Written by Rob Edwards And Malcolm Spellman And Dalan Musson And Julius Onah And Peter Glanz
Directed by Julius Noah
President Ross: "You may be Captain America, but you're not Steve Rogers."
Sam: "You're right. I'm not."
I waited a week to watch this movie as I wanted to get the initial reactions out of the way and judge it for myself. First and foremost, I like Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) as a character and I'm a firm believer that Sam going from Falcon to Captain America actually made sense. Sadly though, this was a disastrous first solo outing for him.
Where The Falcon And The Winter Soldier in my opinion did an excellent job of making the transition smooth for both the character and the audience to accept Sam as Captain America, this movie almost undid all the good work from four years ago.
First of all, it's less of a Captain America movie and more of an unauthorized sequel to 2008's The Incredible Hulk and also sadly, not a very good one at that either. Our main villain was actually Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson), who looked terrible, was actively manipulating everything behind the scenes and just so he could get revenge on the now President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford).
The marketing might have pushed Ross's Red Hulk big time but he barely got enough screen time. Granted the fight scenes between Captain America and Red Hulk were decent but we've honestly seen better and it felt like it took very little to turn both Sam and Thaddeus against one another. On the other hand, at least Ross took accountability, which means he has some character progression throughout the movie.
Speaking of characters, there's a nice support system for Sam's Captain America here but a lot of them are not utilised to their best. Personally, I enjoyed the return of Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez), who's now assumed the Falcon mantle and was just lovable from start to finish. Sam and Joaquin get the best scenes in the whole movie.
Then there's the former Black Widow/Not Sabra here, Ruth Bat-Seraph (Shira Haas). Look, I know this character has her haters online but aside from the character overhaul she's given, I didn't have too much of an issue with her. Saying that, the movie clearly didn't need her at all. Ruth added little to proceedings here.
As for poor Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly). He was by far the most wasted character in the entire movie. A pawn in Sterns's hate campaign against President Ross and in prison for most of his scenes. I mean there's a few decent moments between Isaiah and Sam but not enough to salvage this movie.
- Fans of Betty Ross (Liv Tyler) should be happy that she made a brief appearance to reunite with her incarcerated father.
- Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) also popped up to comfort Sam when Joaquin got injured. We'll see him in Thunderbolts* next.
- Other characters to pop up included Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito), Copperhead (Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson) and Leila Taylor (Xosha Roquemore).
- This film did lay the groundwork for Sam to set up a new Avengers group. He's got another 15 months.
- The post credits had Sterns giving Sam a cryptic warning about a coming attack from other worlds.
- Chronology: Current day Washington DC, as well as some scenes in Tokyo.
I wanted to give Captain America: Brave New World the benefit of the doubt because the campaign against this movie had gotten out of hand. Sadly, despite it's best efforts, the movie's an absolute mess and a very disappointing first outing for Sam Wilson's Captain America. Anthony Mackie did his best but it just didn't come together at all.
Rating: 6 out of 10
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