If you enjoy the classic street-level action flicks that kick started the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you should be able to have a fun time when seeing Captain America: Brave New World. The film most notably stars Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Captain America and Harrison Ford as General-turned-President Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross, and those actors do not disappoint in their respective roles. In fact, every actor convincingly sells their respective roles in the political intrigue that Captain America: Brave New World is. That’s why I would describe the film as a classic M.C.U. flick: the producers basically added superhero elements to a certain genre of film to create this one. 

Many ways of describing this movie would be better than whatever the marketing team for Captain America: Brave New World was up to. The film has mixed reviews that are pretty far against one another, and I feel that’s at least partly because the trailer would have you believe that Red Hulk was the main antagonist here. Avoiding spoilers to say that he was not the main villain, and that the true villain spent the film using mind control to make people in Ross’ inner circle turn against him and make Ross look weak, which would spoil an international peace deal for mining rights of the adamantium on the newly-emerged Celestial Island. The trailer was wicked misleading, but the plot of the movie is easy to follow and in my opinion, I think they found a way to make a political intrigue movie entertaining through Mackie’s lead as Captain America.

Effects is what this movie is pretty hit-or-miss on because some character designs looked good while the certain others I can only describe as ‘wonky.’ I won’t spoil which character design didn’t look quite right, but I will say that Sam Wilson’s falcon wings/Captain America uniform looked great and Red Hulk looked exactly as he should. I spoke with a friend of mine, named Jonathan Rivera-Clark, who considers comic books to have been a large part of his childhood and had also seen Captain America: Brave New World, who appreciated the effort the producers went through to make Red Hulk’s design look as good as it did. Jonathan noticed that “[the production team] clipped edits together in a way that felt disjointed”; I personally did not notice the editing technique. What I did notice was that this film has a 49% Rotten Tomatoes score as of February 22, 2025; clearly reviews are pretty split, but my comic-enjoying friend Jonathan felt they did an excellent job with the designs and kept with the original plan for the M.C.U. 

If you like comic books like my friend Jonathan Rivera-Clark, you should love Captain America: Brave New World, if you’re a casual M.C.U. fan like myself, you should find some things to appreciate in the movie, and if you like science fiction/action films, you should think this film is alright. It’s quite obvious that this film is not going to save nor destroy the cinematic universe project, but I think it’s an interesting stepping stone towards new movies coming down the line. I find Captain America: Brave New World to be the right type of movie to get some friends together and go see for a fun mid-afternoon treat.