From the moment Captain America: Brave New World started, I was waiting for it to end. What should have been a triumphant new chapter for Sam Wilson as Captain America instead feels like a studio-mandated, paint-by-numbers project that no one involved had any passion for. Between the jarring reshoots, soulless performances, and some of the worst CGI Marvel has put out in years, this is a film that doesn’t just stumble – it faceplants.
A convoluted story that goes nowhere
Marvel has always walked the line between superhero spectacle and political commentary, but Brave New World doesn’t know what it wants to say – or how to say it. The film tries to juggle global conspiracies, political intrigue, and personal struggles, but it never commits to any of them in a meaningful way. Instead, it meanders from one disjointed set piece to another, barely holding itself together.
And then there are the reshoots. You can feel them. Scenes feel stitched together, with abrupt tonal shifts and characters dropping in and out like they belong in different movies. It’s as if Marvel panicked midway through and tried to course-correct at the last minute – but instead of fixing the film, they made it worse.
No-one looks like they want to be here
Anthony Mackie is a fantastic actor and was great in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but here, even he looks like he’s just waiting for the shoot to wrap. His Captain America should be leading the MCU forward, but instead, he’s given clunky dialogue and an uninspired arc.
Harrison Ford, stepping in as President Thaddeus Ross, looks particularly unbothered. It’s almost impressive how little effort he puts in – as if he just showed up, read his lines, and left. The supporting cast doesn’t fare much better. Everyone feels like they’re just going through the motions, and at no point does anyone seem to believe in the story they’re telling.
Bad CGI and worse action
Marvel’s VFX problems have been well documented, but the CGI in Brave New World is distractingly bad. Some of the action scenes look straight out of a mid-budget streaming show rather than a blockbuster. The visual effects are unpolished, and at times, the characters look like rubbery video game models.
It doesn’t help that the action itself is uninspired. The MCU has delivered some of the best hand-to-hand combat sequences in superhero movies, but here, the fights feel weightless and repetitive. There’s no creativity, no impact — just generic, CGI-heavy brawls that lack any sense of stakes.
A tacked-on message that was gutted to appease the powers that be
At its core, Brave New World should have been a film about what it means for Sam Wilson to take up the mantle of Captain America in a country that has historically rejected Black leadership. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier laid the groundwork for this conversation, tackling systemic racism, the weight of legacy, and the expectations placed on a Black man stepping into an iconically white role. But here? That entire thread has been reduced to a footnote.
It’s painfully clear that this theme was either watered down beyond recognition or outright gutted in post-production. The film flirts with these ideas in brief moments, but they never coalesce into anything meaningful. It feels like the original script might have leaned into these themes with more conviction, only for them to be scrubbed away in an effort to avoid controversy under the new U.S. administration — a government that has actively dismantled DEI initiatives, undermined women’s rights, denied the realities of trans and queer individuals, and dismissed the lived experiences of Black Americans unless it suits their political narrative.
Instead of using its platform to tell a compelling, honest story about what it means to be a Black Captain America, Brave New World retreats into safer, generic superhero territory. The result is a film that is afraid of its own potential, playing it safe to avoid upsetting those in power. And that, more than anything, is its biggest failure.
Final verdict: A franchise in crisis
Captain America: Brave New World isn’t just bad — it’s disappointing. It should have been a defining moment for Sam Wilson’s Cap, but instead, it’s another symptom of the MCU’s larger creative decline. Bloated, lifeless, and riddled with reshoots that make an already weak story even weaker, this is yet another reminder that Marvel needs to rethink its approach.
If this is the future of the MCU, then the franchise is in serious trouble.
