‘I’ ON CULTURE
Before I saw the new movie Captain America: Brave New World, I was torn in terms of expectations. The first three movies in the series were spectacular successes. The first was a great, old-fashioned World War II flick with a supernatural and superhero twist. The second was an update on some of the great 1970s paranoia films, and it used Robert Redford as key villain as a sardonic comment. And the third, about the split in the Avengers over the importance of individual beliefs versus groupthink was brilliant. But early reviews of the new film were not good. The truth falls between the two notions. It is a pretty good film, but far from the quality we had in the early ones.
At the start of the film, the “Celestial Island” has landed in the Indian Ocean and an arms race begins for the new metal adamantium (think Wolverine) found there. Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford), newly elected U.S. president, wants to negotiate an equal trade agreement. But a cache of the material has been stolen by villain Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito). Ross tasks Captain America Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and his protégé the new Falcon Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) to retrieve the metal, and they do. Then Cap introduces Torres to old-line super soldier Isaac Bradley (Carl Lumbly) for training.
All three are invited to the White House, where Bradley and four other men become mind-controlled and attack Ross and other top leaders. They are stopped by Wilson, Torres and an Israeli Black Widow codenamed Sabra, Ruth Bat-Seraph (Shira Haas).
Investigating, Wilson and Torres discover that Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson), who had received Bruce Banner’s blood in a transfusion, was behind the whole mind control experiment. He had been imprisoned and forced to use his super-intellect to create weapons. It leads to a fun fight with Wilson, Torres and Bat Seraph. Later, they have a fun fight with missiles from a Japanese fleet and then find out that the president can be controlled to turn into “Red Hulk.”
Now all of that is a real lot of plot. And that is the film’s key problem. It’s almost like episodes of a TV series all jumped together. There is no real story arc. The villains are not even seen together. Our heroes take on one after the other. During the heyday of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, things all held together. Getting the six stones, fighting internal villains and consistent characters, kept things moving and interesting for a decade. Here the basic point seemed to be that it’s dumb to imprison people with superpowers wrongly.
The action is good, though somewhat predictable. Sam Wilson does not have Steve Rogers’ superpowers, so has to make do with better tech. And the fight against two Japanese and two American planes and their missiles was just a bit too CGI. But it was still better than many similar films.
Mackie was excellent. He is a different kind of Captain America. Steve Rogers was a super-soldier with extra strength. Sam Wilson is essentially just a very good man. I admit I prefer that, although it does take away much of the superhero aspects. Maybe it’s just because we really do need human heroes, and Mackie presents an intelligent, passionate example.
The supporting cast is really good. Ramirez plays well as the youthful sidekick who is smart, enthusiastic and can fight brilliantly. Ford played probably the trickiest part. Yes, he was an idealist, but he was willing to sacrifice some of those ideals when it worked better for him, but not for the people damaged. Lumbly was exceptional as the very put-upon and mistreated Bradley. I assume the contrast between his behavior and that of the other badly handled person, the villain, was planned. And Haas was a hoot kicking the daylight out of tough guys twice her size.
Should you see it? Well, it is a pretty decent movie, yet one of the weaker Marvel films. But I did have a good time, and so did my grandsons. It is worth the ticket price. So, I give it a modest thumbs up.