Captain America: Brave New World
President Thaddeus Ross ran on the campaign slogan of “together,” a belief in and a promise of unity, an ideal which once applied to the Avengers until their ranks were split in the aftermath of the Sokovia Accords enacted by the then-General Ross to establish oversight of the superhero team who had at that point saved the world twice, though not without significant collateral damage and loss of life.
Steve Rogers having retired as Captain America, that mantle has been picked up by his friend Sam Wilson, his own former role as Falcon having been filled in turn by Joaquin Torres, the two of them sent on an urgent mission to Mexico where hostages have been taken by a mercenary known as Sidewinder whose contact, the buyer for a stolen item of significant value, has failed to carry his end of the bargain, leaving him in a volatile mood even before the interruption by the aerial taskforce.
The material retrieved and returned to the government of the United States, Wilson, Torres and their friend Isaiah Bradley, a supersoldier who served in the Korean War and was imprisoned afterwards, are invited to the White House where President Ross privately asks Wilson to reassemble the Avengers prior to the revelation of the importance of the stolen item to the assembly, a metal called adamantium obtained from the Celestial Island in the Indian Ocean, the evening interrupted when Bradley and four others in the room attempt an assassination.
The fourth Captain America film and the first to feature Anthony Mackie in the lead role rather than Chris Evans, Brave New World is about change, the handover of power and responsibility, as well as the broad and hopefully sturdy foundations upon which it is built, with Danny Ramirez and Carl Lumbly having been introduced as Torres and Bradley in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Harrison Ford taking the role of President Ross, originally played by the late William Hurt in The Incredible Hulk.
The opening shot of the Marvel ident in black and white rather than the customary colourful animated banner, the frequent split frames drawing lines between the players and establishing the divisions between them, the potential is established early for Marvel to break the rules as was done with The Winter Soldier, shaking and reshaping this corner of the universe, but instead the architect of the Brave New World is a stock mastermind villain, Tim Blake Nelson’s Samuel Sterns, originally introduced at the same time as Ross and languishing in a high-tech oubliette ever since.
Directed by The Cloverfield Paradox’s Julius Onah, as the thirty-fifth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the penultimate film in the fifth phase, so far with no apparent overall theme guiding or shaping it, Brave New World has high expectations and heavy carrying to do, yet with a script credited to five writers, some only introduced late for reshoots which are rumoured to have been significant, the result seems fractured and timid rather than bold and profound.
The mechanics of the plot clumsy, the audible signal prompting the assassination meaning any question of compromised loyalties and conspiracy within the government is obviated by making it obvious the attackers have been brainwashed and triggered, Wilson and Torres track Sterns to his easy-access maximum security prison with unconvincing ease, thereupon finding a handy evil masterplan wallchart detailing all the high ranking operatives who have been similarly compromised, prompting the duo to raise an immediate alarm to stop the plan in its tracks. Or not, if they would prefer to swoop in at the last moment as heroes.
Mackie a power player who is as worthy of the role of Captain America in real terms as Wilson is in the fictional realm, he deserves better than Brave New World, a film which might have been conceived in a time of greater optimism but which has been released under a shadow, the possibility of which it does not have foresight to address, second rate both as a thriller and as a superhero film and politically bland at a time when the guiding light of true heroes, capable and uncompromised, is more important than it has been at any previous point of the Marvel saga.
Captain America: Brave New World is currently on general release and also screening in IMAX
