The Starlight Journal

We’re officially approaching six years since Sam Wilson was handed the shield and mantle of Captain America at the end of Avengers: Endgame. One of the pivotal emotional moments of a film that wrapped up eleven years of storytelling and sent the Marvel Cinematic Universe into a new era. Since then, we had Sam embrace the Captain America identity through the course of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier miniseries back in 2021, and that’s been essentially it for such a landmark character. Taking four years between our next appearance for our new Captain America, while Marvel at the same time desperately tried to make Captain Carter happen in both live-action and animation, has undoubtedly hurt expectations and hype surrounding Captain America: Brave New World. Our next Sam Wilson-led project, whether it had been this fourth Captain America film or a second season of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, seemed like it should’ve been a top priority for Marvel Studios, yet here we are on the weekend of the film’s release and we now know of the constant revisions and reshoots during this film’s tumultuous production. Reshoot discourse can often be exhausting, and many times pointless if the end product ends up being a success (Rogue One). With Brave New World, however, I feel it is baked into the discussions of this film, because it is very apparent watching the film that you are seeing a combination of the many iterations this movie went through during its production.

Going in, despite loving the Disney+ series and being fully on-board with Sam as Cap, I walked into this movie with middling expectations. The marketing for this movie was hit-or-miss for me. Some trailers really worked, specifically the ones that harkened back to the political thriller tone that made Captain America: The Winter Soldier one of the hallmark MCU films. Others however, I struggled to connect with. The reshoot drama, mixed reviews and early buzz, and what I found to be underwhelming visuals in the trailers had me going in not expecting something on par with the prior Captain America trilogy, and hopefully simply just a good time at the movies. Thankfully, that’s what I got. Captain America: Brave New World is a decent movie, a fun time with some solid action and character moments, and does really well when the, admittedly very crowded, story gets to focus on its main themes it wants to tell. The movie sets up a lot more than I expected going in that directly impacts the future of the MCU going forward. With the way the constant talks of reshoots, recastings and story shake-ups dominated the discussion of the movie’s development, I admittedly expected a fairly safe, low-stakes story that would hopefully satisfy audience expectations. While some of that is still true, the movie pulls a lot from prior, relatively untouched MCU films in its story and characters, and introduces two elements that I feel will be very important in shaping the immediate future of the MCU. There is a lot going on, not all of it works, not all of it is given much of a chance to breath or be expanded upon in this film, but what worked for me, I dug quite a bit.

There’s a lot of moving pieces, and a lot of characters. Anthony Mackie has been excellent as Sam Wilson since the beginning, but to see him fully truly be Captain America now for the entirety of the film was a delight. The action scenes were obviously fun, and seeing a mixture of the aerial combat we were used to with him as Falcon combined with the familiar shield-based fight scenes of the Steve Rogers days was nice to see in a feature film. Sam’s deeper character moments however, were the highlight of the film for me. Whether he’s sharing deep conversation with Isiah Bradley, President Ross, or our new Falcon Joaquin Torres, his character’s past as a VA counselor shines through, always looking to find a way to help with his words first. Sam Wilson is a character that never gives up anyone, even someone like Ross, who we have seen give Wilson and his friends hell in the past. This, among many, is why he is such a great Captain America to me. Having him just be a regular guy, an old soldier not enhanced by any super soldier serum or superpowers, you see him as a Captain America for the people, by the people.

Harrison Ford, taking over for the late William Hurt as “Thunderbolt” Ross is of course, Harrison Ford. He’s the G.O.A.T. for a reason. He came to play here as a new version of Ross, now the President of the United States seeking to improve from his past actions, rebuild burnt bridges, and struggle with his deepened anger and rage enhanced by outside forces that leads to his transformation into the Red Hulk. Getting to see that play out throughout the film and how the transformation was built up was another strong suit of the movie. I had my issues with the look of that particular scene and how Red Hulk looked in non-close up shots, but god damn Harrison Ford gives it his all here. Every scene shared with Mackie was great, still building off the tension and past from Hurt’s iteration of Ross, while making it his own. Carl Lumbly, returning from TFATWS as Isaiah Bradley, the world’s first black super soldier, was also excellent. He gives a truly wonderful, vulnerable performance that provided the film’s emotional crux, and his sudden actions at the White House lead to the uncovering of the film’s deeper mystery. It was very nice to get more direct continuation from that series, with this movie acting the same way The Marvels did for the Ms. Marvel series did as a film continuation of the story instead of a proper second season (that said, give me a season 2 of Ms. Marvel please and thank you). When the film allows for these deeper character moments, I was very on-board. The first two acts in particular, rooted in very solid aerial combat scenes, these rich character moments, an overarching mystery thriller that reminded me of Cold War movies, I was digging it, not really buying into some reviews calling this bottom-tier Marvel.

Where this movie struggles though is there is just soo much going on. As I said, if you’re fully aware of the reshoots and reworkings that went into the development of this film, you can see it in the end product. From the presence of many characters and villains that are underbaked, to underwhelming visuals and overreliance on green-screen scenes, it impacted the film not just narratively, but visually as well. Let’s talk about the visual effects now. The third act in particular, as we get to the Red Hulk fight in the cherry blossom garden that has been the hyped-up scene from the trailers, just looked bad. Everything just looked fake. Red Hulk looked poor to me in wide shots, Anthony Mackie looked like he wasn’t actually there in most shots, this movie has a bad green-screen problem that I noticed more here than I have in most big-budget comic-book movies lately. The bad CGI climax has sadly become more commonplace in Marvel films after it defined essentially the entire existence of the DCEU. Nearly every post-pandemic MCU film has had a similar problem. This to me was the most glaring. It was impacting my enjoyment of the movie and what was a pretty cool action scene bogged down by poor visuals. If you were going to rework so much about this movie, this is what you should’ve made work more than anything, and it just looks cheap. I made the comparison that it reminded me of the very worst we’ve seen from The Volume in the Star Wars Disney+ shows, where it’s very apparent you’re looking at a bunch of green screens in a smaller set. For a fight scene that is supposed to take up a large portion of Washington D.C., it felt very contained rather than immersive. This fight, as well as the post-credits scene, looked worse visually than just about any MCU project I can remember. For as much influence as the 2008 Incredible Hulk film has on Brave New World’s story, the one thing it shouldn’t have a leg-up on is looking better than a film 17 years older than it.

Speaking of The Incredible Hulk, it’s crazy how much this feels more like a proper sequel to that film than any of Hulk’s subsequent appearances since that often-forgotten early MCU movie. Many characters and plot points from the film return in big ways. Samuel Sterns as The Leader (complete with an uncanny valley look) drives a large portion of this film’s story, which I feel if that was allowed to be the main plot of the film could’ve led to a more cohesive story than what we got. Instead we have a lot that was added in, or characters that just felt included for the sake of being there. I sadly couldn’t get behind the new Falcon as a character, I didn’t particularly get attached to him in TFATWS and his increased role here barely changed that, complete with a pretty ugly new Falcon suit. So much was changed about the Ruth character to try and piss off the least amount of people, and well, she sure is in this movie. Takes up a lot of scenes and the most I can say is, she had some cool action moments. That’s about it. Giancarlo Esposito is always awesome, but he just felt like he was there to tease more of the Serpent Society in a bigger role. If they chose to add more from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier that didn’t carry over to Brave New World (we’ll always remember you, Sharon Carter), instead of adding these crowded plot points, I feel we could’ve had a better product. Instead, we get a merely fine, enjoyable movie.

I think your enjoyment of this movie will depend on your current feelings surrounding the MCU and comic-book films as a whole. If you’re burnt out of the MCU and are someone that feels we’ve just been treading water since Endgame, this isn’t going to be the movie that pulls you back in. If you’re a big fan of Sam Wilson, really enjoyed The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, as well as Winter Soldier and Civil War in particular, I think there’s a lot here to appreciate that you’ll hopefully enjoy. While I do wish more was continued off of from the Disney+ series, and like Moana 2 a few months back, I wonder if sticking with a second season of a series would’ve been best for this story, allow for the more crowded elements to be given room to breath through multiple episodes. Despite it’s mixed critical reviews, I think any talk of this being one of the worst Marvel films is ridiculous to say – a review I read comparing it to Sony’s Marvel spin-offs baffled me. I think Brave New World is a decent, enjoyable movie, that with a better, streamlined story, and more time dedicated to fix the visual effects issues that to me, really derailed the movie, could’ve been something great. What is for certain though is Sam Wilson is our Captain America for the long run, and that’s not going to change. I hope these upcoming films truly give him the chance to shine on the greatest stage like the character deserves.

The Starlight Film Journal is a passion project of mine focusing on my one true love – talking about movies. Thank you for checking out the first movie review back as I relaunch this blog! If you’re interested in reading my Janaury Film Journal, you can here! Stay tuned soon for more movie discussions and my Best of 2024 rankings! If you are interested in more of my thoughts on movies, I journal every film I watch on my Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky and Letterboxd and would love it if you joined the fun!