Captain America has been my favorite superhero for as long as I can remember. When Avengers: Endgame was released, I was very sad to see Steve Rogers’ Captain America go but I also was very excited for Sam Wilson’s, played by Anthony Mackie, portrayal of the famous superhero. Unlike others, I never had any doubt that he would do an amazing job and make himself worthy of holding that shield and I’m very happy to say that while watching the newest addition to the MCU, Captain America: Brave New World, Sam Wilson proved me right. In this review, I’m going to talk about my favorite parts of the film, things that I believe were done well, things I think weren’t done so well, and give it an overall rating. With all that being said, I do want to give a spoiler warning so if you haven’t watched the movie yet please click off now and return after you’ve seen it, and trust me, you definitely should go see it.
Let’s start strong with the parts of the film that are my absolute favorites. The first has to be the dynamic between Sam Wilson and Joaquin Torres, the new Falcon, played by Danny Ramirez (you should definitely read my article about him as well). Their dynamic was done so well that I truly felt like I was watching the birth of a new Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers or Tony Stark and Peter Parker. I especially loved the part when Sam visits Joaquin in the hospital and Joaquin tells Sam, “I wanted to be you, Sam Wilson. Because that guy will never give up.” Their friendship had such a beautiful light shone on it and I cannot wait to see them together in future films. Another one of my favorite things was the tiny cameo that we got of Bucky in the film. I fully thought going into this film that we would only get mentions of Bucky or acknowledgements of him but I did not think that he was going to appear in the film at all so I was pleasantly surprised when he did appear, even if it was brief. I also loved this because we got to see how the relationship between Sam and Bucky had grown since The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. I quite literally had to hold back a scream when Bucky told Sam, “I love you, buddy.”
Now for the things that I think were done well in this film. One thing was the easy crossover with some characters that haven’t been touched in the MCU since The Incredible Hulk, which was released in 2008. Personally, I thought that Harrison Ford did an amazing job as Thaddeus Ross aka the Red Hulk (rest in peace William Hurt). The villain of the film, Samuel Sterns, is also a character that hasn’t been touched since 2008 and I felt like the transition between then and now was great, especially since this was a character that needed to have that background of waiting years for someone to listen to him and help him. While I knew that Ross was returning to the MCU with this film, not having been seen since Black Widow in 2021, I was not expecting the great performance that Harrison Ford gave especially with the struggle between being the President of the United States that he wants to be and fighting back the Red Hulk. Overall, I was very pleased with how both the Red Hulk and Sterns, aka The Leader, were portrayed in this film. Another part of this movie that I thought was done well was the fact that this movie truly felt like a MCU movie. Now stay with me because this might be confusing for some but ever since Endgame, even though I have loved the movies that Marvel has produced, they haven’t felt the same as films that had come out in the early Infinity Saga – but this film did. I truly felt like I was being transported back to a time when Marvel was truly at its peak. We had massive action battle scenes where it’s win or lose, we had a villain that was trying to destroy the world, we had a superhero that wants to protect everyone and hates that he isn’t able to. Honestly, I felt almost nostalgic while watching Brave New World and I hope that Marvel keeps this momentum going.
As you can probably tell, I liked this movie a lot so it is hard to pinpoint things that I didn’t think were done well, but there are a couple that I noticed. The first one is that, to me, it kind of felt like some characters were only there to replace characters that have died in earlier movies. I felt this way especially with the character Ruth Bat-Seraph, which is already a problematic character for other reasons – mainly for being a Zionist character – but the remedy that Marvel came up with for this was not much better in my opinion. Instead they made her an ex-Black Widow assassin and throughout the entire film I felt like they were trying to use her to replace Natasha Romanoff, the original Black Widow. I didn’t like it and it definitely rubbed me the wrong way. I do believe that they could’ve just removed her from the film completely and that would’ve been the best option. The only other thing that I think wasn’t done well was that the Celestial Island – a main focus of the movie because of the fact that it contains Adamantium, a metal that is even stronger and more versatile than Vibranium – wasn’t as explored as I think it should be. Not a single MCU project has even mentioned the island since Eternals when the Celestial was killed and became the Celestial Island. This isn’t really a critique of Brave New World and more of a critique of the MCU as a whole because I do feel like they introduced way too much at once and are now trying to play catch up and it isn’t really working in my opinion. I am excited to see how the Adamantium is going to affect future Marvel movies, especially since that is the metal that makes up Wolverine’s claws.
My overall rating of Brave New World is 4 ½ stars out of 5. I genuinely enjoyed this movie so much and I know I’m probably biased because Captain America has always been my favorite Marvel superhero, but I do really think this movie was done well. Besides obvious reshoots and issues with greenscreens and the CGI, I loved almost every single bit of this movie. I love the actors – Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Harrison Ford, Carl Lumbly – and think they all did a fantastic job in this film. I think the storyline was done well, especially seeing Sam struggling with people’s expectations of him and the comparison to Steve. I loved the new Captain America suit and will definitely be purchasing a t-shirt of it because I think it looks fantastic. There was just so much of this film that made me so happy and excited to see it. Even though some critics (it only has a 50% Rotten Tomatoes score) and audience members have put this movie down, the movie absolutely smashed its box office expectations, ending its opening weekend with $100 million domestically and $92.4 million worldwide. Honestly, I am already planning when I can go see it again!