I found this movie a disappointment.
In fact, I've found most of what the MCU has produced a disappointment aside from Agatha All Along and Multiverse of Madness ever since Endgame (Spiderman the obvious exclusion). As with many reviewers rife across the internet, I've found that Marvel have lost their spark a little.
Aside from relying on big names and cameos which is what has saved them since the grand finale of whatever that phase was (I cant keep up), Marvel movies have been declining in quality in order to beat the box office over and over again. I think they've stretched themselves too far, but I'll watch until I cant anymore.
I'm working my way back to the start of the year now. We saw this movie in February and I'm writing about it in June after having seen Thunderbolts* last month. There is hope for the MCU if Thunderbolts* is anything to go by, granted it isnt going to be like the original phase with our beloveds, but this is a new and acceptable era which is building toward something big. The something big is likely going to be another conclusion but I think that's okay, I think we need a goodbye pretty soon and for the MCU to just dabble now and then with solo movies in order to stop while they are ahead.
Now I admit opening that I have missed an awful lot of Marvel and so most of this movie made 0 sense to me. I have no idea why Sam and Thaddeus have beef, why Bucky is a councillor, and to be honest why Sam refuses the super serum. I missed Falcon & The Winter Soldier, I missed most of the Captain America movies in fact as I don't much care for the character. But Jamie filled me in and with that I had enough information to sort of understand what was happening.
The star power by making Harrison Ford the villain, although unwittingly, was a good choice. I wonder if this would have still been the case if the original actor for Ross was still alive, if his screen time would have been quite so big. Regardless of this the casting was good as Ford brought a lot to the role, a lot of anger, a lot of uncertainty, this is what the role needed in this moment.
Obviously we all know that Ross turns into the Red Hulk, it was spoiled in the film trailer in order to get bums in seats. Marvel's hands were tied a bit here with us all feeling that the magic was lost and poor Anthony Mackie not quite having the same pull as Chris Evans . It was also a no brainer to have Bucky do a cameo in this movie based on the history between the two characters, I just think its a bit sad to have to rely on other characters outside of these heroes stories in order to pull us back in.
The film was rushed, that's what I took away from this. We waited over 90 minutes of the 118 runtime for any massive action, then suddenly within the last half an hour its Red Hulk, big fight scene, end. This made bits boring. With Ross being president it was almost like the film was trying to parallel real world events to flesh out its own universe, but it forgets we don't care as it's not real. We dont need to know the ins and outs of government events within the MCU, we just wanna watch superheroes be superheroes, it's not that hard.
In the rush we ultimately got what we wanted, Red Hulk, but we lost out on a fleshed out battle between him and Cap. What we should have got was a drawn out peril, instead the true villain was just plotting and scheming throughout the movie and then boom Hulk and boom hero wins the end. It seemed like a filler film, a reason for Marvel to stay in the headlines. Anthony Mackie deserves more, he deserved a better movie.
As it stands at the moment, the movie doesnt really bring anything to the MCU aside from yet another set of characters we didn't need. The story doesn't really have a placement and doesn't bring anything to the MCU. If it was merely meant to be a standalone then yeah maybe it would have been alright, but Marvel arent into that at the minute, everything leads to something bigger and it's all connected meaning this cant just be a one off movie and therefore it is sadly irrelevant.
I'm giving Captain America: Brand New World a 5/10. It didn't bring much to the table and unfortunately it was pretty boring. I'd watch it again during my Disney challenge and because I want to watch the MCU in its entirety to finally make sense of it all, but not for enjoyment, the next watch will be a duty watch. Sam Wilson needs justice.
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