Captain America: Brave New World ★★

Released: 14th February 2025

Director: Julius Onah

Starring: Anthony Mackie, Harrison Ford, Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Carl Lumbly, Tim Blake Nelson & Giancarlo Esposito

Together – that is the operative word running through the veins of Captain America: Brave New World. President-elect Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross (Harrison Ford) walks onto the stage with the promise of a new age of global politics. When alien threats are amongst us, only “together” can we heal our divisions and chart a “better way forward”.

The irony is not lost here. As the first Marvel film released since the 2024 US election, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has somewhat found itself in a funny place. Avengers: Endgame feels like a century ago, with its success proving hard to replicate. The Multiverse saga has introduced various characters with no concrete follow-ups. Last year’s Deadpool & Wolverine was its “Marvel’s back!” announcement despite possessing all the energy of a Comic-Con crowd movie whilst neglecting the forgotten successes that did come out of Phase 4 (Guardians Vol.3 and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever). Thirty-five films in and nearing the end of Phase 5, Brave New World feels like another reset button pressed, and yet, whatever clean slate it imagines itself to be is off to a rough start. 

Somewhere buried within its story, there’s a smart 1990s political thriller encased within its framework, the kind of mid-tier genre films that Hollywood used to make, fraught with political espionage, terror, intrigue and mistrust. Here, the recently elected President is in the first 100 days of power, working on a global treaty over the use of Eternals’ Tiamut the Communicator (now aptly renamed Celestial Island) and the newly discovered raw mineral adamantium (somewhere out there, Wakanda are breathing a sigh of relief). After preventing an underground arms deal involving Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito), Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) is tasked with a new directive: assemble the new Avengers. “The country needs this”, the President cites, until he is nearly assassinated and threatens global peace by sending the country to the brink of war.

With mind control and infiltration all in play within Ross’ compromised circle, the MCU is no stranger to this premise, having used the same template with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a 70s-inspired conspiracy film riffing off All the President’s Men, The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor. However, director Julius Onah (of The Cloverfield Paradox and Luce fame), cannot tap into the mechanisms that made those referential elements work and ultimately crafts a simulated cosplay version of material done better before.

The concerning part is how writers Rob Edwards, Malcolm Spellman, Dalan Musson, Peter Glanz and Onah fail to stamp their own authority with the story. Their attempt to bridge the gap between Brave New World and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier carries the same problematic issues that had befallen the Disney+ show. The series explores Sam’s reconciliation with Captain America’s legacy. When Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) bestowed him with the honour, it was a reward for a friend, but he never had to contemplate or confront what that honour would mean for a Black man. The series choppily explores the weight of Sam fighting for a divided America and its broken institutions. The introduction of Carl Lumbly’s Isaiah Bradley, the ‘Hidden Figure’ Captain America subjected to Tuskegee-like experiments of the super-soldier serum and subsequently incarceration for over 30 years, reveals two sides of America: the one that celebrates freedom, truth, justice and patriotism draped in the stars and stripes flag. And the other – the one that profited, subjugated, killed and built their wealth and successes off of Black slavery, segregation and exploitation.  

There’s an element of Brave New World where it wants to move past that. Return to “normalcy” as it poses (the irony being how can normalcy exist when alien invasion attacks on Earth have become ‘the new normal’). Yet its non-committal indifference to understanding America’s conservative legacy repeats the same beats as its Disney+ series, including Sam’s worthiness to carry the mantle.

The script – which feels like an amalgamation of several drafts before completion – feels scared of how it wants to tackle Sam’s newfound elevation and stances. In The Winter Soldier (one of the MCU’s best), Steve Rogers called out the political hypocrisy in how S.H.I.E.L.D. was developing a surveillance culture with the infamous line, “this isn’t freedom, this is fear”. Brave New World positions Sam as a “both sides” Avenger where diplomacy is front and centre. Surface-level admiralty aside, when that notion is constantly challenged as Sam finds himself in, and the subsequent treatment of Bradley’s incarceration, then the question naturally posed is simple: why fight for a broken system that doesn’t fight for you? Brave New World doesn’t have a tactful response, plodding from one scene to another as it leaves its character beats behind. Unlike its title, ‘brave’ is not the operative word here. It’s a safe, bland and inoffensive Captain America film that wants to be everything for everyone, but ends up standing for nothing.

Mackie is doing his utmost best here despite these limitations or when the story doesn’t return the favour. He’s not Steve Rogers and when the film remembers that, Mackie swiftly comes into his own and holds it together. Wilson’s charm shines through at opportune moments. His friendship with Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) has the potential to be a major force in the MCU. Meanwhile, Isaiah Bradley remains the best element from the Disney+ show as Sam’s emotional anchor and ‘reality check’. And one of the coolest additions to Cap’s suit is his vibranium-laced falcon wings, carrying the same kinetic energy as Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa’s suit. There’s even an off-shoot joke that the Wakandians presented their gift to Sam using vibranium wrapping paper.

But that’s as far as Onah’s film is willing to go, unable to evolve Sam through these geo-political and societal shifts or how he wants to establish the new Avengers in his own image without the guise of those who could easily manipulate its creation. Instead, the lens zeroes in on Ross in this direct sequel to The Incredible Hulk (2008). Ford is at his best when wrestling with Ross’ internal conflicts, a president who wants to change yet trapped by his hot-tempered past mistakes as a wartime general. It’s further weighed in by his desperate hope of reconnecting with his estranged daughter Betty (Liv Tyler) who has never forgiven him for his actions over Bruce Banner (Edward Norton). But even with the pushed buttons of Tim Blake Nelson’s Samuel Sterns, the Red Hulk reveal never feels like an emotional reward. Everything in Brave New World exists without conversation, never patient enough to engage in its subject matter. 

For a globe-spanning film, be it the political heartlands of Washington D.C. or a sea battle fight over adamantium at Celestial Island, even the canvas is small. The generic staleness is symptomatic of a growing issue within the MCU where directors (except a few) have struggled to leave a distinct visual style. Onah is the latest to struggle with Brave New World’s rushed aesthetic output, where the action feels strangely sub-par, side characters are left with exposition dumping, and even the poor Japanese have their culture reduced to a cherry-blossom backdrop.

The one ace card trick up the MCU’s sleeve has always been its long-haul game, that eventual tease to the next major film until it reaches the endgame prize. But even that is not enough to carry this film through to safety. The lack of genuine tension and stakes misses the potential of being a taut political thriller, afraid to cross the ‘complicated’ borders and bound by empty gestures and the weightlessness of its themes. Despite Mackie and Ford’s best efforts, a disappointing and lacklustre filler shouldn’t be the feeling associated with Captain America, and yet, this star-spangled film is devoid of care and heart.