The ‘Captain’ has turned off the Must Watch sign: A Review of ‘Captain America: Brave New World’

I know it’s naive to demand originality from the fourth installment in a movie series, but after a brief dormant period from Marvel, I expected better from “Captain America: Brave New World.”

About a quarter of its two-hour running time is good — mostly when it emulates its superb forefather, “Captain America: Winter Soldier” in its conspiracy thriller glory. However, these few good parts come across as a refurbishment rather than an enhancement. So, faint praise alert.

Plot twists are seemingly shoehorned in, trying harder to tie in other threads from older content rather than offering any narrative sense or meaning. Alternatively, other storylines are presented as what I assume is groundwork for something down the line in another piece of work.

In terms of the action, which, let’s face it, is the calling card and possibly the ultimate selling point of comic book movies, it’s very hard anymore to come up with something genuinely new. Onscreen battles and fights have been done to death. It is no longer enough to look cool, sound loud and toss funny quips in between. Context is extremely crucial if not mandatory, yet, there is little to work with here.

Not faint praise, the best part of this mess is Anthony Mackie. His character, Sam Wilson, has assumed the mantle of Captain America from Steve Rogers and the parallel of the actor replacing the original Chris Evans can’t be ignored. Mackie is a massive talent who has never quite reached A-list level but has shown up constantly in incredible works (“8 Mile,” “Adjustment Bureau,” “Hurt Locker”). Despite the flaws of this project, he is worthy of the shield on screen and in front of camera.

There’s no escaping the fact that the theme of a Black actor/superhero replacing a white one might be a tough ask today for a major movie studio. But some of the best offerings from “Falcon and Winter Soldier” (the Disney+ show that serves as background for “Brave New World”) were its exploration of this story within the context of America’s handling of race.

I suspect the eagerness to explore these themes originally stemmed from the race issues of the 21st century culminating with the “racial reckoning” that occurred in 2020. Half a decade later, society’s reaction, acceptance, possible overcorrection and definite counteraction to that is something that is ripe to explore and litigate, even in a blockbuster movie.

“Brave New World” barely seems to touch on any of this. Perhaps director Julius Onah and writers Rob Edwards, Malcolm Spellman and Dalan Musson encountered resistance from the Marvel Cinematic Universe concerned about the studio’s inability to reach its high bar of financial success in recent years taking on controversial topics.

As such, the filmmakers waste Carl Lumbly’s performance as Isaiah Bradley, the original Black Captain America (it’s complicated), a pivotal character in the aforementioned “Falcon” show. Bradley as sort of a superhero “Invisible Man” (Ralph Ellison, not H.G. Wells, folks) was really moving and important. He really should have been better utilized here rather than getting sidelined early.

Maybe these provocative themes of race were sacrificed at the altar of recalibrating the brand, or maybe they’re merely trying to create better continuity to set up future installments (Spoiler alert: It doesn’t work).

A brief history. MCU event films enjoyed a jaw dropping level of financial success throughout its first three “Phases” (the way by which they grouped their movies), culminating in 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame,” a pinnacle of critical and commercial success for them. At this point in time, a Marvel release was in the “must watch” category in theaters, as evidenced by its $2.8 billion box office haul.

After that, Phases 4 and 5 encountered a perfect symphony of factors that started a downward slide — the retirement of some of the highly popular original actors, COVID lockdowns, the growth of streaming and the MAGA injection into pop culture (“go woke, go broke” a favorite saying among those types). Also, young people are reluctant to invest in long form content beyond slop on YouTube and TikTok.

“Brave New World” is the first MCU title of Phase 6, with two more coming out later this year. The pressure to launch out the gate is evident in the utter lack of risk. Ironically, this reluctance is the cause of its own demise.

Must watch? More like musty watch.