I will gladly concede the peak years of the MCU were arguably the 2010s, as this was the period i which directors were firing on all cylinders with a unique blend of intensity, heart, and humor that appealed to both veteran comic book fans and the general publicity at the same time. 2014's Captain America: The Winter Soldier was a notable standout that featured Steve Rogers posing larger questions about what would be needed to be sacrificed in the name of national security, providing more food for thought than the typical superhero film while also delivering marketable thrills.
With the recent entry Brave New World, which this time stars Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) in the titular role, this entry in the series is entertaining but comes off a bit restrained in many respects to how explosive Civil War was (which I still believe was far more fun than the overly cynical print story it was based on). A number of new details are set up here for future Marvel capers, but the exposition and world-building sadly overwhelmed a good amount of time that I felt could have been saved for more character developing.
Following a battle with Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito, villain actor extraordinare), Wilson is swept up into a plot where he iscoers he has to clear the name of his friend Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumby, reprising his role in the Disney+ series) after he's presumably behind an assassination attempt on President Ross (Harrison Ford, who got a chuckle out of me during the press buildup in which he was annoyed about people still asking him Star Wars and Greedo questions).
With the help of the new Falcon in Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) and Ross's top agent Ruth Bat-Seraph (Shira Haas), they're quickly in the line of fire of The Leader (Tim Blake Nelson, underneath some nasty makeup) and his plan to destroy the president's reputation. But does Ross know more about the whole truth of the situation than he's stating?
So I might catch some hell for saying this, but I didn't entirely hate this film- my one major issue is how the writers went too far out of their way to make Sam act too much like Steve, or at least they did during the action scenes. He only gets so much to work with in terms of character development- nothing awful, but the storyline kinda forces Mackie to operate as a standard tactical hero and it doesn't really *analyze* his Captain America in the way Winter Soldier did and Civil War did with Steve and the tough decisions he was forced to make in those movies. I liked the parts where we got to see how protective Sam was of Torres, but in a stronger script that would have played a much larger role in the narrative. Ruth unfortunately was a bit boring, but her role in the story was fairly light.
Harrison Ford's Ross I actually felt was one of the standout highlights of Brave New World, and yes, I did feel some empathy for his character- him playing a real world symbol as a POTUS wasn't about to have any sort of effect on how I felt he worked in the story. I'm sure there are a lot of hidden allegories for how America approaches certain things in his transformation into Red Hulk, they just weren't going to be the thing that made or broke my enjoyment of it.
Because personally speaking, the most fascinating thing about Captain America as a character isn't inherently tied to his political meaning but rather his overall personality and how that impacts his decisions as a crimefighter. Steve Rogers was a decidedly old-fashioned type who often found himself at odds with modern sensibilities, but that was tempered by his natural goodness. San is a more modern take on the star-spangled shield fighter, and while Falcon and Winter Soldier did a nice (if imperfect) job on fleshing out Wilson as a person and what being the Captain means to him, there's only so much that Brave New World gives him outside of the overall mission.
Ultimately, I was much higher on this fourth Cap film than many other MCU fans and moviegoers, perhaps because I still have in my head the "dark age" of superhero films. Maybe I should be raising my standards and not put it next to stuff like Catwoman, but I generally judge superhero films like I wouldd any other movie- they're not being graded on any sort of special curve or scale, so I'm focused if the film entertains me overall, not so much if it's perfectly comic-book accurate or every single piece of alleged sybolism related to it. At the very least it did make me more intrigued about the upcoming Avengers movie, and how Sam's Cap will perform in presumably that leadership role. (Also, fingers crossed for some funny Sam and Rocket interactions, please Disney?)
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