Movie Review: Captain America: Brave New World

Captain America: Brave New World (2025)

I actually really liked this movie. 

Online audience reactions are a bit less excited as I was, no doubt due to the increasing Marvel fatigue recently, but I do feel like Captain America: Brave New World is nowhere as messy or as bad as its detractors claim to be. 

It is still true that the movie does the rather unexpected decision of focusing on a lot of plot threads that stem from The Incredible Hulk -- a movie that has honestly felt like it was swept under the rug when the Marvel Cinematic Universe consolidated everything under a more comprehensive direction. One of the major players is the return of the newly-elected president Thaddeus Ross, recasted as Harrison Ford of Star Wars fame, who also has to deal with the primary theme of this movie -- legacy. Ross is easily one of the biggest highlights of the movie, with his anger and frustration being very visible, his old grudges against superheroes alternating with his genuine attempt to be a good president, and a huge chunk of the movie's storyline revolves around the question of whether an evil, manipulative old man like Thunderbolt Ross can genuinely change and redeem himself... or if he's internally as ugly as the monstrous Red Hulk that he transforms into at the end of the movie. 

Which, of course, with the optimistic tint that this movie has, the answer is yes. And it's a simple enough hook to make Ross be engaging -- a character that has a long enough of a history to believably go through such a character arc, but also never quite in the spotlight enough for the audience to be super-familiar with. Ford plays the bubbling rage and frustration that Ross faces throughout his handling of the crisis that's going on extremely well... and beneath it all, the heart of a father who has climbed to the highest position his career path would allow him -- who wants to prove to just one single person, his estranged daughter, that he can change. And that quiet scene in President Ross's office as he calls his daughter is such an amazingly well-acted scene. 

But, of course, the main character is Sam Wilson, once-Falcon and the new Captain America. Like Ross, Sam also has to deal with legacy. We've dealt with a lot of the more interesting and drama-oriented impostor syndrome in Sam's excellent Disney+ show, but he doesn't have the trust of everyone yet -- especially President Ross. The movie stats off with a nice little recap of Ross's ascension to presidency and Sam's ascension to Captainhood, before leading us into a fight scene as Captain America and his brand-new Falcon, Joaquin Torres, fight against a terrorist organization called SERPENT. Some fun action scenes, and we get a nice showing from secondary antagonist Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito). 

We also bring back Isaiah Bradley, the forgotten 'black Captain America' from Sam's Disney+ show, who acts as a mentor figure for Sam and Joaquin. The three of them arrive on the White House in an international summit over the discovery of a brand-new metal called adamantium on the petrified Celestial from Eternals. And while all this fancy sci-fi worldbuilding is nice, the movie's focus is on Isaiah Bradley, and how hesitant he was initially to accept the fact that things have changed for him, and his country is trying to do right by him. A lot of focus on how proud he was of his wedding suit that he's wearing to the party, which is all the more heartbreaking when Isaiah, without provocation, pulls out a gun and begins attacking President Ross. 

Now this isn't the first time that MCU has dealt with mind-control -- with Bucky Barnes' whole storyline in Winter Soldier and Civil War dealing with that. So I was admittedly a bit disappointed that none of it is really brought up. But Ross is extremely emotional over the shooting and locks Isaiah up, while the confused and innocent Isaiah delivers a very heartbreaking line on how everything good in his life that he thought he could've enjoyed after a lifetime of suffering is now gone. 

The dynamic between Sam and Ross is pretty well-executed here, with both men being angry at each other due to their past history. Captain America is grounded, but Sam and Joaquin continue on their own investigation. After a brief action scene when Sidewinder ambushes an equipment-less Sam Wilson, he and his allies manage to track down Sidewinder's sponsor to a black ops site called Camp Echo One... finding that the mastermind of everything that's been going on is Samuel Sterns, otherwise known as the supervillain known as the Leader. The Leader has apparently been working alongside Ross during his military career -- having blamed Sterns for the Abomination's rampage in Incredible Hulk but secretly using him to help create anti-metahuman technology and also cure the illness he has.

Ross had promised Sterns freedom from his imprisonment, which he goes back on, and as revenge Sterns has been trying to set up a way to utterly crush Ross at the height of his power. Sterns was responsible for the mind control with the 'Mr Blue' song as the trigger -- and this leads Sam and Joaquin to have to fight a small army of mind-controlled soldiers. 

Meanwhile, Sterns has also manipulated the data to make it look like America has paid Sidewinder to steal the Adamantium to make themselves look good, and then leaked it to other world leaders. In the midst of a desperate attempt to get Japan back on the bargaining table for the all-important treaty, the prime minister of Japan drops the bombshell that Ross couldn't refute -- but is utterly frustrated about. 

Oh, while all of this is going on, Ross's main minion, ex-Black-Widow Ruth Bat-Seraph is off doing her own investigation on the mind-control, finding that all the other shooters in the initial conference having been killed by strangely-behaving guards. Ruth manages to stop the guard before he kills Isaiah, but realizes that there is more than meets the eye, and rendezvouses with Sam and Joaquin. To be perfectly honest, Ruth's character feels like she's mostly there to make Ross's administration less of just him... but I think we can blame the rewrites over some real-world controversies that Marvel faced for adapting this character -- Ruth Bat-Seraph ends up feeling like a character that didn't really need to be here. 

As our heroes exit Camp Echo One, Captain America and Falcon arrive on Celestial Island, where America and Japan's navies are facing off against each other in a bit of a standoff... right as Sterns takes control of the minds of two pilots who fire on the Japanese navy. I actually really like this action scene as the two winged superheroes charge in and try and stop overt hostilities from breaking out, zipping around and disabling missiles while they wait for the world leaders to hopefully talk it out. The tense partial transformation Ross has in his battleship as Sterns mocks him is also very well done. During the subsequent attempt to stop the missiles, Joaquin is heavily wounded and is out for the rest of the movie. 

Sam gets into a bit of a moment of self-doubting again, thinking on whether he should've taken a super-soldier serum or something... but Bucky shows up for a brief pep-talk cameo. Going back into action, Sam manages to arrest a surrendering Sterns, before he realizes what Sterns is planning to do. 

As President Ross is at a press conference, Sterns unleashes the information of his involvement with Ross in the past to the public, and this was the straw that broke the camel's back. Ross has been holding in his rage towards these unjustful acts, towards these attacks on his character, towards the fact that people refuse to look beyond his past as 'the Hulk Hunter'... and finally snaps. He transforms rather majestically into the Red Hulk, which gives us the final showdown. And the final showdown is nice enough, even if as with a lot of Marvel's more recent output the CGI isn't the best. 

The fight is less about Sam Wilson taking down the Red Hulk, but talking him down. Dragging the battle into a location with the cherry blossom trees that meant the world to Ross and his daughter Betty, Captain America manages to wound Red Hulk enough to have him calm down and ultimately revert back to his human form. 

And after that incident, we get some closing scenes. Isaiah is exonerated and gets his suit back. The treaty is finalized but Ross surrenders himself to the superhuman prison, the Raft... but gets a nice surprise because Sam arranges for Betty to visit him there. And while the scene did take a bit of a longer time than it should, Sam visits the wounded Joaquin on his hospital bed, and Joaquin goes on a long speech about how his whole cocky act throughout the movie was because he was inspired by Sam Wilson, Captain America. Sam might always compare himself to Steve Rogers as the gold standard, but other people are looking up to him. And that's a nice bit of legacy for him. 

Ultimately? Yeah, the movie's plot is a bit basic, although I honestly do unironically appreciate the usage of older characters and spinning their stories into a conclusion. I also liked how personal the stakes were for Ross in particular, and how much Sterns isn't trying for a plan of global domination and just one of revenge. This movie did go through a chunk of rewrites thanks to Ruth Bat-Seraph's comic-book counterpart being tied to the Israel military, and I don't doubt that there would be some changes made to a movie that features an assassination attempt at a controversial American presidential figure. But all that aside? It's not the best Marvel movie I've watched, but it's a lean, simple story, and one that I genuinely, unironically enjoyed. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Post-Credits Scene:
• The Leader, in prison, rants about an incoming threat from other worlds that the heroes will be unprepared for, seemingly foreshadowing whatever will come in Avengers: Doomsday.
• Past Movies Continuity: (Characters)
• Sam Wilson took over the mantle of being Captain America in Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Isaiah Bradley ('Black Captain America') and Joaquin Torres (the new Falcon) are both introduced in that show as well. During the first action sequence of this movie, Sam uses the bulkier suit from the TV show. 
• Samuel Sterns and Betty Ross make their return since The Incredible Hulk, an entire 17 years of real-world time between the movies -- the messy licensing issues revolving the Hulk's supporting cast has probably been to blame.
• Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross has shown up in various movies since Incredible Hulk -- notably in Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Black Widow. His original actor, William Hurt, passed away and the character was recasted as Harrison Ford in this movie -- with a lampshade that Ross had to 'change his look' for the presidential election.
• Past Movies Continuity: (Others)
• Finally, after being omstly reduced to news reports, the petrified body of Tiamut the Celestial from Eternals is acknowledged by the MCU, with various nations attempting to claim the precious Adamantium contained within the Celestial's body.
• President Ross brings up Wakanda's attitude towards Vibranium as seen in both Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, where Ross's predecessors had butted heads politically with Wakanda's leaders over the sharing of Vibranium.
• In his gym, Isaiah punches a sandbag off of the chain, a nod to Steve Rogers' very iconic scene in The Avengers where he did the same.
• There is a slight running gag of Joaquin asking Sam about Ant-Man. Whether on purpose or not, Sam's unexpected cameo and defeat at the hands of Scott in Ant-Man has been a bit of a running gag for the character. 
• Ross and Sterns would later find themselves imprisoned in the superhuman prison the Raft, most famously seen in Captain America: Civil War. 
• The sonic cannons that disabled Captain America and Falcon in the bunker seem to be the same sonic cannons seen in The Incredible Hulk that Ross's team used against the Hulk.
• Bucky being busy and unable to help out is presumably an allusion to whatever is going on with him in the next movie, Thunderbolts. 
• Movie Superhero Codenames: Captain America, Falcon and Sidewinder all use their codenames throughout the movie. The Serpent Society is renamed 'SERPENT'. Red Hulk is never referred to as exactly that, but with variations of the term. Neither 'Leader' or 'Sabra' is ever spoken on-screen, and Samuel Sterns and Ruth Bat-Seraph are always referred to by their real name.
• Favourite Action Scene: I like the fighter jet sequence around the Celestial, but I think this one has to go to a no-equipment Sam Wilson fighting against Sidewinder. 
• Funniest Line: "I should have taken that serum. Bucky was full of shit!"
• Dennis Dunphy, Sam's soldier ally, is the civilian alter-ego of minor Avenger member Demolition Man. Considering that Sterns kills him, he's probably not going to adopt that superhero outfit .
• Adamantium, the resource that the various governments are attempting to claim, is, of course, the famous indestructible metal that is used in the experiments that laced Wolverine's bones with it.
• While the MCU's adaptation of the Red Hulk is missing the fiery powers of his comic-book counterpart, during his public, full transformation, Ross's clothes do burn off instead of tear apart, and there were some shots where the Red Hulk is wreathed in flames in reference to this. 
• Camp Echo-1 in the comics was a location meant to hold Amadeus Cho, the second Hulk, in the comics.