The fourth Captain America enters a Brave New World of sequelizing Marvel leftovers

For better or worse, Captain America: The Winter Soldier may go down as the most consequential movie in this never-ending Marvel superhero cycle. Sure, Iron Man was more of a universe-enabling shocker hit and The Avengers showed how big a team-up could get. But Winter Soldier, simply by the virtue of its enduring quality, gave the series a dramatic array of gifts-turned-curses that lingered in the MCU: The presence of directors Joe and Anthony Russo; a washed-out, “realistic” color palette to match its mostly-grounded action (apart from the flying/falling airships, presumably included by Feige fiat); the ambition and the pretension to proclaim itself a genre riff, as much “paranoid conspiracy thriller” as superhero adventure (just let them have it); and proof that Captain America could be a viable contemporary character, not just a gee-whiz throwback. It worked so well that throwing back might be just what Marvel hopes for when re-introducing Cap to the big screen, with the mantle now worn by ex-Falcon Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie)—a character added to the universe (memorably, on Steve Rogers’ right) during that earlier movie. Indeed, coming at the end of a cycle of Marvel movies set largely in space, alternate dimensions, or both, Captain America: Brave New World is well-positioned to provide unfussy relief for those who prefer their superhero stories set in an alternative version of our world, rather than in a series of multiversal what-ifs.

Like Winter Soldier, Captain America: Brave New World has a conspiracy-based plotline, is set largely in and around Washington, D.C., and features its lead hero openly questioning how (or whether) to work with the government that’s attempting to wield him for supposed good. With those elements in place, it’s only natural that the movie would act as an unofficial follow-up to some of the MCU’s most beloved material. Yes, this is the long-awaited simultaneous sequel to The Incredible Hulk from 2008, the Falcon And The Winter Soldier TV series, and Eternals.

OK, the Eternals connection is minimal, though Brave New World is the first MCU movie to really make a major plot point out of the giant Celestial statue that’s been sticking out from the Indian Ocean since the end of that woo-woo epic. But this film does feel like an extended finale from somewhere within the nonexistent multi-season run of Falcon And Winter Soldier, a notably terrible Disney+ series that took nearly six hours for Sam to confirm that yes, he would indeed accept the Captain America position he was offered in Avengers: Endgame. (It was a streaming event that could have been an email.) Brave New World finds Sam a few years into his new gig, occasionally joined by his replacement Falcon, the excitable Joaquin (Danny Ramirez), but not leading a full crew of heroes like Steve Rogers did in his assembling prime.

That doesn’t sit right with newly elected president Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford, stepping in for the late William Hurt). Once settled into office, President Ross reaches out to Sam in hopes of starting a new Avengers. (Fans may nod excitedly; Iron Man may be dead, but how is it that a universe that still includes Shang-Chi, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Thor, and a new Black Panther has gone this long without forming a new Avengers squad? Are they worried they’ll have to invite Kingo?) Before that project can move forward, however, Sam’s old buddy and mentor Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), an earlier super-soldier introduced in the TV show, takes a shot at the president. Sam, sensing some kind of mind-control at work, attempts to prove Bradley’s innocence, and as a result runs afoul of various characters from that Incredible Hulk movie no one much likes.

Actually, the presence of the lumpy, glowy Samuel Stearns (Tim Blake Nelson) from that 17-year-old Hulk picture counts as a highlight of Brave New World, in part because he skulks around amusingly outfitted like the Unabomber, and in part because Brave New World is pretty bad. In keeping with the MCU’s increasing insularity, the vast conspiracy (which also includes a separate bad guy played by Giancarlo Esposito) is mostly just a collection of loose ends from other Marvel projects that doesn’t add up to much—which might be fine if Brave New World was a halfway decent action movie. Instead, the various set-piece skirmishes clang around aimlessly, maybe hoping to match tones with the dialogue, which is all a pass away from even working as a first draft. (Sample exchange: “Don’t be that guy.” “What guy?” “That guy who has to do things the hard way.” “Looks like I am that guy.”) With some Falcon And Winter Soldier writers on the five-man screenplay, it seems like a case of sticking with what absolutely doesn’t work—though the movie also has the distinction of dragging down director and co-writer Julius Onah, a Marvel newbie who previously made the barbed, tightly coiled dramatic thriller Luce.

Here, Onah successfully avoids the grayish, desaturated color palette that the MCU has come to use as shorthand for “serious movie,” though a haze of fakery remains. (That grain you may have seen in some of the trailers, evoking thrillers of the past? An Instagram-style advertising gimmick.) Despite reports of extensive reshoots, the seams don’t show at Quantumania levels, possibly because there never was much of anything at stake besides MCU leftovers—though Mackie, sadly, still has plenty to lose. While the star remains likable, he’s forced to shed the looseness that made him so refreshing as the Falcon, and never seems sure of how to play this reconfigured Sam Wilson in a movie that stays so cautiously apolitical.

Sam’s ambivalence about the Captain America job could make for a provocative, racially charged superhero story (indeed, the complicated image-making of Black excellence is one of the subjects of Luce), or even just a satisfying aspirational fantasy, if the movie didn’t so desperately need for him to believe in those Steve Rogers values (and, presumably, avoid the contemporary connotations of political conspiracies that weren’t as prominent back in 2014). In this Brave New World, as on the TV series, any anger must be mitigated by highly unconvincing lip service to fairness and justice; a particularly weak counterpart to, say, the presence of bright red rage monster. It’s not just the serious stuff that suffers, either; Mackie simulates jocular banter with Ramirez in painful scenes that have all the forced-smile teamwork of a workplace skit. To that end, the film’s most momentous character introduction isn’t even a person; it’s a literal Marvel-universe element, unveiled as if showcasing a new product line.

The cynical thing is to say that, of course, that’s what it is, but Brave New World doesn’t even seem sure about what it’s selling—just that it has to get a movie-shaped something-or-other to market. “The threats we face show no signs of slowing down,” President Ross intones early in the movie. Sandwiched between that pronouncement and the movie’s generically ominous post-credits scene, Brave New World feels more like a forever-franchise threat than viable mass-market entertainment.