Captain America: Brave New World - A Two Star Film With Five Star Potential
Right, I’ve got a lot to say about the new Captain America, but I suppose I’ll give some context before I jump in.
Captain America: Brave New World is Marvel Studios’ latest cinematic addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). It’s the first big-screen outing for the new Captain America, Sam Wilson. It is, however, the second outing for the new star-spangled man with a plan, having first donned the shield and cowl in Falcon and the Winter Soldier in 2021. Three years on, Sam is now comfortable in his Captain America persona. Things quickly go awry when Sam invites the ‘forgotten Captain America’ to the White House, where he promptly tries to kill the incumbent President Ross. Trying to exonerate his friend and mentor, Wilson becomes embroiled in a plot to bring down the President, a plot which began back in 2008 after the events of The Incredible Hulk.
After watching Brave New World, I was left with one overwhelming emotion. Nothing. It was fine. Like most of the MCU’s core franchises at the minute, the movie was just okay. It was great to see Sam Wilson back, a far more interesting character to wield the shield than Steve Rogers ever was (let’s be fair, you only liked him because he was shaped like a Dorito). Joaquin Torres is also a fresh addition to the franchise, offering a potentially engaging story in his deep-rooted desire to prove his worth. Isiah Bradley’s story is deeply tragic and probably the most engaging thread running through the movie. Harrison Ford is Harrison Ford, invariably entertaining to watch. He’s also the first issue with this movie. He is not William Hurt. He does not try to be William Hurt. In fact, unless you’re a Marvel super fan, there is absolutely no evidence that this is the same character we’ve seen crop up in various franchises across the last 15 years. Now, this is a writing website, so I won’t dwell on the casting, but I bring it up because it’s the clearest example of what’s wrong with Captain America: Brave New World:
Studio oversight.
Once upon a time, Jon Favreau made two Iron Man movies. Kenneth Branagh made a Thor movie. Joss Whedon made two Avengers movies. Shane Black made an Iron Man movie. The Russo brothers made two Captain America movies and two Avengers movies. Taika Waititi made two Thor movies. James Gunn made three Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Scott Derrickson made a Doctor Strange movie. John Watts made three Spider-Man movies. Chloe Zhao made The Eternals.
That’s just the directors.
Who made The Marvels? Who directed Black Widow? Who was the lead voice behind Moon Knight? Looking more specifically at Phase 05 of the MCU, the voices of creative individuals couldn’t be more clearly diminished.
According to Captain America: Brave New World’s IMDb, the movie had five writing credits. It’s not unusual for a blockbuster to have multiple writers. Writers’ rooms are a common occurrence, especially in American TV making, something the MCU has always been heavily influenced by. In these instances, however, the voice of the director is as important as any that put pen to paper. Kenneth Branagh didn’t write the script for Thor, but his vision is as clear as that of Zac Stentz and the other writers on the project. Even now, the first Thor movie stands out visually, tonally, and thematically from anything else Marvel have produced. All this to say that the MCU was once a filmmakers playground. Yes, there was studio input. When making Guardians of the Galaxy, James Gunn was told to include and infinity stone and a cameo from Thanos, for example. That’s it, though. The rest of the movie was James Gunn’s playground. After penning the first two Captain America movies, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely saw the ever-expanding cinematic universe not as an exercise in interconnected storytelling, but as a writing challenge to find the narrative focus in an overpopulated world.
These days, however, the writers rooms don’t seem to be run by the writers or the directors. In fact, it seems the once steady steward of the MCU has become corrupted by his own success, and now Kevin Feige is the sole creative voice of the franchise. Now, Feige is an exemplary producer. None of the success of the MCU could have happened without him, but anybody with two braincells to rub together can see the correlation between the increased prevalence of ‘Kevin Feige Presents’ and the decrease in quality of the MCU. As I say, Kevin Feige is an exceptional producer.
Producer.
In this coming age of AI dominance, I have now turned to ChatGPT to define what a movie producer is:
“A movie producer oversees the entire filmmaking process, managing development, funding, hiring, budgeting, and scheduling. They collaborate with the director to ensure the creative vision is met, supervise post-production (editing, music, sound), and handle marketing and distribution. Producers ensure the film is completed on time, within budget, and ready for release.”
I know this is reductive, but the point is valid. A producers role is to support, but recent developments within the Marvel Studios model increasingly shows that it’s now the creatives supporting Feige, not the other way around. Just look at 2023’s Secret Invasion. The IMDb writing credits page is a mess, and that reflected in the overall quality of the series. The same thing has happened here. Despite two of the Falcon and the Winter Soldier writers being ported over to Captain America: Brave New World, the addition of three new writers and a new director speak to studio oversight being forced into a potentially otherwise cohesive story.
Just look at the actual story. Captain America finds that someone close to him has been brainwashed to assassinate people (Bucky Barnes / Isiah Bradley). There is a secret plot from a character that fell victim to the events of a previous franchise (Baron Zemo / The Thinker). The villain operates out of a secret former Government facility filled with biological secrets about characters in the story (Siberia / Echo Base). Not to mention the fact the movie opens with Captain America infiltrating an enemy stronghold to liberate the story MacGuffin, only to go off-mission to save hostages and fight a big brute while the side-kick / friend / colleague completes the mission they set out to achieve (opening of The Winter Soldier and Brave New World). There’s absolutely no way all of that was an accident. It’s not even all the ‘references’ to previous MCU outings, but the others are all a bit spoilery so I’ll avoid them here.
All this oversight is destroying the thing that made the MCU so great. Disconnected stories that built to a satisfying narrative conclusion. These days, it’s not the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s the Marvel Cinematic Soap Opera. Thunderbolts* actually looks pretty good, but if Feige and the executives have had the same input there as they’ve had here, then we already know how it’ll go. It’ll be The Avengers, but with meaner characters. There’ll be a big New York fight. There’ll be an Avengers Tower / Stark Tower confrontation with the nemesis of the movie. There’ll be shady goings on from a government funded organisation. It’ll be a remix of what we’ve already seen.
Now, with all that said, Brave New World is the first instalment for a while that does seem to honour the building of an overarching narrative. The Avengers get their first proper mention in years, and it seems a team is being assembled. The post-credit sting finally teases Secret Wars, the movie that will culminate the Multiverse Saga. It’s just not enough anymore. For every Agatha All Along, a genuinely original and iconic outing for the franchise that moves the story naturally to a ‘lynchpin’ moment, along comes a Captain America: Brave New World to remind us that filmmakers are no longer running the show at Marvel Studios, and it’s going to kill it.
So, what’s next for Marvel Studios?
More of the same, probably. A few shining moments in a sludge of corporate, algorithm led content which will culminate in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. With the Russos, Marcus, and McFeely back behind the camera it could end on a high, but they’re unlikely to reach the highs of Infinity War and Endgame. Hopefully, after that, they’ll go back to their original model. Three phases, connected by a team-up story, culminating in a large showdown.
