Brave New World is the fourth Captain America film for the MCU, and the first to see Anthony Mackie step up as the lead after playing second fiddle to Chris Evans for so long. It's also the 35th movie in the MCU as a whole, and deep into Phase 5 of the increasingly convoluted franchise. This perhaps explains some of the film's messiness and the mixed reviews it's been getting. It's inarguable that Brave New World tries to juggle too much of the franchise's unwieldy backstory, leaving us with a messy script. Yet, for all that, I found Brave New World to be a highly entertaining movie, one of the stronger Marvel movies of recent years, and a great showcase for Mackie's classy new Cap.
Still, it's an odd beast. It's challenging enough for the wider audience that this follows from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, a TV series that was released three years ago, and which many watching in cinemas would not have seen. Yet the Marvel masterminds have decided not to make this the true next step in the Captain America story (not for the first time, in fairness: film three, Captain America: Civil War, was an Avengers film in all but name). No, this is a follow-up to The Incredible Hulk, a middling film that came out over sixteen years ago. This is one way to get round the seemingly intractable distribution dispute between Disney and Universal, which has prevented a Hulk-led sequel from being produced. Add to this the involvement of “Celestial Island,” a vast leftover from the equally middling Eternals, and it's impossible to escape the conclusion that Marvel has made this film just to tie up some loose ends. It's also no secret that this film has experienced significant rewrites and reshoots, even more than Marvel usually subjects its films to.
Still, messy as it is, the film works. This is largely down to some excellent star performances. Mackie was popular as the Falcon, but has his work cut out for him taking over from Evans as Captain America, the figurehead not just of a nation but a global franchise. Fortunately, his quietly commanding, resolute performance makes Wilson's Cap easily the equal of Steve Rogers. Still displaying an infectious sense of humour, this is a more serious, more focused Wilson than we saw in earlier films, shouldering an enormous responsibility. Both Wilson and Mackie himself are representing Black people, and more specifically African Americans, something the film comments on and brings to the forefront without ever becoming preachy or overbearing. Wilson may wear a vibranium-laced suit of armour, but he lacks the physical enhancements that Rogers enjoyed. He suffers in his fights, his refusal to back down against overwhelming opponents a potent parallel to the fact that, as a man of colour, he has to be twice as good and work twice as hard to get to the same place.
Harrison Ford is the second star of the film, putting in a more committed performance than I would have expected. It's a shame for William Hurt, who was reportedly keen to play the next stage of Ross's story, but Ford makes an excellent replacement and brings some solid gravitas to the role. In spite of some critics likening President Ross to Trump, he's really not that like him beyond being old and arrogant – for one thing, he advocates coming together as a country, which is pretty much the opposite of the First Felon. Plus, if he'd been meant as a Trump analogue, they'd have made his Hulk orange, surely. Ross's transformation into the Red Hulk was heavily trailered, so there was no surprise in its revelation; rather, a gradual build-up to its inevitable creation. The Red Hulk is a remarkably realistic creation, given how absurd a creature he is. Making it a transformation against Ross's will is far more potent than the deliberate “upgrade” of the comics, with more of a parallel to the original Hulk.
However, the best performance in the film is from Carl Lumbly, who, as usual, is pure class. Lumbly has form playing superheroes, of course, but as in Falcon he shows he's at his best when playing wounded characters carrying the weight of the world. Isaiah Bradley is a lesser known Marvel character, one who is unlikely to be recognised by those who aren't up on the comics or haven't seen Falcon, which is the bulk of the audience. Bradley's story, though, is so straightforwardly tragic and infuriating that anyone coming in can understand how this man was wronged and why he's so important to the story of Captain America. Less essential is the inclusion of Joaquin Torres, the new Falcon, but Danny Ramirez makes him hugely likeable and it would be a poorer movie without him.
As for the villains, the surprise inclusion (well, surprising when the news broke months ago) of Samuel Sterns works fairly well. The beginnings of Sterns's mutation into the Leader, way back in The Incredible Hulk, left the MCU with one of its biggest unresolved story hooks. Now we finally see the fully enhanced Sterns, he looks just right; recognisably like his comicbook counterpart, but distorted and deformed, how someone haphazardly mutated by radiation and chemicals surely should look. With his towering intellect, the Leader can provide a complex plot in which he pulls the strings of our heroes... unfortunately, there isn't really time for all that, so it remains largely sketched in and frustratingly easily resolved. This is one area to which a TV series is more suited than a film; had this been season two of Falcon, say, Sterns's plan could have been made as Machiavellian as it deserves. It's also hard to deny that, while Tim Blake Nelson gives a decent turn as the Leader, he's thoroughly outdone in the villain stakes by Giancarlo Esposito as Seth Voelker. Esposito has a sinister presence that Nelson simply lacks, and his relegation to an impressive but minor adversary is a misstep.
The elephant in the room is the inclusion of Ruth Bat-Seraph, one of the most controversial Marvel characters. As a member of Mossad and an originally highly Islamophobic, Palestine-vilifying character, her inclusion was going to be contentious even before Israel's nightmarish final push began. Disney/Marvel hedged their bets and rewrote the character into an ex-Black Widow, who while Israeli has no overt ties to that regime. I'm all in favour of reinventing problematic characters from earlier times, but it still rankles, particularly due to the casting of Shira Haas in the role. She gives a strong performance, and there's a certain joy in seeing a tiny, disabled actor playing a deadly warrior, but given Haas's historic support of the IDF her casting is bound to cause anger. There's not an easy way round this, and it's not as if Israeli actors shouldn't be cast in major films, but it adds an unsavoury political controversy to the film.
On a far less weighty note, there was one genuine surprise appearance in the film. Not Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes – it would have been more of a shock if he hadn't turned up – but Liv Tyler reprising her Incredible Hulk role as Betty Ross. After trolling the audience by using a perfunctory voice performance which could just as easily have been a soundalike, Tyler appears in the flesh in the film's closing act. We are assured that it is indeed her, and she was present on set with Ford and Mackie, although given the amount of Botox she's clearly had they could have saved a few quid and used generative AI.
The really baffling thing, though, is the act of making this an in-all-but-name sequel to The Incredible Hulk, and not include the actual Hulk. Who knows, perhaps that would have tipped it over into being a Hulk film and invoked the wrath of Universal. Still, it's one of many odd decisions in a film that baffles as much as it entertains. Nonetheless, it does entertain, and should Mackie lead the Avengers in the MCU's next phase he can certainly shoulder the burden. Let's hope Marvel holds its nerve.
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