Skip to main content

Same Old World?

 


By the time the credits roll you might be wondering if the title Captain America : Brave New World is ironic. This may be the MCU's big return after over a year on hiatus (I don't care about technicalities, Deadpool and Wolverine is a Fox movie through and through) but there is precious little new on display here and it would be a Reed Richards level stretch to describe a would be political thriller that is so afraid of politics as brave. On the one hand, Marvel are in a bit of a bind. Pillared for continuously dishing up more of the same but when they do try something a little fresh, a la The Eternals, long time fans shy away from it. Still, even in creative paralysis, such an experienced studio should be able to produce a higher quality product than this. 

The Captain America of the title is of course no longer Steve Rogers. The shield has passed to his wingman Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), formerly know as Falcon. He has not been dosed with the "Super Serum" of his predecessor (not that you'd know it from the way he kicks tables across rooms and throw his metal disc like a plastic frisbee) but he does have nifty vibranium wings that let him take to the sky and get involved in areal set pieces. He is joined by a new sidekick of his own in overly eager, fellow wing suit owner Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez). New President, Thaddeus Ross, asks Cap to help him reform the Avengers but after a failed assassination attempt on the Commander In Chief, Sam is forced to go rogue in an attempt to clear his friends name and avoid World War 3. 

The single biggest issue facing Brave New World is that the plot revolves around solving a conspiracy the audience, thanks to the marketing, already knows the answer to. Trailers and posters have out right shown who is pulling the strings and that Ross gets turned into a red Hulk. As a result, watching Sam and his buddies run around finding out things we already know just seems like treading water until the final showdown we know is coming. Any reveals along the way aren't exactly mind blowing either. We hear music play out of nowhere while secret agents stare blankly at flashing phones before attempting to shoot the President. It takes forty odd minutes of runtime for our heroes to come across the "revelation " that the shooters were mind controlled. Its a pity the big finale has been spoiled in advance as there is some nice foreshadowing throughout the film and it would have been a fun twist to discover.

Thaddeus Ross is played by Harrison Ford, stepping into the character previously portrayed by William Hurt. The change of actor is sort of mentioned in film with a glib joke but once that's done we actually get full on Harrison Ford, revelling in playing the larger than life former general on the verge of a rage fuelled meltdown. There is also some nuance there and through regrets and trying to mend fences with his daughter, Ross is the character that takes a journey. Mackie is good in the lead role, playing Sam Wilson somewhere between the stoicism of Steve Rogers and the boyish charm the actor himself displays in real life. Unfortunately, the script isn't especially interested in an arc for its title character. If you saw the Disney Plus show, "Falcon and the Winter Soldier",  then you saw Sam struggle with the idea he isn't good enough to take up the mantle of Captain America before settling on the belief that all he can do is try his best. Here, that same idea is raised and dealt with in a short conversation and that's about it for character development. 

We don't know President Ross's stance on inflation or immigration, or anything other than he REALLY wants to get an adamantium sharing treaty done but, while great pains are taken to avoid real life politics, the film is at least conscious not to portray the US as the worlds big shining light. No such self awareness is shown in the decision to dig up 80's comic book character Ruth Bat-Seraph, an Israeli superhero and Mossad agent. The character is severely reworked here, the Israeli origin remains but she is now a former Black Widow and head of the President's security forces. It is also clear that her involvement in the plot has been significantly diminished since conception, leading to scenes where she just kind of stands about and making her feel like a pre order bonus video game character. It's weird and distracting (and the character is played pretty weirdly by Shira Haas) and the whole thing feels, at best boneheaded, at worst deeply and uncomfortably cynical.

If Brave New World's questionable decisions don't bother you too much there is a fairly fun action movie underneath, with entertaining set pieces and things move at a reasonable enough pace, meaning it doesn't drag. It just feels like more filler from a studio thats struggling to find its next big thing. If they don't want their cash cow to fizzle out under a deluge of Disney Plus mediocrity and so so blockbusters, one of their upcoming films needs to be actually good. 

5 on your lefts out of 10 laps.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

2025 Halfway Ranking

2025 is halfway done so its time to get ranking. Only films I've seen for the first time in the cinema are eligible and we are talking UK releases from 1st January to 30th of June. If your favourite film of the year isn't here, I didn't see it on the big screen. If it is here but low, feel free to tell me how wrong I am.  39.  Hurry Up Tomorrow When a musician decides to write and star in their own movie the results are often pompus nonsense, so the problem with this effort from Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye isn't that its ridiculously self-aggrandizing (although it very much is), its that its unrelentingly dull, hideous to look at and worse to listen to. The star should have just made a concert movie.  38. A Working Man Jason Statham is the perfect Hollywood action man, able to look cool shooting guns, punching peoples lights out or driving fast cars. Sadly, the meandering script and piss poor production values on display here give him no chance to shine and leav...

Faster Than a Speeding Bullet

When James Gunn was placed in charge of rebooting the ailing DC cinematic universe the move came with a declaration, from now on the focus would be on creating great individual movies with loose connections, rather than to obsessively cram everything into a convoluted cinematic continuity. With that in mind, here is the first of their new films,  DCU : Phase 1 : Gods and Monsters : Superman .  Glibness aside, it is just called Superman, and while there is certainly some filling out of the world going on, it does all seem to be in service of telling the story. A brief bit of text fills us in on Gunn's world, letting us know super powered people are fairly common place and Superman is the strongest of them all, before we are introduced to a bloodied Supes, his dog Krypto and his robot staffed Fortress of Solitude. The plot has plenty going on, with a potential war, revelations about Superman's parents, citizen's mistrust of the Man of Steel and interactions with "The Jus...

Best Foot 4Ward

The Fantastic Four : First Steps marks the third cinematic imagining of the first family of superheroes (not counting the unreleased Roger Corman movie of the 90's) and their introduction to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Well, sort of. It's sort of because the story takes place in a separate dimension from the rest of the films. This is Earth-828, where the Fantastic Four are seemingly the only super heroes. More than heroes, in fact, they are the de facto most important people on the planet and via science and diplomacy they have ushered in an era of worldwide peace and unity. The world itself is a fantastically realised retro-futuristic version of the 1960's, something like Fallout crossed with the Jetsons or, closer to home, a live action Incredibles. The Four consists of; Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal),  brilliant scientist with stretchy powers, his wife Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), who can go invisible and create force fields with her mind, her brother Johnny (Joseph Qui...

Summer of Discontent

  Unlike say, Final Destination, I Know What You Did Last Summer is not an idea ripe for remakes and sequels. Once you've told the story of a group of people leaving someone for dead, only to be hunted down a year later in grizzly revenge, there isn't really anywhere else to go while sticking close enough to the formulae to warrant being a successor. Its not a major surprise then that this sequel to the 1997 movie of the same name does little more than tread most of the same water as its precursor while trying to reference and acknowledge the original at every opportunity.  This time round, the central cast are a little older than the high school graduates of 97 but still act like teenagers. Some of the clunkiest exposition dialogue of recent memory attempts to fill out their back stories but you're left with a group of characters you can't wait to watch die. This would be fine if it wasn't for the fact that, for most of the runtime, the inept hook wielding killer ...

The Brothers Grim

  The Iron Claw is a heavy film. Zac Efron's body is heavy with muscle. His character, Kevin Von Elrich, is heavy with the weight of family expectations. Come the end of the film his heart is heavy with loss. A jolly couple of hours in the cinema this is not but it is very watchable and notable as an eye catching debut from writer/director Sean Durkin and for some top notch performances. The film is based on the true story of the Von Elrich brothers. In addition to Kevin there's Kerry (Jeremy Allen White), David (Harris Dickinson) and Mike (Stanley Simmons).  Their father Fritz took wrestling so seriously that he changed his family name to that of his character but was never able to capture the most coveted titles and demands that his sons either finish what he started or achieve sporting excellence in some other way. He holds no truck with the old adage that you shouldn't play favourites with your kids, happily telling them what order he ranks them in, with potential Olym...

Dance of Death

John Wick spin off,  Ballerina , swaps out Keanu Reaves (mostly) for Ana de Armas but almost everything else remains pretty similar. We still have the intricately choreographed fighting in a dark gloss colour palette, minimal plot propped up by ridiculous lore and the same waffling dialogue. Series die hards rejoice, but for someone who zoned out somewhere during Chapter 3 and was distinctly unimpressed with John Wick 4, these films are becoming something of a chore. Eve Macarro (de Armas) is orphaned at a young age when assassins break into her home in an attempt to abduct her and her father (also an assassin) dies fighting them off. She is then raised by the "Ruska Roma" (more assassins, roughly 40% of the worlds population are assassins in the world of John Wick), who train her in the arts of both ballet and murder. After somebody from the faction that killed her dad attempts to off her, she embarks on a revenge quest, despite being explicitly forbidden from doing so by R...

2022 So Far

 Halfway through the year and it's time to have look back and rank the movies of the year so far. To keep the list manageable I'm only including films I've seen in the cinema. If it ain't here I didn't see it on the big screen. 19.  355 Too stupid to be a serious spy thriller, too boring to be a fun romp. Also, for a film that is supposed to be about agents from different countries coming together, an abundance of lazy stereotypes give it a low key racist vibe. If you are looking for a fun female ensemble action movie check out 2019's Charlies Angels reboot instead.  18. The Matrix Reserection Empty follow up starts out like it might have something interesting to say but soon settles into the cynical, corporate mandated sequel it mocks in its first act. You'll be begging for it to end long before the drawn out finale reaches its conclusion.  17. Jurassic World Dominion  A plodding script and phoned in performances from the returning cast make this a limp end...

Romancing The Shark

  Dangerous Animals features a psychotic Jai Courtney feeding unsuspecting tourists to sharks and videoing the carnage for his (and possibly other peoples) pleasure. It's an unhinged performance and the film has some of the same sweaty ickiness that permeates classic Australian horror movies. Unfortunately, proceedings are hindered by some cringeworthy dialogue and focus on a hard to buy romance. The film opens with an unsuspecting couple of travellers hiring Courtney's shark diving boat, despite the fact he instantly identifies himself as shady (he literally checks with them that nobody knows where they are), and sure enough, one of them is soon dead and the other a prisoner.  We then cut to a meet cute of sorts between hard shelled American drifter Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) and local real estate agent Moses (Josh Heuston). They are stereotypical opposites, her cynical and untethered, him a romantic and stable, but bond over a love of surfing and end up having a one night sta...

Can't Surf On Our Turf

The Surfer is a 70's style,  psychedelic, psychological thriller set entirely on a beach and adjoining car park. Nicholas Cage is the eponymous character who may or may not be losing (or already have lost) his mind. It is simultaneously playfully fun and ickily unpleasant.  Cage (his character is not named) takes his teenage son surfing, his plan being to show off the fancy clifftop pad he is in the process of buying, which also happens to be the house he grew up in. He doesn't get the chance however, as a group of alpha male surf bros have taken over the beach and declared it for local use only. His son returns to school, but Cage stays in the car park, determined to finalise his house deal and find out what is going on with Julian McMahon and his cult like band of beach thugs. Suffering a series of mishaps, he ends up stranded in the car park, and the baking heat, for days and begins to resemble the local hobo more than the successful businessman he began as.  Two thin...

Nightmare Allley is Quality Street

 A hard film to talk about given the trailer gives so little away. It's essentially a tale of grifters and how far you can take a con wrapped in Del Toro trappings that make it feel like a horror. The story itself isn't anything particularly new and could be forgetable in lesser hands. Fortunately there is no danger of that happening here, with the talent behind the camera you know its going to look great and the quality and confidence of the script means everything unfolds at just the right pace. When you have actors the calibre of Toni Colette and Willem Defoe filling relatively small roles you know your cast is of the highest calibre. Bradley Cooper is probably too old to play the ambitious young upstart but he's so committed and charismatic that it doesn't matter and Cate Blanchett is perfect as his final accomplice come nemesis, glamorous/alluring and cold/menacing in equal measure. Doesn't reinvent the wheel but when the wheel turns this smoothly why would you...