Captain America: Brave New World
Marvel
Alarms have to be going off over at Marvel as Captain America: Brave New World reviews roll in. As it stands, and it’s changing with more reviews coming in, Brave New World is currently the third worst-reviewed MCU movie ever alongside Eternals and Quantumania, and only the third “rotten” scored MCU movie period.
Scores on Rotten Tomatoes are currently hovering around 49-51%, not really even close to the 60% you need for a “fresh” rating there. And no, it’s not because snooty critics hate superhero blockbusters. Twelve of 35 MCU movies have above a 90% rating, and only seven are below a 70%. Critics have been more harsh on MCU movies as of late, but you can of course make the argument that post-Infinity War movies are just…not as good. Additionally, critics tend to score MCU movies higher than most fans the majority of the time
The problem with Captain America: Brave New World is that it’s not just say, another Ant-Man movie or one featuring a cast of heroes no one knows (Eternals). It’s using a long-running actor and character appearing in multiple movies and his own TV show, and trying to firmly establish him as the new Captain America.
Captain America: Brave New World
Disney
Not just for this movie, but Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson is supposed to be leading the reassembled Avengers in two more movies, Doomsday and Secret Wars, at least in some capacity, which now may seem like a risky prospect, regardless of whether Mackie himself is good in the role. He does not have great luck, as Mackie ran into the same issue, albeit a lower profile one, when he took the central role in Netflix’s Altered Carbon season 2 from season 1’s Joel Kinnaman, and the show went from incredible sci-fi to mediocre.
A mantle pass for a character like this is always going to be a hard sell. If She-Hulk replaced the Hulk, Jane Foster replaced Thor and Ironheart replaced Iron Man, regardless of the actors, it’s just difficult for audiences to divorce the hero from a decade of the original actor, especially when so many were so well-cast.
There have been a number of concerns about the film other than the idea of a new Captain America, namely the rumors of a whole lot of reshoots and rewriting of the film. There’s a social media-based boycott movement due to a supporting Israeli actress’s stance on Gaza. There is traditional “DEI Captain America” nonsense from the right wing. But from these critics, the biggest criticism is that the film is just…not very good, and doesn’t live up to its predecessors, particularly Winter Soldier, which it has stated outright it’s trying to emulate.
Tracking shows that Brave New World is heading toward a global opening weekend that may surpass its total budget, but long term? It would need good word-of-mouth, and it’s just a fact that most low critic-rated MCU movies the last few years have gone on to be box office disappointments for Disney. And there aren’t many low-rated MCU movies in the first place. Captain America: Brave New World did not want to be one of them.
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