Captain America: Brave New World
Oh. Oh no. Look, I really am not one of those dismissive film fans who believes the MCU is incapable of making anything good, if anything I think I get shit some times for d*ck riding the MCU from friends and being forgiving of some of the issues in their movies, cause by and large I'm invested in the larger story of the MCU. So, when I say this is dogshit, know that it truly is.
I seriously don't understand how this was even put forward to audiences. Sure, if you go in to switch your brain off, it's a whatever action movie. If you decide to activate your brain watching this, the plot falls apart almost immediately. I won't spoil who the main villain is but their so called "plan", which is supposed to be this hyper intelligent plan, where all these moves are planned out probabilistically to get the result of the movie, makes NO SENSE. Quite frankly I felt insulted as a viewer. Hey, let's just distract you enough to make you not question anything cause the minute you do it falls to pieces.
I've seen many people say they can feel the reshoots, which is a glaringly problematic issue when so many people are saying this, and you do certainly feel reshoots, but it's not as if this is the first movie to have reshoots. I think the issue of these reshoots lies in the direction given to string together a story and the god-awful editing.
The editing in this film is all over the place, there is absolutely no rhythm to this movie whatsoever. Scenes sometimes just end, others drag. Something that truly pissed me off though is not a single action scene - bar maybe the last scene with the Red Hulk - felt tension filled, or like it had any weight as it rapidly goes between shots allowing for no sense of positional awareness. I have no idea if the fight scenes were good cause I don't know what was happening half the time, and when the lead of your movie is not a super solider and relies on a lot of hand-to-hand combat, this is a real shame. However, even the in-air stuff was super rough.
I do think sadly the editing started from a low point already as when scene to scene the film looks completely different, trying to find a way to seamlessly edit becomes impossible.
I did have low expectations going into this, I knew of these reshoots and I just felt like this isn't necessarily something Marvel wanted to release. But that doesn't excuse the fact that this went into production. WHY would anybody choose to make the CAPTAIN AMERICA movie essentially a The Incredible Hulk sequel?
In a way I feel like it's commendable to start to pull together your universe. The Incredible Hulk, Eternals and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier being put in a blender under the allure of a political thriller? Sure, why not that sounds really creative, if pulled off well. Well, it wasn't.
If you're going to tell this story, you need to have something to say. This felt so empty and void of anything. It's titled Captain America: Brave New World, so why did I leave feeling like nothing really happened to Captain America at all. And weirdly I think the film knows this. When the film starts, well firstly there's no Marvel Studios fanfare which is telling, but when it goes to splash the title of the movie it's simply Brave New World. The film knows this is not a good Captain America movie.
If anything, I weirdly think this is a Thunderbolt Ross movie. Which I guess brings me to my first positive, Harrison Ford. Sure, he's not quite the same Thunderbolt Ross as before, he's written differently, but Ford really gives a lot to this performance and I enjoyed him. It's Ross who gets the only real arc of the movie and it was clearly the most interesting part but barely.
The film shines (rare) in its quiet moments, of which I only think of two. Sam and Joaquin have a scene at the end, and Sam also gets a moment with another person (no spoilers) which is great. Why are these moments great? Oh, because Sam finally becomes the character, we know him to be.
A major flaw with this film is that Sam Wilson, a character who has been in the MCU for ages, and has an established personality, becomes a vessel for expository dialogue for the majority of this film. He is just a boring lead, Mackie does what he is able to but there's just nothing going on with his character.
It's actually frustrating cause even in bad MCU films this is normally still a strength, the film might be bad but at least I'm enjoying watching the main character, and this film fails at even doing that. So, when you get these quiet moments where Wilson shows his personality, they stick out so much. Oh, and everything with him and Issiah Bradley is good, but that's cause Carl Lumbly is so wonderful.
I think the film suffers cause, well it's bad, but also cause of how it was marketed. Firstly, Red Hulk is all over the promo and, well he's hardly in it, and furthermore is the plot point which you build up to in the third act. The trailers also lean into this political thriller vibe, like The Winter Solider, and I'm sorry but saying that something is a thriller, and like putting a thriller skin over a movie doesn't make it thrilling.
There's no mystery here, and perhaps that got lost in the reshoots, but it's very obvious who's pulling the strings and there's no real meat to the politics. It's still good vs bad. What makes Civil War effective is there are sides to the story, you as the viewer get to decide who is right. What makes Winter Soldier effective is that it's actually a political thriller and you don't know who to trust, NONE of that exists here. The main political thing of the movie, the fight over the Eternal in the Ocean, is settled via a news broadcast shown on a TV?!?
It's not surprising, the writing is fucking dreadful throughout and the reliance on using news broadcasts to update the plot began to feel so lazy. It's cool if you want to commit to pulling together different MCU stories together, like as a fan I appreciate that, but please find a better way of doing this than force feeding viewers multiple times to remind people of stuff. DID YOU KNOW ROSS HAS A DAUGHTER CALLED BETTY?
Yeah, this pissed me off. It's cool they're starting to bring together stuff from the MCU but is this really supposed to get me excited for Avengers, and more over you didn't set up Sam Wilson as a leader. Oh, also it looked fine but also some of the worst green screen ever in an MCU movie