Jada Hauser | The Washtenaw Voice
Henry Sincic | Contributor
 3 out of 5 stars This review may contain spoilers for “Captain America: Brave New World”, released in theatres on Feb. 14, 2025. |
There are worse ways to spend two hours than “Captain America: Brave New World.”As far as your standard superhero-action fare goes, it gives you most of what you want in the movie. There’s a lot of action and a lot of fun moments with your favorite characters and superheroes. The problem is, there’s no elevation. Nothing special is done to make this movie stand out from those of its lineage. Now, with more than 30 other Marvel movies preceding it, is when this movie’s lack of an identity becomes a major problem.
From the outset, the biggest problem of “Captain America: Brave New World” is apparent: the dialogue. There hasn’t been a film filled with more unnatural exposition since M. Night Shyamalan’s “Old.” It’s as if every screenwriter in this movie thought that their audience was filled with Marvel neophytes who had to constantly be told what was going on, or else they’d be lost. Granted, with a plotline that has been woven between dozens of films, that amount of hand-holding probably seemed like a necessity to the writers. But one wishes that some of the exposition was worked in more naturally.
This problem ties into one of the biggest traps that a comic book movie can fall into, especially those of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU): trying to set up too many future films. In the case of this movie, as with many others, it’s clear that they’re trying to set up the next “phase” of the MCU, with characters like Bucky Barnes making painfully forced cameos that don’t serve the story of the movie at all, but rather make an entry point for future films like this spring’s “Thunderbolts.”
If anything, comic book films should strive to have as focused a narrative as possible, not only because this is a better practice for filmmaking, but because it would better serve to pay tribute to the often-condensed narratives of comics.
Some of the very best comic book films of the last 20 years, such as “The Dark Knight,” “Dredd” and “Wonder Woman” used smaller, more focused narratives to great benefit. Even the Disney+ show that preceded this movie, “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” was much better in this regard, featuring an overarching narrative that felt just big enough to be cinematic without ever feeling bloated like this movie does.
“I want to go see a movie, and I want it to be one unit that I can enjoy, and I don’t need any backstory,” said Hope Bernard, a film instructor at WCC. “The Marvel movies started getting to where, now, not only do you have to see the other movies, but the TV shows too.”
For all of my ragging on this movie, there still is a lot to like.
The actors do great a job with their respective roles. Anthony Mackie is still ever-likeable, and the MCU’s newest veteran addition, Harrison Ford, does a surprisingly good job as President Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross.
The action is solid, though, as is common in the MCU, it feels overly reliant on CGI. Really, this movie should’ve been slipped in between other, better MCU movies as a summer release. As is, it’s a solid action flick; something to make the kids happy and to keep the fans tide over. Let’s hope they can clean these movies up and give us something better soon.
