When the “Falcon and the Winter Soldier” TV show came out a few years ago, I was a huge fan of it. It told the story of Sam Wilson, or the Falcon, and his journey to becoming the new Captain America. “Captain America: Brave New World” tells the story of Sam now that he is Captain America and what he has been accomplishing in this new role. I have a lot of positive things to say about “Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” almost no complaints in fact. It was far and away my favorite of the TV shows that Disney has been adding to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). I went into the movie “Brave New World” with high expectations because of this (a bold thing to do post-”Endgame,” I know), and was a bit disappointed.
Overall, I did enjoy “Captain America: Brave New World,” but there were a few issues I had with it. The dialogue felt clunky at times and very cliche for most of the movie. There were some good lines here and there, but it felt like it had been put into ChatGPT to write the script. Think of the most generic superhero catchphrases you can, and the majority of them were probably in there.
The character writing was also a bit odd —Not as much for people like Sam, who already had a relatively fleshed out character — but more for some of the side characters who were new to this movie: President Ross (played by Harrison Ford) and Isaiah Bradley, who is a close friend of Sam’s. They felt very 2-dimensional and not very deep. Which is unfortunate, because I love Harrison Ford and I thought Bradley’s actor did very well for what he was given. It felt more like a writing issue, because I could definitely tell that the actors were doing the best they could. However, I did greatly enjoy Danny Ramirez as Joaquin Torres, the new Falcon after Sam inherited the title of Captain America. He felt like a breath of fresh air, and he was very engaging to watch whenever he was on screen. I was happy that he played a more major role in the story compared to the other two, who weren’t as prominent.
Now to cover some things I did enjoy about this film. I thought the action was stellar, very well organized and choreographed. The last fight of the movie I thought was a little weird, but besides that, very cool stuff. There’s a scene in which Sam uses his metal wings to slice off the wing of a plane midair, which was a really neat shot, and kinda reminded me of that scene in one of the new “Star Wars” movies where the one ship gets cut in half after being rammed by another ship at light speed. There were a bunch of other scenes that I could mention as well as great action shots, but it’ll be better if you see them yourselves.
This movie was weird at times, but actually not bad overall. There weren’t as many quips and funny remarks as there have been in past Marvel films, but I was actually not too bothered by that. It felt like it fit the tone of the movie better to make it a little more serious. I can definitely tell that they were trying to draw some inspiration from earlier Marvel films like “Iron Man” and the earlier “Captain America” titles. Some of the characters introduced are practically copy/pastes of earlier MCU heroes. A bit weird, but overall not a bad take on the story.
Overall, I think this is one of the better MCU movies post-”Endgame.” It wasn’t a great film, and I was kinda expecting better, but it was a fun watch. I would give it a three out of five stars, not horrible, but not great either. If you are interested in watching the film for yourself, it is currently out in theaters, or in a couple months, it’ll probably be on Disney Plus.
