Captain America: Brave New World (2025)

There's a moment watching Captain America: Brave New World where you realise the film is doing everything right on paper and almost nothing right in practice. The action is slick, the production design is sharp, the colour palette has that muted, gritty quality that nods knowingly toward The Winter Soldier. And yet you're sitting there, arms folded, waiting to feel something. It never quite arrives.

Anthony Mackie fully inherits the shield here, and to be fair to him, he carries himself well in the role. Sam Wilson as Captain America is a genuinely interesting proposition, a man stepping into a symbol that was never originally built for him, with all the political and personal weight that implies. The trouble is the film doesn't seem particularly interested in exploring that. The arc that should feel like a bold statement ends up feeling like a placeholder. He's handed the mantle but not really handed a story worthy of it.

And then there's Harrison Ford. I wanted to be excited about his arrival in the MCU, I really did. The man has presence to burn, and there's a version of this where his casting feels genuinely inspired. Instead, it reads as stunt-casting, a big name attached to a role that hasn't been written with enough care to justify the fanfare. He brings gravitas, sure, but gravitas without chemistry or meaningful dramatic purpose is just a famous face standing in frame. The ensemble never gels around him, and the scenes that should crackle with tension fall flat.

The script reaches for geopolitical thriller territory, which should be fertile ground for a Captain America film. The best entries in this corner of the MCU have always worked precisely because they grounded their superhero mechanics in something that felt politically credible and emotionally urgent. Here, the thriller trappings are all surface. The dialogue rings hollow, the villains are undercooked to the point of near-invisibility, and the stakes never tighten in the way you need them to. By the third act, you're watching set pieces that are technically impressive and dramatically inert.

Visually, I'll give it this: the film looks great. The cinematography is dynamic, the effects work is clean, and there are individual shots that genuinely impress. But aesthetics alone can't carry a story this generic. It's like a beautifully designed car with no engine. You can admire it parked in the driveway, but it's not going anywhere interesting. When I think about action filmmaking that actually uses its visual language to build tension and momentum, something like Mad Max: Fury Road comes to mind immediately. That's a film where every frame is doing work. Here, the craft is in service of spectacle rather than story, and spectacle without stakes is just noise.

There's also the now-familiar problem of MCU films that feel less like complete stories and more like expensive connective tissue. Scenes seem to exist primarily to set up the next thing, the emotional beats are rushed through rather than earned, and the whole enterprise carries the faint whiff of contractual obligation. It's not incompetent. It's just disappointingly average, which in some ways is worse than being a proper disaster. At least a disaster gives you something to talk about.

For anyone who felt that Chris Evans was Captain America in some definitive, irreplaceable sense, this is going to feel thin. An echo of something that once had genuine weight. And for newcomers without that emotional attachment, there simply isn't enough here to build a new one. Brave New World moves fast and looks polished, but it doesn't inspire, and for a film wearing that particular shield, that's a significant failure.

Two and a half stars.

Rating: ★★½  | Year: 2025  | Watched: 2026-04-23

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Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

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