“You may be Captain America, but you’re not Steve Rogers.”
This powerful statement was made by Thaddeus Ross in Captain America: Brave New World. Captain America: Brave New World was directed by Julius Onah, starring Anthony Mackie, Harrison Ford, and Danny Ramirez, and released in theaters on February 11th, 2025.
Going into the theater I had low expectations, especially considering that so many other Marvel productions have been crashing and burning recently. Unfortunately, it was pretty much what I was picturing. The storyline was fairly decent, but the movie graphics, like green screen and CGI, just weren’t up to par with the previous Captain America movies.
Captain America: Brave New World continues the legacy of Steve Rogers with Sam Wilson, taking over as Captain America. Wilson has to work through the challenges of being the new “Nation’s hero,” while also struggling to prove the innocence of his friend.
Ramirez’s character, Joaquin Torres, is the mentee of Sam Jackson, having taken over as The Falcon before the movie takes place. He is ambitious and overly-confident, but also a very skilled person. He’s the type of character that viewers love from the start, and his actor does a great job of inducing that.
Many of the other characters were portrayed in similar ways, just with different tropes. All of them had visible personalities and their actors were clearly working hard to show that. In this movie, every actor seemed to be pretty good at separating themselves from their characters for the audience.
Captain America: Brave New World explores the complexity of politics above all other things, and shows how hard someone is willing to push to get what they want. The president of the United States, Thaddeus Ross, is a once-hated politician who is trying to claim a substance that Japan has just found, and he experiences many hardships throughout it, asking Captain America for help.
Unfortunately, in our society, politics plays a huge role in everything. Every day there is a new thing to discover about a politician or legal issue. I think the biggest lesson here is that anyone can be a bad person, but everyone is also worthy of redemption, if they want it.
The strongest element of this movie has to be getting to see Sam Jackson go on his journey to becoming a bigger, more popular superhero. After watching Avengers: Endgame, where Steve Rogers gave Sam his shield, viewers have been long waiting to see if Marvel will make a movie or show out of it, and they did.
The weakest element is really just the fact that it’s not super put-together. Some actors, not necessarily the main characters, were poorly chosen and aren’t as good at acting as you’d want for a big movie such as this. It also feels rushed, and the visuals are really strange to look at.
Overall, I did enjoy watching Captain America: Brave New World, but it’s not something I think I’ll be rewatching anytime soon. It’s a good movie to watch once, but it’s not necessarily one to make you want to go back to it. If you’re not picky about what Marvel production gets put on the television, this could be the movie for you! I think this movie would also really appeal to late-elementary and early-middle school kids.
I personally would give this movie a 2.5 out of 5. It was good, but it wasn’t nearly as great as some I’ve seen in the past.
