If you look at the skeleton of the latest MCU film, Captain America: Brave New World, directed by Julius Onah, it kind of has a similarity with the second Captain America movie, The Winter Soldier. It is basically Captain America (Sam Wilson) realizing that a power structure he believed was genuine had some faults on a high level, and in his journey to rectify the system, he gets the aid of Falcon and a “Widow.” While the familiarity of the beats of superhero films has considerably reduced the charm of this movie and MCU in general, it isn’t entirely a bad film as there are certain winning moments in terms of character philosophies and how it paves the way for the next big Avengers team-up.
Former Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross is now the President of the United States, and he has plans for a peace treaty among the top nations about the usage of the newly found element adamantium. Ross used the help of Sam Wilson and his team to get hold of adamantium, which had been stolen from Japan. While trying to present the possibilities of adamantium to a room full of powerful people, some unfortunate events happen, and the future of Ross’s treaty meets a dead end. What led to that scenario and who was behind it is what we are figuring out with this movie.
What I loved about the phases till the End Game was the fact that there was a constant creative urge to reinvent the storytelling style. Various voices, like Taika Waititi, gave a different visual aesthetic and humor quotient to Marvel movies. But the off-late lack of interest in people in these movies has a lot to do with the films looking like their own derivatives. When I saw Winter Soldier almost 11 years ago, it had this dominant layer of an investigative thriller over a superhero film, and that was something we hadn’t seen in the MCU till that point. When it comes to Brave New World, what you miss is that inventiveness in the storytelling.
In the initial areas, the scripting kind of reminds you of the Iron Man movies, where the character introduction heroics are later shown as part of a major act of the bad guy. Then you have the typical Captain America phase where the Captain suspects everyone, and he goes rogue to find out the truth. What sort of works in favor of the movie is the chapters that show us why Sam was the most eligible person to carry the legacy of Steve Rogers. And there is that Deja Vu of seeing the old template in a different version as we are seeing almost every Avenger getting into a group, but with a really different dynamic.
Anthony Mackie gets his solo movie finally, and he infuses the brotherly charm he shared with Steve into this character and there is that unique aura in Mackie’s portrayal of Captain America. Danny Ramirez, who was there in the series Falcon and the Winter Soldier, reprises his role, and it seems like the MCU is designing him as this chatterbox fun guy for the rest of the movies in this universe. Shira Haas is playing an Israeli Black Widow. In terms of screen time, it is not a major character, but as I said, they are trying to rebuild the Avengers, and this was more like how Natasha Romanoff appeared in the MCU in Iron Man 2.
Harrison Ford replaces the late William Hurt as Ross, and as he said in the interviews, it’s an easy-money character that isn’t highly demanding as an actor. Carl Lumbly is there in his role from the series as the super soldier Isaiah Bradley. Tim Blake Nelson and Liv Tyler reprised their respective roles from the 2008 MCU film The Incredible Hulk. One of the things that I liked about Captain America: Brave New World is that they are not bombarding it with cameos, and it’s good to see that they know when to stop an overdone trend.
At one point, when the President asks Sam Wilson to restart the Avengers initiative, his immediate reaction to that is the Sokovia accords. While the punchy colors in the frames and the occasional tacky visual effects, mainly the final White House fight, are making the movie look more of a run-of-the-mill creation, I would still say some of the character arcs and the political layers in the film made it an engaging one.
There is that Deja Vu of seeing the old template in a different version as we are seeing almost every Avenger getting into a group, but with a really different dynamic.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
