Who decided that these Marvel superhero movies all needed to be 3-hour baggy affairs? Not that I didn’t appreciate those films on their terms, but that’s not the only way. Captain America: Brave New World runs a lean two hours flat, and I can get behind this approach, especially if other movies are as thoughtful and edgy as this.
The film begins with Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford, taking over the role from the late William Hurt) being elected president of the United States. Despite his unfriendly history with superheroes, he approaches the new Captain America, Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), to help him rebuild the Avengers. Sam is suspicious of Ross’ sudden change of heart, but agrees to work within the system until a White House press conference ends with Sam’s colleague Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) grabbing a Secret Service agent’s gun and trying to kill Ross. The stress has the new president popping pills that he carries around at all times, and you only get one guess as to what they’re for.
Good thing Sam has a new suit of vibranium armor from the good folks in Wakanda and a new Falcon in Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez), because he’s not only trying to clear Isaiah’s name but also avert a war between America and Japan orchestrated by Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson), the imprisoned mad scientist who got Ross elected with the promise of a presidential pardon, which Ross has now gone back on. The film has been made with Japanese audiences in mind, as Sam speaks to the Japanese prime minister (Takehiro Hira) in his own language and Ross talks about his fond memories of Washington’s cherry trees in bloom. The potential war is over the new discovery of adamantium, which presumably will play a part in Marvel movies up the line.
The Nigerian-born director/co-writer Julius Onah previously made The Cloverfield Paradox, which was bad, and Luce, which was really good. He’s able to give this installment a newfound grit without sacrificing the maximalist set pieces that Marvel fans are used to, like Captain America’s showdown with the Red Hulk, which takes out an entire wing of the White House. The opening segment when the captain takes down a gang of thieves in a church in Mexico makes good use of the new hero’s suit with blades on the wings, and the scene when a mercenary (Giancarlo Esposito) tries to assassinate Sam on the street is well put together.
The same can’t be said for Sterns and his overly convoluted plot. The character bits in between the action sequences do feel like they’re taken from a better, longer film as well. Still, Mackie well deserves a star vehicle like this. I haven’t seen TV’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, where Sam was promoted to Captain America and pondered the meaning of a Black captain with America’s history, but he brings a sharpness, urgency, and modern sensibility to the superhero that Chris Evans didn’t. Speaking of which, his brief scene with Bucky Barnes (an uncredited Sebastian Stan) demonstrates more chemistry than Bucky had with Steve Rogers through all their films. Sam says, “If I’m not on point, I’m letting down all the people who don’t have a seat at the table,” and we know who he means by that.
Some of the older actors who have joined Marvel’s franchises have treated their roles as paycheck jobs, but Ford doesn’t. He is effortlessly authoritative in a way that Hurt wasn’t, but he also plays Ross as a man struggling to control his anger and desperate to atone for his lifetime of fighting with a global peace treaty. Ramirez brings comic relief to the party and Esposito moves well as a minor villain who’s interesting enough to make you wonder about his story, but it’s Ford and his complex antagonist who gives the movie an essential counterweight to the hero. The movie is strongest when it’s focusing on this part of the story. Maybe it’s just that we spent the last calendar year without a Marvel film (unless you count Deadpool vs. Wolverine, which lies outside the canon), but Captain America: Brave New World and its back-to-basics approach feels like the reset that the superfranchise could use.
Captain America: Brave New World
Starring Anthony Mackie and Harrison Ford. Directed by Julius Onah. Written by Rob Edwards, Malcolm Spellman, Dalan Musson, Julius Onah, and Peter Glanz. Rated PG-13.
