Captain America: Brave New World (2025) Review
Cap's Back, but Little About This New Outing Ends Up Feeling Either Brave or New.
Befitting a troubled production beset by numerous delays and reshoots, Captain America: Brave New World is a competent but messy political thriller which attempts to recapture the energy of Winter Soldier. Somewhat reminiscent of 2010’s Iron Man 2, it’s a film that attempts a great many things, to varying degrees of success. Some of it works, some of it doesn’t—but none of it necessarily inspires confidence that Marvel has managed to successfully course correct in the post-Endgame era.
Let’s start with the good. The film sets out to deliver a proper introduction to Sam Wilson’s Captain America, and it mostly succeeds in this respect. Despite being faced with the less-than-enviable task of having to follow Chris Evans’ iconic, decade-long run as Steve Rogers, Anthony Mackie does a commendable job picking up the mantle and carving out his own unique identity.
He brings a certain air of relatability to the role. Where Evans’ Rogers embodied something of an unobtainable mid-century American ideal, Mackie’s Wilson feels much more real. He has his limitations and his faults, just like anyone else. His Captain America feels aspirational, but never quite out of reach. It’s a blend that ends up working really well.
Harrison Ford delivers a similarly strong turn as General-turned-President Thaddeus Ross. Taking over for franchise veteran William Hurt, who sadly passed away in 2022, Ford’s signature gruffness proves to be a great fit for the role. He’s clearly having fun here, which injects some energy and levity into a third act that otherwise begins to strain credibility.
Carl Lumbly’s supporting turn as Isaiah Bradley, a Korean War-era super soldier and former Captain America, proves to be another highlight, providing an avenue to tackle some of the film’s most interesting and thematically rich ideas—such as America’s complex legacy of racial injustice and what it means to be a national symbol. However, his character is sidelined early on, and ultimately ends up feeling underutilized.
Unfortunately, that’s where the praise mostly stops. Structurally, Brave New World runs into the same problem that plagued Iron Man 2: it just tries to cram too much into its relatively short 120-minute running time. Aside from its primary function as an origin story of sorts for Sam Wilson’s Captain America, the film begins laying the groundwork for future Avengers and X-Men projects, all the while folding in the bulk of a much-belated Incredible Hulk sequel. There’s at least two films worth of material here, and there just isn’t enough time to adequately explore any of it.
Then, of course, there’s the matter of the film’s excessive reliance on CGI. It’s everywhere. Literally everywhere. Even littered throughout sequences that are nothing more than characters just standing around talking. Does no one build actual sets anymore? It’s distracting, and ends up making everything feel, for lack of a better word, cheap.
While there are occasional glimmers of the old Marvel spark, Brave New World seems to indicate that Feige & Co. still haven’t managed to crack the code of the post-Endgame MCU. I’ll be curious to revisit this one at some point down the line, but as it stands I’m approaching the upcoming Avengers double feature with a healthy dose of skepticism.
⭐Two and a Half out of Five Stars⭐
Captain America: Brave New World (2025)
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Carl Lumbly, Giancarlo Esposito, Tim Blake Neson, Liv Tyler, and Harrison Ford
Directed by Julius Onah
Walt Disney Studios.
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and some strong language.