By Jake Wilson
CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD ★★½
(M) 118 minutes
Slowly but surely, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is starting to look like the world of yesterday. Captain America: Brave New World comes close to acknowledging this in its opening scene, which sees the 80-something Harrison Ford taking over from the late William Hurt as former general Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, reintroduced as the newly elected US president.
Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Captain America.Credit: Eli Adé
The Ford version of the character seems more measured than the previous one, vowing to govern for all Americans despite his chequered past. But some have their doubts, including Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) – formerly known as the Falcon, now the new Captain America, which sits alongside the presidency as an official role you can step into.
Compared to his predecessor Steve Rogers (Chris Evans, absent here), Sam is, physically, just a regular guy. Still, he has a flying suit made of vibranium, the magic metal from the African kingdom of Wakanda – and he’s accepted as one of America’s leaders, even as he resists the notion he could fill Steve’s shoes, or that he and Ross could ever be on the same page.
As the kind of action-fantasy spectacular expected from Marvel, Brave New World is a non-starter. Often it feels closer to a TV procedural, especially when we’re following Sam and his sidekick Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) as they investigate an apparent bid to assassinate Ross (“Mind control,” Sam says sagely when he realises what’s up, as if this had never previously been a phenomenon within the MCU).
Captain America/Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) in Captain America: Brave New World.
The dialogue is full of flatly written exposition, which the actors typically deliver to each other in alternating over-the-shoulder shots. Once in a while, director Julius Onah cuts to a wide shot of the same actors facing each other in silhouetted profile – but it’s not always clear why he or his editors think this is an expressive choice at a given moment.
Still, Brave New World is more interesting than most recent Marvel products. Sam and Ross have “America” in their job titles, but it’s Ross who emerges most clearly as a symbol of the actual US – or more specifically its ruling class, pledging to make up for past sins while remaining largely self-involved.
Thaddeus’ personal guilt extends to the imprisonment and torture of the chief villain Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson, camping it up), a green-faced guru plotting revenge from afar. Paralleling him in several respects is Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), a Korean War veteran whose life has been prolonged by military experiments that look less than ethical in hindsight, even if they did transform him into the first Black Captain America, paving the way for Sam as the new titleholder.
Throw in a subplot focused on US-Japan relations, and you have the recipe for something at least politically interesting, anchored by two strong leads. A subtler actor than is often supposed, Ford keeps us guessing about the exact proportions of goodwill and insecurity underlying Ross’ bluster – while Mackie is very much a new-school, openly vulnerable Marvel hero, reliant on emotional intelligence as his superpower as much as anything else.
Captain America: Brave New World is released in cinemas now.
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