The Dark Herald Does Not Recommend - Captain America: Brave New World
The closest thing to a compliment this film keeps getting is; given how low your expectations are, it’s probably better than you think it is.
This is a lie.
It would be more accurate to say that this film isn’t as bad as Kevin Fiege originally wanted it to be. In the comic books, after Falcon becomes Black Captain America or rather the Second Black Captain America (there was another one in the Korean War) he starts banging Jane Foster. You remember her right? Thor’s girlfriend? Her! She completely and utterly cucked Thor by taking all of his powers and started sleeping with Sam Wilson.
I’m sure that was originally plan A, but Feige discovered, to his horror, that he actually was not responsible for 100% of Marvel’s successes, and without Perlmutter’s Marvel brain trust guiding him with a firm hand, he sailed the good ship Marvel off the edge of a world that wasn’t supposed to have an edge because it’s round but he found an edge anyway.
Feige was determined to follow his plan of a Marvelverse that had one continuous storyline for both TV and movies. He clearly viewed himself as a grand master storyteller who could rival Tolkien. Except it was a truly terrible idea. First of all, he didn’t invent any of the characters so they are now nothing like they should be, consequently, the audience has wandered away. Second, if he had read the comic books then he would have known just how utterly hopeless a task a single grand storyline has always been. It’s been tried repeatedly, and it’s always failed because you can’t tell any kind of coherent story with one hundred POV characters. The closest thing to a success was DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths because most of the cast was dead by the end of it.
The attraction for executives like Fiege is that it feels like you are making people show up for everything you do because if they don’t, they will miss part of the story. This creates two major problems, one, there is no entry point for new viewers. They are expected to go all the way back to Iron Man (2008) and work their way through what is now about 100 hours of content and you have to include the TV shows because Kevin wanted it that way. And two, even if you are rigidly trying to keep the narrative cohesive you have the problem of people just not being interested in ALL of the characters. This confuses the hell out of casual viewers because a story like Captain America: Brave New World is built on major events they didn’t know about because they didn’t watch them.
Just for a baseline understanding of the setting you had to have watched the 2008 Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Captain America Civil War, Avengers Infinity War, Avengers Endgame, Falcon and the Winter Solider, and The Eternals. At least you got to skip The Marvels (count yourself lucky).
The movie starts with a military operation starring Flying Captain America and Latinx Falcon. They rescue a bunch of hostages from a hopelessly typecast Giancarlo Esposito. While the hostages are rescued, the audience is beaten over the head with a constant stream of tension-killing Joss Whedon-style jokes. The package is recovered and it’s Adamantium, an even more powerful magical bullshit metal than Vibranium.
Turns out the Elemental that popped out of the Pacific (and hasn’t been mentioned for five freaking years) is just chock full of the stuff. The US and Japan are thanks to (General, now) President Ross about to sign a treaty dividing up the Adamantium and as a bonus breaking the monopoly of the Isolationist ethnostate Wakanda.
In this now alternate history, Japan is a military near-peer of the United States, so war is to be avoided with the Japanese if at all possible. I’ve heard that in an earlier version of this movie, it was China and not Japan that needed to be placated, which would make more sense but this movie started before Iger’s friends in Beijing fell from power. It is also rumored the Chinese demanded that Iger to get them the hell out of this movie.
I empathize.
Captain America introduces LatinX Falcon to Korean War Black Captain America who was arrested because of racism and spent thirty years being experimented on. He’s a super soldier. Anyway, Cappy invites Old Cappy to the White House because President Ross is trying to use the Hollywood moral whitewash of I’m Not That Guy Anymore so Ross can make up with his daughter Betty, who is the Hulk’s now ex-girlfriend.
In a lot of ways, this flick is more a Hulk sequel (minus the Hulk) than a Captain America movie. Anyway, Korean War Black Cappy gets hit with a Manchurian Candidate beam from his iPhone and tries to kill Ross. He is arrested and is facing the death penalty(?!?!) for the attempted murder of President Trump-Ross, because it’s more racist that way.
The head of Ross’ personal security detachment is Captain Isreal but they can’t call her that now because of Gaza. She is the one who has the first black Captain America arrested and then realizes that he is not responsible because of the mind sorcery from his iPhone ( he’s not that guy anymore).
Current Year Cappy is way ahead of her and has gone to the black site prison that contains Gamma Ray Brain evil scientist man who is responsible for the attack. Of course, he’s taken over the prison. Gamma Ray Brain is big mad at Ross because Ross turned him into Hulk-Brain or whatever this obscure character is called.
A lot of stuff happens that doesn’t matter until it’s time for the climax. President Ross has taken personal command of a carrier task force (being the first president since Washington to lead American troops into battle) and is racing to the Elemental to fight it out with Japan for control of it. This allows for the very long and extended action scene where Cappy and the Brown Falcon fight mind-controlled US pilots who are trying to start World War III between the US and Alternate History Japan. They succeed and then President Ross turns into Red Hulk because he’s a Republican.
Since Cappy is not a super soldier (because he’s more special that way), he has no way in hell of defeating a Hulk of any color. There is no help coming because Bruce is either on his island or on Planet Hulk and Marvel doesn’t want to remind anyone that She-Hulk ever happened. So Cappy tells Red Hulk he’s not that guy anymore and he turns back into Harrison Ford because they couldn’t think of a better way to end the movie.
Ross goes to the Raft super prison and Betty drops in to say hi to her Dad.
This film is a two-hour trainwreck.
Disney is claiming Cappy BNW had a budget of $180 million and it probably did at one time but, allegedly, the final tab came in at $300 million, that’s just guesswork (because Disney is about as transparent as split-pea soup), but given that this film was entirely reshot twice and how many times this film went into pickups, it will have to clear a billion before it’s safely in the black. It’s not going to get there. Originally BNW had a summer release slot. Then a Christmas slot. Finally, Disney accepted reality and dumped it in Black History Month.
The first weekend numbers are in and a $180 million first weekend given inflation and ticket price hikes means that this film probably had a smaller audience than the 2008 Incredible Hulk, which everyone knows was a failure. This thing will be dead by its third weekend.
The film was slightly more coherent than The Marvels but that’s about all you can say for it. There weren’t too many obvious gaps in the plot but there were definitely signs of the scrapbooking that Marvel has become so justly famous for. At one point Sabra is wearing a coat over her Captain Isreal uniform and that was the only time we saw it. Ross’s I’m Not That Guy Anymore moral whiteout was probably a very late edition. They started reshooting right after the election. Ross was clearly supposed to be a stand-in for Trump but then Trump won and Disney was already in enough hot water with him because of ABC’s rigged presidential debate so a clearly disinterested Harrison Ford was brought back in for more pickups. There was a hilariously obvious, Face Fix on max settings, Liv Tyler cameo at the tail end of the movie. It is possible she was entirely CG-generated except for her voice.
It had the usual over-the-top stunt work that is honestly starting to feel a little dated. One of the few funny scenes in Black Widow is when Natasha’s sister Yelena makes fun of her for landing in a three-point pose all the time. I thought they were learning. They weren’t. And speaking of Yelena, Sabra is yet another 4’11 85lb legal-loli beating up 6’5 250lb stuntmen. I can accept that if you have actual superpowers and she doesn’t.
This was a Hulk sequel without the Hulk, disguised as a Captain America movie without Captain America. Harrison Ford may have been engaged with the part of Ross at first but he was too pissed off by the time he was brought in for the umpteenth reshoot to care about delivering any kind of a decent performance. I can’t blame him, it was two hours of my life I won’t be getting back either. I’d like to think this is the end of the Phase IV horror but Iron Heart is still out there. In summary, there is no reason to see this movie unless you are a Giancarlo Esposito completionist, consequently…
The Dark Herald Does Not Recommend Captain America: Brave New World
Darklings: Wait! Was there a post-credit scene?
Dark Herald: Yeah, Hulk-Brain tells Understudy Captain America that the multiverse is coming. I shit you not, that was the post-credit scene!
The Leader and his Humanoids trying to grab the adamantium would have been a better straightforward plot, but then they'd be harkening back to Steve Ditko again. Fiege is so terribly incompetent at this movie stuff.
"Disney is claiming Cappy BNW had a budget of $180 million and it probably did at one time but, allegedly, the final tab came in at $300 million"
But what about the budget?
You've already had it.
We've had one, yes. But what about second budget?