what Disney, Marvel, director Julius Onah, and everyone else involved were going for. Take it back to basics and just try to tell a solid story while showing off some cool superhero moments and moving things forward to the next movie which, as well know, will be Thunderbolts*. That's really the best thing I can say about this movie is that it's solid. There are no glaring weaknesses and there also wasn't much that would elevate it to the top of anyone's favorite MCU movie list, it just exists in a very solid middle ground that will be pleasing to a lot of people while some will feel disappointed that they weren't blown away.
Anthony Mackie was solid as his Sam Wilson takes more and more control of the Captain America mantel and really begins to establish himself as a leader. Harrison Ford was solid taking over as Thadeus Ross from the late William Hurt who did a great job of carrying the character through so many different movies. Giancarlo Esposito and Tim Blake Nelson are solid playing villains in this movie. Okay, you get the idea. Everything about this movie is solid which to me, isn't a bad thing at all. This is pretty much what I was hoping for and, with that expectation, I was able to enjoy every moment of it.
Brave New World really does feel like a callback to the phase one movies that featured Iron Man, The Hulk, Captain America, and Thor so it wasn't really new but it kinda felt like it and that was a brave thing to bring back to a world that so many of us have been invested in for well over a decade. In a way this was sort of a palate cleanser to get us a ready for what's coming down the line which has me more excited than I've been in quite a while to see how this phase of the MCU ends up playing out.
I did see the movie in an IMAX theater which was nice because some of the movie, usually the bigger, more action oriented moments, were filmed using IMAX cameras.
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