“Captain America: A Brave New World” Disappoints Audiences
The Marvel cinematic universe is a franchise that many people admire. Whether it be the way stories weave themselves together, or the connections made from one character to another, the story is grand and had the perfect ending in 2019 with the movie, “Endgame.” Many wondered how Marvel would follow up with the cinematic achievement that the audience loved. At the end of the movie “Endgame,” the character, Captain America, renounces his title and passes the shield down to Sam Wilson. This year on Feb. 13, 2025, the solo movie of the new Captain America, was released in theaters and to say it was an admired and beloved movie…would be a lie.
(SPOILERS AHEAD)
The story follows the new Captain America, Sam Wilson, played by actor Anthony Mackie. Wilson is working together with a new character, Joaquin Torres, to get to the bottom of an investigation. Wilson and Torres work together to figure out who is mind controlling people through screens, after an attack on the President is conducted and the people who attacked in question, do not remember anything. All of that is going on while the USA is on the brink of war with Tokyo from all the mind controlling, all of which the president is trying to keep secret. The film features characters from the 2009 movie, “The Incredible Hulk.”. Throughout the film, “Captain America: A Brave New World,” the character Betty Ross, who is the daughter of President Ross, is repeatedly mentioned when she has never really been mentioned in another film prior to this. There is a constant attempt to try and build up suspense around the appearance of B. Ross, but ultimately when she finally does appear it feels flat and anti-climatic.
Going into the film, there was a sliver of optimism. Finally after six years, Sam Wilson would finally get the full length feature film he deserved, but the end result not only lacked the Marvel likeness of the 2010s movies, but the story felt like nothing more than a “filler” movie.
The classic wit, humor, and sentimental relationships of the previous Marvel movies was a much more effective way to balance the movie’s action packed scenes. Its diversity of content was unique from any other action movie, and really rounded out the characters and made them seem human. From the start of this film, the movie felt very different. Fans had grown to love the character of Sam Wilson, a man who has always been by the side of whoever he works with, and was a strong pillar to the original Avengers team.
The acting of Mackie never fails to be a well delivered performance, especially in this movie, Mackie seemed to be fighting more than P. Ross or Sammuel Sterns, in trying to make the dialogue of the script actually sound natural.
The only eye-catching aspect of the film was the fight sequences sprinkled throughout. The fight scenes were well choreographed and flowed seamlessly with the cinematography. The action in this movie was far from lacking, and every person got their time to shine.
If there was anything to draw the audience's eyes away from the film, it was the poor CGI quality of the Red Hulk in the final act of the film. In the final act of the film, President Ross turns into the Red Hulk during a press conference for the White House and destroys half of the White House leading straight into a ten minute fight sequence against Captain America. It was easy to tell that Red Hulk was the same Hulk from the 2012 film but painted red, specifically the 2012 film, because that is how old the quality looked. It was severely disappointing considering Marvel has had cinematic VFX achievement before like in “Endgame,” but Red Hulk looked rushed, choppy, and reused as well as just unsettling to see on the big screen.
The film had more bad than good;it continues the worry for the future of Marvel and the certainty they might not ever meet up to the success that was Endgame. While it is disappointing, unfortunately, it is hard to meet up after a film’s global success and the gradual decline in the company’s movies have been apparent for quite a while, but fans can't help but hold out hope that some day things might turn around for this beloved franchise.