CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD - Mark Reviews Movies

Captain America: Brave New World, Marvel Studios

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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 13, 2025

Captain America: Brave New World is nothing extravagant, but that's what makes it feel different among its more recent peers in the so-called Marvel Cinematic Universe. Maybe the franchise's still-ongoing obsessions with multiverses and too many television shows to keep up with have been more tiring and tiresome than they seemed. This stripped-down, bare-bones, and mostly self-contained superhero adventure might be the most revolutionary thing the series could do at this point.

That probably says more about the state of these movies, of course, but even looking at co-writer/director Julius Onah's superhero political thriller on its own terms, the film is fine enough in doing what it sets out to do. If we're all basically grading entries in this franchise on the curve of them being nothing to little more than comic-book fun, this installment meets those basic requirements at least, too.

For some, it will also be the first opportunity to see a new Captain America in action, and that's worth something. Anthony Mackie's Sam Wilson, previously the Falcon, takes over from his super-serum-powered predecessor, following way too much to recap in a review. After all, that would mean having to describe the events of the first three Captain America movies, those last two revolving around the Avengers, and an entire TV miniseries in which Sam wrestled with the burden of inheriting the star-emblazoned shield.

Thankfully, the screenplay, written by four others (Rob Edwards, Malcolm Spellman, Dalan Musson, and Peter Glanz) apart from the director, throws us right into the action. That's the tradition of comic books, which could have long histories of issue-spanning and hero-crossover events but knew each new book could be the first one someone was going to read or had read in a while. There's plenty of back story from the previous movies and the new Cap's TV series at play here, but the script is smart enough to catch everyone up with the fundamentals as those elements arise within the narrative.

Right away, Sam is on a mission to retrieve a mysterious package in Mexico at the behest of the U.S. government. His iteration of Captain America is, well, pretty neat. He has the shield, of course, which he uses to defend himself against all sorts of attacks and to throw as a boomerang-like weapon—with the added bonus of pinballing off any surface it strikes.

Sam, though, has also elected to keep his trademarked wings, which have received an upgrade from his friends in Wakanda, allowing him to make a dramatic landing entrance in Mexico, to have extra cover to his non-super-powered body, and to swing at bad guys, slice through metal, and emit a powerful surge of energy. In action, the new Captain America is quite dynamic, to put it more plainly, and that lets the filmmakers give him plenty to do, whether that be trying to survive a shootout with only his wits or participating in a dogfight against fighter jets above the Indian Ocean.

The plot is fairly nimble, as well, seeing Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford, taking over the role after William Hurt's death), Sam's foe in the sphere of superhero politics, being elected President. The new President extends a peaceful hand to the new Captain America, hoping Sam will create a new team of Avengers and be open to working with the government.

Before any of that can happen, though, there's an assassination attempt on Ross at a summit in the White House. Sam's friend and former but forgotten super-soldier Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) is one of the shooters, but he can't remember anything that happened after arriving at the White House. Sam wants to find out what happened to Isaiah and who is actually responsible for the attack.

The script and filmmaking wear their influences on their sleeves—from the premise of brainwashed assassins (none of them from Manchuria, however), to plenty of shadowy figures conspiring behind-the-scenes, to even Laura Karpman's ominously brassy score playing under Ross' first introduction. This isn't the first time a Captain America in this series has been involved in some vast political conspiracy (See the previous guy's adventure in Captain America: The Winter Solider, if only because it's still arguably the best film in this franchise), but if it worked once, it can work again.

That formula does work here. It's as simple as having a relatively grounded (The ultimate stakes are about stopping a war, instead of, say, trying to save several dimensions) and standalone story (It is nice, though, that one of these movies has finally acknowledged the corpse of a giant alien sticking out of the ocean), as well as a clear direction for tone in mind.

The cast of familiar characters is strong—especially Mackie's mortal and doubtful Cap, as well as Ford's Ross, who wants to atone for his past attitude and behavior but has resentment, rage, and something else building inside him. The new or new-ish ones, such as a successor to the Falcon mantle (played by Danny Ramirez) and Ross' security specialist/former Black Widow Ruth (Shira Haas) and Giancarlo Esposito's ruthless mercenary Sidewinder, fit in well, and the villain working behind the scenes pulls from so far back in the franchise's history that he might as well be a new addition.

All of it feels like the filmmakers getting back to the basics of this comic-book world, where one superhero and that hero's adventure could exist on their own terms. The terms of Captain America: Brave New World are sturdily familiar but still fun.

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