After seventeen years of constructing interconnected fables, not every Marvel movie is going to be exceptional, as each one serves as a mighty oar to propel the larger entity that is the Marvel cinematic Universe (MCU) forward. With over thirty movies, there are going to be duds and there are going to be movies that get lost in the machinery of the cinematic universe grinding onward. Consider Captain America: Brave New World one of those sacrificial offerings that nobody will remember in short order.

Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) has taken over the mantle of Captain America in the wake of the original, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), retiring. General Ross (Harrison Ford) has recently been elected president and he wants Sam to reconstitute the Avengers. However, someone is triggering sleeper agents to try and kill Ross, and Sam is entrusted to get to the bottom of this conspiracy.

Brave New World is certainly trying to relive the formula that made 2014’s Winter Soldier such a genre standout, upending the status order of good versus evil through the prism of a political thriller. There’s an assassination attempt on the newly elected president, and it also happens to be brainwashed sleeper agents that can be activated at a moment’s notice. What helped make that 2014 movie work was that the sleeper agent happened to be Steve Rogers’ former best friend he thought had died back in WWII. There was a personal connection to the mystery and especially the figure of destruction. With this movie, the personal connection that Sam has to the mystery is almost immediately locked away, made to be an objective needing to be saved by eventually capturing the real bad guy in the shadows. Rather than having to face down a ghost from the past, a personal friend gone rogue, now we have Sam just chasing one shady bad guy to link to the next shady bad guy to a conspiracy that doesn’t even involve him. That was another aspect that made Winter Soldier excel, Steve’s allegiance and sense of patriotism running in direct conflict with the wishes of his government. It was personal and meaningful and challenged his perception. With Brave New World, it could have literally been any character uncovering this very limited conspiracy. That’s not a great start, making your lead character practically superfluous to the larger plot.

Much of this lingering conspiracy also hinges upon the identity of the Red Hulk, which might have been mildly surprising had Red Hulk not been such a vital element of the movie’s marketing. He’s in the TV ads, he’s in the trailers, he is the poster. This movie had more Red Hulk advertising than its titular hero. Unless you’ve walked into the theater blind, and congrats to you, for all intents and purposes this has been sold as the Red Hulk movie, and even if you’re walking in hoping for some wall-to-wall Hulk smash, then you’ll be sorely disappointed. There’s perhaps ten minutes at most of Red Hulk action, and it’s saved for the very end. It’s a climax that feels more perfunctory than satisfying, with the obvious reveal being held as something revelatory and meaningful when it’s just going through its basic blockbuster dance moves.

As is typically the case with movies that undergo many delays and re-shoots, Brave New World feels like it has far too many things going on and also simultaneously not enough going on. This is an unexpected sequel to 2008’s Incredible Hulk, generally regarded as one of the weakest MCU movies. The only thing that survived that movie was William Hurt (R.I.P.) as General Ross. I don’t think too many Marvel fans have been dying to have those characters and storylines picked back up after 17 years, but at long last you can see Tim Blake Nelson’s character again. Do you know what his character’s name is? Unless you’re the keeper of the 2008 Incredible Hulk fan wiki, I strongly doubt it. Quick, what’s his name without looking it up? It’s Samuel Sterns. Did you even remember Tim Blake Nelson being in the 2008 movie? The movie also has a global resource land grab to finally explain the frozen celestial body rising from the ocean ever since the events of 2021’s Eternals, a movie I fear we’ll wait an additional 17 years to get its own conclusion. This colossal being is the source of a new all-purpose element – adamantium, and that name should be instantly familiar for fans of the X-Men, as this movie pushes their inclusion that much closer. If The Marvels gave us Kelsey Grammar and Patrick Stewart’s return as Beast and Professor Xavier, this one boldly gives us… an elemental alloy (at this rate, two movies from now will introduce the X-Men’s jet as another sign to those in the know about what’s to come). It’s taking the leftovers from another movie to set up the larger scope of a branch of new movies down the road, while also tying back elements and characters from the earliest days of the MCU. It’s all a lot of table-setting unless there’s a compelling storyline with engaging characters and relatable conflicts and drama, and Brave New World does not. As a result, it’s all like watching a fast-moving assemblage of familiar parts trying to package itself together as a cohesive movie, and it just cannot. It’s one of those sacrificial movies at the altar of larger stories.

Which is a shame because there was a really fascinating and thought-provoking story at the core of Brave New World that barely gets any recognition amidst the explosions and gunfire, namely what does it mean for there to be a black Captain America? How does society respond when their patriotic symbol of American might now has more melanin? Considering how the Internet has throngs that lose their mind whenever a traditionally white male character gets changed into something different, I have to imagine there would be waves of people grumbling that this new “thuggish” Cap isn’t “their Captain America.” This is epitomized in the character of Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), a veteran who was also selected for the Army’s experimental super soldier project that gave birth to Captain America. Except because he was black during a time of segregation as the norm, he never got the adoration of Steve Rogers, and his accomplishments were ignored. In our current political climate, where diversity has become a convenient boogeyman, it would have been interesting to explore how the culture responds to a black man picking up the shield and being the next Captain America. It also would have invited a worthy conversation about where this country has let down its black populace, symbolized with Bradley’s past. Some of these themes were explored in the 2021 Disney Plus TV series Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t be meaningfully revisited given the elevated platform of the Captain America moniker. This was also the TV show that argued refugees could be terrorists, so there was room to grow. Unfortunately, this is only ever given passing mention, as institutional racism gets in the walk of Hulk smashing.

There was possibility with Brave New World but it too often seems to run aground with too many conflicting directions, underdeveloped ideas, and unfocused themes. The political complications, as well as evaluating the sins of the country’s past, could have made for a poignant and relevant movie with bigger things on its mind rather than getting to the next CGI slug-fest. It’s a Captain America with a new Captain America, so let’s explore what that means. It’s the franchise’s opportunity to begin anew with a different hero at its helm, and yet it feels more like an over-extended, disappointing finale to the Falcon/Winter Soldier TV series. It feels like an unneeded epilogue to an epilogue, and tying in so many disparate elements from films that people have forgotten or care less for seems like a strange creative choice when Marvel is looking to find its way in the wake of its post-Endgame walkabout. The worst crime with Brave New World is merely how boring all of it turns out to be. Far from brave, far from new.

Nate’s Grade: C