‘Captain America: Brave New World’ keeps the MCU afloat

In an age where every new property in the never-ending Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is either going to restore or destroy the franchise, “Captain America: Brave New World” is a semi-comforting reminder that it’s OK for a movie to be just fine and forgettable.

The keyboard warriors on either side of the fence will find little ammunition here, ushering in a brief period where comic-book movies are met with a collective shrug rather than an onslaught of verbal skirmishes. This all might be faint praise for a mega-studio blockbuster with a rumored budget of between $250 and $300 million, but the bar was never that high to begin with.

It’s not like all those extra tens of millions were put to good use anyway. The cutting room floor of the editor’s suite might be worth more than several other studio blockbusters combined, the 118-minute final runtime here clearly being a patchwork of several rounds of reshoots and reedits. Luckily, the generic sets and CGI backdrops were always available, but not the high-quality VFX technicians to work their magic and make it all seem remotely believable. They’re probably all busy putting in overtime on “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” anyway.

For the one fan out there who has 2008’s “The Incredible Hulk,” “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” and “Eternals” high on their MCU rankings, “Brave New World” is the sequel they’ve been dreaming of. Audiences need to be well-versed in both the film and television fronts of the MCU to fully grasp what’s going on here.

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General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (previously played by the late William Hurt, now played by Harrison Ford) has become President Ross in one of “the most important elections in American history.” But unlike the outcome of our most recent real-life election, this president preaches togetherness amid overcoming the horrors that have besieged the nation in the absence of the Avengers.

His most important task is to unite the developed nations of the world in harnessing the potential of the Celestial Island, located in the Indian Ocean after the events of “Eternals.” But like all political plans, things get mucked up by intrigue and people working in the shadows. Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), the new Captain America and former Falcon, finds himself caught in the crosshairs of the conspiracy, which is headed by a returning character from “The Incredible Hulk.”

But fret not, any of you who don’t remember the specific details of a 17-year-old movie whose connection to the MCU is mostly just a trivia question – director Julius Onah and his four credited co-writers make sure to spell it all out in bold letters at every turn. Much of the dialogue is spent writing and erasing the whiteboard that is the film’s plot, which includes a copious amount of convenient newsreel interjections. It all coalesces into something that feels much more tailored for Disney+ rather than the big screen.

Even if the character of Sam Wilson is small potatoes when compared to what’s been going on in the entire MCU, his personal dilemmas are interesting. The appeal of the icon that is Captain America lies in the fact that he is just an ordinary person who represents the best qualities of those who resist evil. Sure, he may have been injected with a super serum, but that’s nothing when compared to Hulk, Iron Man, and villains like Thanos and Ultron. The successes of Steve Rogers against all those disadvantages create a nearly impossible barrier for Sam to overcome.

The bond between him and his new sidekick, Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez), is endearing as they both forge a new path together in a world that they’re not quite sure wants to embrace them. That sentiment goes double for Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), the forgotten Captain America from the Korean War who was betrayed by his government.

The sum of these pieces isn’t as attractive as their individual values, making this more of a filler episode biding time until we get the next seismic shift in the MCU. Nuggets of what that will be are dropped here and there, giving us all just enough optimism to keep getting back on this ride.

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures will release “Captain America: Brave New World” in theaters nationwide on Feb. 14.

Eden Prairie resident Hunter Friesen is a film critic who owns and operates The Cinema Dispatch, a website where he writes reviews, essays, and everything in between. He currently serves as the president of the Minnesota Film Critics Association and travels the globe covering film festivals both big and small. To view his entire body of work, you can visit his website and Instagram.