Captain America: Brave New World
Anthony Mackie takes up the Captain’s shield in his first stand-alone movie, following on from the Disney+ miniseries The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
Making America great again: Danny Ramirez and Anthony Mackie
Image courtesy of Walt Disney Studios.
To its credit, there are moments when Brave New World doesn’t feel like a Marvel movie at all. Taking the shield from Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers, Anthony Mackie makes for a more grounded, humanly complex knight in shining armour. And with the rest of the Avengers out of the way, it is up to Mackie’s Sam Wilson alone to save the planet. He does have a sidekick, the cocky, handsome Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) – aka The Falcon – providing us with a fresh Batman and Robin vibe. Joaquin is also an ace computer hacker, leaving the more physical action to his elder. And then there’s Harrison Ford as Thaddeus Ross, the new commander-in-chief, who is finding his first 100 days in office a trying business. Ford, who is the same age as Joe Biden, previously played the president in Air Force One (1997) and he does good statesmanship, and who can still swing a punch in his advancing years.
With five scriptwriters on board, Brave New World is not short of interesting ideas and the central premise even has a ring of plausibility. A new element – the most versatile known to science – has been discovered on Celestial Island in the Indian Ocean and has started an arms race. So Thaddeus Ross calls a summit in Washington to set up an international treaty to apportion the bounty (at this point, the US seems to share a special relationship with France and India). However, after a distressing incident at the White House, for which Captain America is blamed, relations with Japan become more strained, prompting Ross to high-tale it to Tokyo to pour balm on troubled waters.
Most Marvel movies rise or fall by the efficacy of their villain, and here the sinister and elusive Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson) proves more than up to the task. Exploiting the modern ubiquity of the mobile phone, Sterns taps into the resources of mind control, drawing Brave New World out of the interplanetary excesses of the Avengers films and into a frighteningly current world, utilising – and amplifying – a plot device from John Frankenheimer’s 1962 classic The Manchurian Candidate. Then, regrettably, in the final chapter the film sloughs any shred of credibility by going all CGI on us, to ludicrous lengths. And considering the phenomenal cost of the effects, it seems sloppy to see Carl Lumbly jump through a White House window as if it were made of sugar glass, while car windscreens more plausibly resist the impact enacted upon them. It’s a jumble of styles then, although Mackie and Ford struggle to maintain the action on an even keel, with dependable support from Carl Lumbly and Takehiro Hira as Ford’s Japanese counterpart. Notwithstanding, by the standard of recent Marvel efforts, it could have been a lot worse.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Carl Lumbly, Xosha Roquemore, Giancarlo Esposito, Liv Tyler, Tim Blake Nelson, Harrison Ford, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, William Mark McCullough, Takehiro Hira, Ava Hill, Sebastian Stan.
Dir Julius Onah, Pro Kevin Feige and Nate Moore, Screenplay Rob Edwards, Malcolm Spellman, Dalan Musson, Julius Onah and Peter Glanz, Ph Kramer Morgenthau, Pro Des Ramsey Avery, Ed Matthew Schmidt and Madeleine Gavin, Music Laura Karpman, Costumes Gersha Phillips, Sound Christopher Boyes, Dialect coach Courtney Young.
Marvel Studios-Walt Disney Studios.
118 mins. USA. 2025. UK and US Rel: 14 February 2025. Cert. 12A.
