Captain America: Brave New World
Captain America: Brave New World
After meeting with newly elected U.S. President Thaddeus Ross, Sam finds himself in the middle of an international incident. He must discover the reason behind a nefarious global plot before the true mastermind has the entire world seeing red.
Tanalien reviewedAugust 9, 2025
In Captain America: Brave New World, Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) dons the uniform and the mantle of the departed and beloved Steve Rogers (Chris Evans). This movie could have changed the ongoing narrative of exhaustion, but it only takes a few minutes of the film to understand: This one ain’t doing it.
The film opens with a bland political speech given by President-Elect Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford). As is customary, this is followed by a been-there, done-that extraction of a metal cylinder, better known as a “goober.” Sam Wilson is tasked with obtaining the goober and taking out some bad guys. Who are the bad guys? What’s the goober? That’s classified. No exposition is provided. We are expected to watch people fighting completely out of context.
Given there are five screenwriters credited on Captain America: Brave New World, it is somewhat surprising how badly the film suffers from a severe lack of emotional stakes. Couldn’t anyone discover a reason to care?
The best solution the film can find is digging into the MCU’s lore, bringing back a trio of characters from 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, whose version of Bruce Banner, played by Edward Norton, was recasted by producer Kevin Feige. Therein lies the MCU’s new bane: The hard-core fans will love the lore-dropping, but the rest of us… are awfully confused.