Despite that ballsy title, there isn’t much brave or new about this fourth Captain America film.  In fact, much of this overproduced, overextended pseudo-epic reeks of sheer exhaustion:  The chummy banter that once distinguished the MCU couldn’t feel more forced.  All the big speeches lack emotional punch.  Those brawny action scenes, all juiced-up with expensive CGI, resemble PS3 cutscenes.  Everything is so real it looks fake.  To paraphrase the wonderful Ben Folds, Captain America: Brave New World adds up to The Battle of Who Could Care Less.

Even worse, the MCU is actively committing the same sin as the Star Trek franchise did in the 90s, albeit on a much larger scale.  Geeks of a certain age will remember that the Trek producers cranked out seven seasons of The Next Generation, seven seasons of Deep Space Nine, and seven seasons of Voyager.  Oh yeah, and God knows how many seasons of Enterprise.  And all those movies–yeesh.  An unintended effect of all that material was to wall off newcomers.  (“What’s that?  You’re not familiar with the Borg or the Dominion?  Well, we covered that six hundred episodes ago!  Sorry!”)  As die-hard fans winnowed away–myself included–it wasn’t franchise fatigue.  It was franchise death.

Now, here we are:  Thirty-five movies into the MCU.  Plus God knows how many seasons of how many Disney shows.  Put it this way:  Brave New World is the sequel to the Falcon and Winter Soldier miniseries, which is itself a direct follow-up to the events of both Avengers: Endgame and Captain America: Civil War.  It also ties into the 2008 adaptation of The Incredible Hulk, while also setting up a soft reboot of the Avengers franchise and the eventual introduction of the X-Men.  There ain’t enough Advil and weed brownies in this hemisphere to make any of that less confounding.  It’s not franchise fatigue, it’s…well, you know the rest.

Of course, the rest of this review will assume you’ve slogged through that thicket of material.  Otherwise, you might as well be reading a recipe for tuna casserole in Sanskrit.  Anyway, here we go:  The film begins with Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford) as the newly elected President of the United States.  Yes, Ross was once the archenemy of Bruce Banner.  Yes, he divided the Avengers with the Sokovia Accords.  (“What’s that?  You’re not familiar with the Sokovia Accords??  We covered that, like, six hundred episodes ago!  Sorry!”) But the chaos of the previous thirty-four movies has left the world battered and confused.  Ross might be a jerkwad, but at least he’s a decisive jerkwad.  (In reality, the people would never choose a petulant, impulsive demagogue for president, right?  Right?!)

Meanwhile, the world has to adjust to a new Captain America.  Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) inherits the shield from Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), and now must make his own mark as a global superhero.  He also must tangle with complex emotions on Ross, a man who once labeled half the Avengers as war criminals.  On top of all that, Wilson still struggles with the socio-political weight of being a Black man in role made iconic by a white man.  It hurts to see the wrong done to Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), the Black super-soldier who languished in a military prison.

This is a good spot for full disclosure:  I enjoyed Mackie’s vibe as the new Cap.  His early scenes have that same rush of when a new 007 does the gun barrel intro.  Mackie has that cool self-assuredness that makes him the instant center of the movie.  That praise goes ditto for Ford as Thunderbolt Ross.  Moviegoers who’ve spent the last seventeen years huffing up this cinematic K2 will recall that William Hurt originated this role in Ed Norton’s take on The Incredible Hulk.  His run lasted until 2021’s Black Widow, when the actor sadly passed from cancer.  The filmmakers make the right call in recasting Ross.  Of course, I can’t speak for Hurt’s wishes, but most actors would want the show to go on.  To that end, Ford obliges by stamping his scowly, rawhide persona onto the role.

So, the filmmakers got that right.  They botch just about everything else.  The two lead actors have to wade through a needlessly convoluted plot.  If anything, most of the stale screenplay (credited to five people) hews to the Marvel formula:  Like the other Cap movies, we get the Parallax View shenanigans, where Wilson finds out his own government is manipulating him for their own sketchy reasons. Meanwhile, a lot of the story has to jerk our chain with lots of winks and nudges about the next set of movies coming down the pipeline.  These little sly references and lore drops were cute about two dozens movies ago, but now they’re played out to the point of being comical.  (Yes, this movie has another one of those after-credit scenes.  In typical fashion, the actors blather a lot of vague dialogue without actually saying anything.  Something’s coming!  Ooooooooooo!)

Side note:  There are some big reveals in Brave New World, particularly about the true mastermind.  If you’ve stayed off IMDb and don’t know, then I won’t spoil it for you.  (Except…I’ve seen Halloween shops with better makeup.)  It’s equally disappointing that the trailers and posters spoiled Ross’ plot twist, as well.  On that front, I would argue that having a Red Hulk without a Green Hulk is like having biscuits without mustard, but that’s just me…

While I’m on my grouchy rant, let me pose a question:  What has happened to CGI?  The movie presents a big battle scene over the Indian Ocean, and it somehow manages to look both cheap and expensive.  Clearly, a lot of people logged a lot of hours at overheated workstations to render this stuff, so why does it look so stunningly mediocre?  At no point during this set piece did I feel like I was watching anything close to something on Earth.  This is 2025.  How could that be?  I’ll take my answer off the air.

Put all that together, and you’ve got a nice soggy beach towel.  Maybe the MCU, like Trek, has simply become the victim of its own massive success.  As fans, we’ve been spoiled with a glorious run of goodness.  And maybe it’s bratty to expect every movie to be The Winter Soldier or Thor: Ragnarok.  At the same time, there’s no denying it:  Brave New World is a tired movie.  Hell, I felt tired just watching it.

118 minutes.  PG-13.  On demand.