The movie “Captain America: Brave New World” was released this past Valentine’s Day and is currently playing at various theaters in the Amherst area, and across the country.
The plot of this movie is wildly overstuffed and messy, according to Forbes. The movie is an entertaining political thriller, depicting how the new Captain America, Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), faces persistent challenges from the White House.
A corrupt Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford), who has just assumed office as the President of the United States, is responsible for unjustly imprisoning Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) and torturing Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson) but attempts to hide these wrongdoings to save face.
The film kicks off with President Ross beginning his term and delivering a speech at the White House about a newly discovered element, Adamantium. This element is significant as it is nearly indestructible and could greatly advance fields such as technology and medicine.
However, during the speech, five audience members attempt to assassinate Ross. Alongside the Secret Service, Captain America fights these five people off. While unclear during the conflict, these people were brainwashed by Samuel Sterns to attack through technologies within the White House.
Due to this lack of security as viewed by other nations, Ross faces diplomatic complications amidst putting forth a new treaty because of global perceptions on the security breach. He needs nations such as France and India to join, but they refuse to do so without the Japanese government. However, Japan and the U.S. are on shaky terms due to how Adamantium was discovered and presented.
Japan initially discovered this element in the Indian Ocean, which was later stolen. However, the United States presented it as recovered, leading the Japanese Prime Minister, Ozaki, to believe that the U.S. stole this element and faked its recovery. Japan is a key nation for Ross’s treaty proposal, so it’s crucial to improve their relationship.
After failed attempts to repair this relationship and clear previous misunderstandings, the U.S. flies over to the Indian Ocean to search for more Adamantium, where they are met with Japanese forces. These diplomatic problems continue as some soldiers are brainwashed and begin attacking Japanese ships, leading Ozaki to believe that the U.S. seeks to engage in war.
This movie made great use of visuals, and the plot was very engaging. However, this movie felt as if it was attempting to replace the original Avengers. Sam Wilson has replaced Steve Rogers as Captain America, the Red Hulk seemingly replaced the Green Hulk and one of the White House security staff members were trained and referred to as an “ex-widow,” referencing Black Widow.
Forbes also stated that this movie was over-marketed, and that if we didn’t know that Ross was the Red Hulk, that would have been a fun plot twist. Since that was spoiled in the marketing, the audience was anticipating the moment where Thaddeus would turn, which didn’t happen until the penultimate scenes of the film.
According to Rotten Tomatoes, this film was “too routine and overstuffed with uninteresting easter eggs to feel like a worthy standalone adventure…,” receiving a low 49 percent score on the Tomatometer.
While this film was entertaining, it did not compare to other Marvel movies, such as “Black Panther” (2018), “Avengers: Endgame” (2019) and “Thor: Ragnarok” (2017), each receiving scores above 92 percent Rotten Tomatoes. In Forbes’s opinion, while this movie was not the least entertaining out of all in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), it was the worst Captain America film in the MCU.
The future generation of MCU films have a high standard to reach. With widely popular successes from the movies above to the Captain America trilogy, Screen Rant stated it will be very difficult for future films to amount to that same level of popularity and success.
Helen Burke can be reached at [email protected] or followed on Instagram @helenburke06.
