Captain America: Brave New World
Year: 2025
Rating: PG-13
Length: 118 minutes / 1.97 hours
There’s a certain point in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) where you wonder what decisions go into making a Disney+ TV show or a movie. Captain America: Brave New World (2025) felt like one of those decisions that might have worked better as a second season of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Sure, it introduces a few things that will hopefully be important in later MCU movies, but then that’s the bigger problem of the MCU needing “filler” movies (like this and Wakanda Forever (2022)) to provide exposition for Avengers movies so they don’t end up being four hours long.
I think part of the problem stems from Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and his struggle to accept the mantle of Captain America. This was exactly the same thing that The Falcon and the Winter Soldier covered, but I understand how not everyone watches the Disney+ MCU series and might be lost. Additionally, I get that the Captain America line of movies is supposed to be all patriotic, but this movie definitely leaned heavily more into war propaganda than the previous movies in its individual franchise (which, given current geopolitical conditions, leaves a sour taste).
Don’t get me wrong, there are a few good set pieces in this movie. But that these big action sequences are basically requirements for any MCU movie, this is not a high bar to cross. It also doesn’t help that if these bits are the best parts of the movie and are the flashy moments that are in all the trailers, then one could argue they’ve already seen the movie since most all the twists and reveals have already been leaked with the official advertising for the film. I just hope there’s a payoff with the next Avengers film because empty movies like this are exhausting.
A basic MCU movie that should have been a TV show, I give Captain America: Brave New World 2.5 stars out of 5.
1/2
