In Captain America: Brave New World, there’s a moment when, after a battle doesn’t go his way, Sam “Captain America” Wilson (Anthony Mackie) visits New-Falcon-in-Training Danny Ramirez (Joaquin Torres) in the hospital and Sam, who by now is firmly entrenched in his role as the new Captain America, has a sort of Dark Night of the Soul, during which he ponders whether or not he should have taken the Super Serum or donned the shield in the first place. It’s one of the best scenes in the movie, the kind of scene that offers just enough vulnerability and character to make us buy into our hero and accept that at the end of the day, he’s just like us, which of source Sam is. He has no superpowers, and he never took the Super Serum like his predecessor. It’s one of the things that makes Mackie’s version of Captain America so different and the kind of scene that made the MCU a cultural phenomenon. Because let’s face it, those gazillions of dollars in box office brought in by the Infinity War Saga weren’t all from comic book fans, they were from people who’d never picked up a comic book in their lives, people who wouldn’t know the Dark Knight from Darkwing Duck. It was the kind of scene I wish Captain America: Brave New World, had more of. The latest edition in the Captain America series is at the end of the day, a fun little superhero story but might have an even better film that could have actually served as a springboard to the next stage of the Marvel era.
The story opens with Sam and Danny on the hunt for some classified missing goods, only to find they have been stolen by Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito, this film’s resident “heavy with legitimate acting chops), opening up a conspiracy that seems to reach up into the highest levels of the government. President Thaddeus Ross (played by Harrison Ford, who comes off more Joe Bidenish at times than the last time he played a president in Air Force One) invites Cap and Falcon to the White House, where after a foiled assassination attempt, our heroes are on the job to discover the true culprits and exonerate former Captain America Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly, an underused gem in this film). One-part whodunnit, in no small measure a surprising “sequel” of sorts to 2008’s The Hulk, three parts action-packed CGI summer tentpole picture in Spring, Captain America: Brave New World is a mostly fun and worthy addition to the MCU. It has all the Easter Eggs and meta-references you could want, good action sequences and special effects (see: Red Harrison, - er, I mean Hulk), a splash of humor mixed with heart. It’s a decent Marvel movie but not a great one, which, for this author, is just fine. In the eyes of Disney and the millions of toxic fans out there, it might just be the latest misfire in a dying franchise.
Something has happened to us and how we enjoy our movies. I am not exactly sure when this started, maybe we could blame it on the pandemic, which is still very much in vogue, but likely it began before that. Either way, sometime in the not-too-distant-past, we decided that tentpole pictures not only had to transport us out of the dreariness of our daily lives but also become a transformative experience, where we not only got to escape the humdrum for a while but watching the movie made life itself worth living. Perhaps this was the fault of the Infinity War Saga and the MCU itself, having set the bar so high it could never live up to its own legacy. It’s not just Marvel movies, however. Star Wars has the same problem, where millions of fans seem to not only think that these movies owe them something but also that they should make them feel like a little kid again. Both propositions are highly problematic.
I’m being hyperbolic of course, but I also do believe that somewhere along the line we forgot that sometimes it’s okay for movies to just be “okay,” a couple of hours of basic entertainment that doesn’t have to change our lives and validate us as human beings and lifelong fans. Captain America: Brave New World is better than just “okay.” Mackie’s take on Captain America is his own, he’s a slightly more thoughtful, less brooding iteration than Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers yet still is just as noble and heroic. His relationship with Isaiah Bradley (which began in the miniseries The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) is probably the richest and most poignant relationship in the film, flirting non-threateningly with implications of racism and social justice that deserves more exploration. If the film gets a sequel (I am not sure if that is what it would even be, maybe more like the latest chapter in the ongoing story?), I hope to see more of that. The way I look at it, as a lifelong comic book reader, is that if I picked up a graphic novel, and that graphic was Captain America: Brave New World, I would like it. It has heroes, villains, lots of action, and a few surprises (everyone likes a returning bad guy … not sure about Tim Blake Nelson as The Leader but he’s what we get here). For lovers of the franchise, or whatever we want to call it at this point, it ties in nicely to the previous films, including all the Avengers ones, and hints at things to come. It’s not amazing, it’s not going to change your life, but it’s fun, and that’s all it needs to be.
Comments