Captain America: Brave New World

Sam Wilson, the new Captain America, finds himself in the middle of an international incident and must discover the motive behind a nefarious global plan.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Yeah, let's face it, the MCU has a history of these cliffhangers references post-credit scenes that will go somewhere that they just...

(00:07):
oddly forget about. It's almost like someone sat down and said,
Let's start closing those loops. So they touch on a couple in here. I appreciate that.
Thinking about a decade, it'll be airtight.
["Aerotic Theme Song"]
Just letting you know this is a spoiler-free review, not gonna have spoilers in here.
A couple of reviews recently had dropped a couple of things that I probably shouldn't have.

(00:30):
I hear you, so I'm gonna be possibly obnoxiously vague in this review,
because I saw the trailers and I was like, great. I don't know what that movie's actually about.
Sure enough, watch the movie, and I was like, I didn't get that from any of the trailers I saw, anyway.
They already spoiled Red Hulk in the trailer, posters, banners, standees, all the promotional material.
So Captain America Brave New World is a new Captain America movie starring Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson.

(00:53):
Steve Rogers went back in time, lived his life, became old, handed the shield off to Sam Wilson.
I said no spoilers, sorry to the three of you who did not see Endgame.
Hopefully my hypocrisy only goes so far.
So the series Falcon and the Winter Soldier happened, he became new Captain America.
I have the overwhelming urge to call him Captain Falcon.
Falcon Punch!
We all love it. We all play it. Yeah, not played it. Play it.

(01:15):
So after Sam Wilson's apparently been Captain America for a bit, something happens.
That makes him go, okay, I gotta look into that against orders.
Classic, don't look into this. Sure thing.
Let's look into that.
Uncovering this and that, some action sequences here, Jim Carlo Esposito there, we have ourselves a new movie.
And I will say this, I do appreciate the fact that Sam Wilson's Captain America is actually, it's almost fourth wall breaking, but not really.

(01:40):
Because fans on this side of TV land have thoughts on the matter.
He's not Steve Rogers, not gonna feel the same. He didn't take the Super Soldier serum, maybe he should have done that.
And I appreciate the fact that the movie has him, Sam Wilson, unpacking that, thinking about that himself.
It's a natural thing to think about. On our end, the Avengers is a brand, but the characters themselves are brands.
And on their end, well, same thing applies. It's a brand, they're brands.

(02:04):
Plus Steve Rogers casts a huge shadow. It's a big undertaking.
Movie had a couple of genuine moments where I was like, huh, didn't expect that here.
However, and I know I'm supposed to be like, we're all supposed to be like, hey, this is Anthony Mackie's big moment.
On the big screen to show why he is the new Cap. It's his movie. It's his film.
And it is in that Captain America Civil War kind of way, a bit, you know, in Captain America Civil War, it was a Captain America movie.

(02:29):
It was Steve Rogers' film. However, you did have a parallel lead with Tony Stark in the film.
I feel like that parallel lead in this film is Thunderbolt Ross, played by Harrison Ford this time around.
President Thaddeus Ross in this film, yes, he's the president of the United States.
And I'm not gonna lie, Harrison Ford, not that I don't have faith in Harrison Ford historically, but lately, let's be real.

(02:53):
We've seen some rules he's taken on. It's like, he did that for the paycheck, didn't ya?
Not that I blame him. I don't play- how old is he?
The man is 82 years old. At age 82, he should be on a beach somewhere, enjoying his retirement, flying his planes.
So if ever he wants to be like, kid, I'm here for the paycheck.
Not gonna blame him, but again, on this side of it, can get a bit annoying.

(03:15):
However, he does clock in to work in this film.
He plays probably the most layered character in the film, and Harrison Ford sells that.
Harrison Ford sells that element of morally gray character to the audience, in which they can't actually know the answer yet.
I got kind of excited when I saw the tie-in. I saw the link.

(03:36):
I saw the love letter too, Captain America Winner Soldier, an MCU film I love.
We got politics, espionage, questions, questions that need answers.
Then I realized two things. One, this movie does not have the pacing of Captain America Winner Soldier.
Quite a few times in this movie, I was like, I get the concept of a slow burn, but you need that payoff with a slow burn to make it a slow burn.

(03:56):
Otherwise, it's just... slow.
Yeah, you're gonna hit some boring stone walls in here. It's just gonna happen. What can I say?
Second thing, at a point, I realized, oh, it's not just pulling from Captain America Winner Soldier.
It's pulling from a lot of MCU films. The entire film is a Franken-stitch of other MCU films that they fused together,
flipped the switch, said it's alive, and now it's its own thing. It's a new thing. New thing. Right.

(04:20):
Actually, they don't steal just from the MCU. There is an Ocean's Eleven joke in here. I was like, that's Ocean's Eleven.
Differences, it did not land in this movie. Not all deliveries created equal, that's just comedy.
Comic relief character is Falcon because Falcon got promoted and became Captain America, now there's a slot open, there needs to be a new Falcon.
There's a new Falcon. That said, new Falcon's kind of annoying. They even make a joke about it in this movie.

(04:42):
He tells someone, yeah, we just can't get him to shut up. I was like...
I can tell. I do appreciate what this movie does tie into. One, I'm not completely sold on it.
Keeping it vague. Another is a big plot point that does tie into an MCU film, and I liked it because I liked that MCU film.
What can I say? There have been moments even up to recently. I was like,

(05:05):
they ever gonna wrap that up? They ever gonna reference or tie that into...
probably not? Oh hey, check that out. That's cool.
And we finally addressed that there is a big celestial being hatching out of the Earth.
I didn't think they'd ever touch that again.
For a film that does have a couple of tie-ins like that, and a company that's basically a brand that's built on tie-ins,

(05:26):
it is kind of funny that something happens in this movie,
and it's almost like everyone forgot that that was a thing in the MCU that's happened before.
He's like, how could this happen? Everyone in the room's like, I...
I don't know. I'll be honest with you, I haven't seen all the MCU movies.
I feel like our characters should know, you know, because they lived it.
That's just lazy writing.

(05:47):
As for the action sequences, because it is essentially an action movie, it was alright.
True MCU fashion, a lot of the action is Super CGI action.
The best action sequence in the film is the Red Hulk sequence, which he's in the movie for about seven minutes,
which is totally fine for an action sequence, I think.
Having him front and center in all the promotional material, a bit misleading.
But at first it wasn't a lot of CGI. It was hand-to-hand combat, and hand-to-hand combat in this movie is sluggish.

(06:12):
Yeah, I was like, this is rough. I...
In fact, you know what? Bring on the CGI. I'm fine with it.
Oh great, now we got shitty green screen. You just can't win.
Yeah, some of the green screen was rough.
Maybe it's just camera work that looks like green screen, because the depth of field is just so shallow.
But then there'd be unnatural particleing on other characters, and I was like, is he on a green screen?
They're just talking in a yard.

(06:33):
It looked bad, it looked odd, even some of the flight sequences, I was like, it looks bad, odd, and now it looks really fuzzy and grainy.
Almost like it's not actually there.
I know it's not, I'm not supposed to feel like it's not actually there, though.
Movie magic, magic being the operative word.
Look, in the end, the movie was more enjoyable than I thought it was gonna be, to be honest with you.
A lot of the strengths lie in the concept of what they're going for in the film, more than the execution.

(06:58):
It does have a couple of solid moments of friendship in here, between two characters in particular, that I really appreciated. I liked it.
And no, the one I cared about is not Giancarlo Esposito. He was done dirty in here.
Absolutely useless, didn't do much. Was he one of the reshoots? Was he hired?
It sounded like he was hired later when they were doing some of the reshoots.
Kinda feels that way. It feels like they hired him to put him on the poster, and that's enough.

(07:20):
Those are some of the side characters that don't feel like they organically mix or belong in the film.
As well as some of the locations and side arcs that seem to come out of nowhere, feel scatterbrained.
Some of the green screen that looks incomplete and stands out, it at least feels like the reports of those reshoots were probably legit.
And you'll see cool things here and there, only thing is you've seen them before in the MCU done better.

(07:43):
I can't say it's a sober watch. It'd probably be a better time, if you're drunk.
Get off my plane!
Are so Captain America brave new world? Are you looking forward to it? Are you gonna see it?
Or what's a loose end in the MCU they have not addressed yet that you're just hoping they do?
Wondering if they will.
Whatever it is, whatever you think, comment below, let me know, and as always if you like what you've seen here and you want to see more, click right here to see more.