Film Review - Captain America Brave New World (2025)

Captain America Brave New World is the 35th Marvel Studios movie and the first with Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) as the Captain and this time President Ross (Harrison Ford) wants to spear head a treaty over Celestial Island from 2021’s Eternals but sinister forces in and out of his circle have plans of their own.

Captain America Brave New World is not a bad movie but its also a movie that wears the scars of its troubled production and if you look close enough you can see the stitches of the various amounts of retooling this movie went through before release but before I delve into those I want to mention the positives and first and foremost is Anthony Mackie as Captain America, he inherits the shield well and the film works well when it plays to his characters core strengths such as his nobility and his time as a veterans counsellor, if this movie underperforms (and I feel it will) then I sincerely hope Mackie is not made the fall guy because in no way is any of this movies problems his fault.

Also good is Harrison Ford as President Ross taking over from the late great William Hurt and he does well when he’s not a raging Red Hulk monster but when he does become the Red Hulk which has been shown in the previews for this movie well I just sat there going “What the Fuck” as it just looked weird to see an early 80s Harrison Ford turned into a CGI Hulk character.

And there is where I will now go into the problems for this movie and those stem from a sense of storytelling that is not only messy but feels stitched together, I mean you have:

- The Government Conspiracy regarding President Ross

- The Celestial Island storyline

- The Serpent Society as its own storyline

And none of these feel cohesive in any meaningful way I mean Giancarlo Esposito’s scenes feel like their inserted because he’s either in scenes by himself or in scenes with just one or two other people at most and there is a big element named in this movie that I felt was unearned because of the connections it hints at that come at too high a price for me personally and a character comes back that feels like they did a Zoom call and they inserted it in post-production.

As for the action its fine but at times the CGI looks very pixely and the film in sections looks very dark like you can barely see what’s happening on screen and some of the hand to hand combat scenes are pretty good but not as good as what has come before.

And so that was Captain America Brave New World and its not terrible but its also not much of a movie either and those who were hoping Deadpool and Wolverine might have signalled a turning of the tide for the MCU are going to find it to be more like an oasis in a sea of sewerage, if you’re a diehard fan you might like it but if your not I wouldn’t be in a hurry to see it.

And on this final point Avengers Infinity War and Endgame felt more and more like the end of the MCU and those films like the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi did for Star Wars wrapped everything up so well that it made justifying future movies/shows that much harder and ever since that feeling has become more and more prevalent for me and I’m sure for many many others, 1.5 out of 5.