Review: Anthony Mackie's Captain America deserves better than 'Brave New World'
“Captain America: Brave New World” never reaches the heights of other Marvel movies starring a guy with a star-spangled shield. It does turn Harrison Ford into a ruby-red rage monster, though, so it didn't totally fail the assignment.
A veteran of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for a decade now, Anthony Mackie faithfully has taken the Captain America mantle from Chris Evans and given Cap new swagger and vulnerability. He’s not the problem with director Julius Onah’s geopolitically tinged “Brave New World” (★★½ out of four; rated PG-13; in theaters now). That culprit is an unruly narrative that starts as a paranoia thriller (a la “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”) and devolves into a campy “Hulk smash!” fest. The fact that Mackie puts the thing on his own mighty shoulders (with some help from talented castmates) and keeps it watchable is a minor miracle.
Join our Watch Party! Sign up to receive Paste BN's movie and TV recommendations right in your inbox.
The film is also not exactly an escape since their fictional world is on metaphorical fire, too. Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (played by Ford, taking over for the late William Hurt) has just been elected president on a “Togetherness” platform but his hotheaded history and bureaucratic antics to tear the Avengers apart have put him on shaky ground. His first 100 days are almost up, and he desperately needs a multinational treaty to mine a wondrous new element called Adamantium.
Sam Wilson (Mackie) is no fan of Ross but decides being quasi-friendly to the president in power is better than not. He’s invited to the White House for an international summit and Ross wants his help rebuilding the Avengers. But their armistice goes sideways when Sam’s close friend Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), a Black super-soldier locked up and experimented on by the government for 30 years, is mind-controlled as part of an assassination attempt on Ross.
There are enough meaty themes going on there to unleash an intelligent, superhero-filled take on real-world political agendas. (Mackie's "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" TV show did a better job in that regard.) Sam and his high-flying partner Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) venture out to find the mystery person behind the terrorist attack. But “Brave New World” loses its way by throwing in a litany of subplots including an air-and-sea battle where Captain America has to stave off World War III and a revenge scheme that transforms Ross into an angry Red Hulk.
The new “Captain America” borrows liberally from “Winter Soldier” – if you’re going to ape another Marvel movie, might as well be the best one – but also weaves in story points and characters from “The Eternals” and “The Incredible Hulk.” Unlike earlier standouts, most recent Marvel films are more interested in threading the past to its future than doing something exciting in the present. Cap and Red Hulk pummeling each other and tearing Washington apart during cherry blossom season is fine and all but it doesn’t make for a stellar adventure.
Still, the cast does its part. Ford gives a bit of added depth to the antagonistic Ross before hulking out while Tim Blake Nelson reprises his role as big-brain Samuel Sterns from “Incredible Hulk” in notable fashion. Giancarlo Esposito is wonderfully nasty as mercenary Sidewinder – just him vs. Mackie for two hours would have been a better film – and Shira Haas is sensational as Ruth Bat-Seraph, Ross’ enigmatic Israeli security adviser who was trained by the same deadly folks who unleashed Black Widow.
Then there’s Mackie, the coolest actor Marvel has hired this side of Robert Downey Jr. As excellent as Evans was as Cap, Mackie’s shown equal skill in crafting his own version of what that character should mean – in his case, weathering the pressures and politics of being a national symbol and being as adept with his words as his fists.
Hopefully, next time he’s given a “Captain America” film that doesn’t let him down this hard.