Captain America: Brave New World - Review: A New Star-Spangled Man Takes Flight

 

As opposed to virtually every single other film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, “Captain America: Brave New World,” does not open with the flowing logos for Marvel Studios, showcasing a combination of clips from the previous MCU films and comic book panels of yesteryear. Instead, the fourth film centering on the role of the Star-Spangled Man and the first to have Sam Wilson, played by Anthony Mackie (“The Night Before,” “Twisted Metal”), take over the role, opens with simple black and white words over pensive strings. “MARVEL” appears first, then “STUDIOS,” then “PRESENTS,” each word appearing on its own.  

It’s a small way of signaling to the audience that this is a film with different goals than some of the previous works, a film committing to the espionage centered political thriller that the beloved “Winter Soldier” film also touched upon. It’s a smart move as well, as the film does touch upon plenty of political themes and espionage, but isn’t nearly as successful, or just frankly good, as Marvel’s last attempt to do so.  

The film follows Wilson taking over the mantle of Captain America full time after the events of “Avengers Endgame” and “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.” President of the United States Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, played by Harrison Ford (“Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Shrinking”), is attempting to broker a treaty between various countries to share the resources discovered on “Celestial Island,” an island made of the remains of a Celestial being after its death on Earth in “Eternals (2021).” During an event to celebrate these talks, an attempt is made on the President’s life, which leads Wilson to attempt to piece together who orchestrated the plot, why they involved his friend and former super-soldier Isaiah Bradley, played by Carl Lumbly (“Justice League (2001),” “Alias”). 

Mackie’s charm continues to radiate throughout the film, just as much as it ever has. Whether he’s been Cap or the Falcon, he’s be a source of charisma without begetting seriousness. His characterization also helps to further establish the differences between his version of Cap and Chris Evans/Steve Rogers’s. He and Ford have some excellent banter and chemistry as well. Ford’s performance continues to show that, for as much as he might bemoan these films in interviews, he’s committed to the showmanship required for blockbuster filmmaking. He narrowly eeks out Mackie and cements himself as the absolute best part of the film. 

It makes sense that Mackie and Ford are the best parts of the film, as they’re not only the two leads but the two marquee characters. Unfortunately, the rest of the characters fade away and are almost completely overshadowed by the two leads. The script has clearly gone through plenty of rewrites, with this final version credited to Rob Edwards (“Treasure Planet,” “The Princess and the Frog”), Malcolm Spellman (“Our Family Wedding,” “Empire (2015)”), Dalan Musson (“See What I’m Saying,” “Iron Sky: The Coming Race”), Peter Glanz (“The Longest Week”), and the film’s director Julius Onah (“The Cloverfield Paradox,” “Luce”). Those drafts have unfortunately muddled what political intrigue the film clearly wants to build. 

The rest of the film’s characters come across as people filling out the cast, rather than naturally fitting into the plot. Wilson’s partner Joaquin Torres, played by Danny Ramirez (“Top Gun: Maverick,” “Chestnut (2023)”), takes over his Falcon role, and the pair bounce off each other well. Ruth Bat-Seraph, President Ross’s head of security, played by Shira Haas (“Bodies (2023),” “Asia (2020)”), feels like a copy-cat of what came before with Scarlet Johansson’s Black Widow, as if she was supposed to fit into the role pre-“Endgame.” Wilson’s friend and secret service agent Leila Taylor and nemesis Sidewinder, played by Xosha Roquemore (“Cherish the Day,” “The Mindy Project”) and Giancarlo Esposito (“Breaking Bad,” “Do the Right Thing”) respectively, are great when they’re here, but simply underutilized. The only one who manages the balance of emotional pathos and great use of screentime outside of Wilson and Ford is Lumbly, but even that comes mostly from the beginnings of his tale in the Disney+ show “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.” Tim Blake Nelson (“Holes,” “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”), as Samuel Sterns, is also great, in a scenery-chewing kind of way, but is limited by the amount of screentime he has.  

Yes, there’s some poor timing with a film based around the President and this kind of political machinations, but beyond that, the mystery still manages to be engaging despite the muddled themes. Those character moments and ambiance are the film’s best aspect. What isn’t is the action sequences. In-between a bombastic opening and final battle, the hand-to-hand combat is lackluster. What was once a massive feather in the cap of the Cap films specifically feels like a watered-down afterthought. It bizarrely feels like it's playing at two-thirds speed compared to the other action scenes, and it suffers because of it. 

Thankfully, the technical aspects behind the production are top notch. While some green screened reshoots show their seams, the camerawork from cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau (“Creed III,” “The Many Saints of Newark”) is fantastic across the board. Numerous scenes play with the camera’s tilt and the use of empty space, in a similar vein to something like Mr. Robot. The more grounded nature of the Captain America films also means that there’s an overwhelmingly practical nature to this film, though it's not without its CGI spectacles. The musical score from Laura Karpman (“American Fiction,” “The Marvels”) is also a massive highlight, bringing in some subtly and uncomfortable espionage ladened strings to complement the bombastic themes for the action set pieces. 

Despite how underutilized some of its characters are and the hand-to-hand action, this latest adventure with Cap and Co. is a legitimately entertaining romp. When it zeroes in on the most mysterious and small-scale elements, it really works as a fun bit of MCU comfort food, neither rising to the heights of films like “Winter Soldier” nor falling to the depths of “Quantumania.” It's a solid adventure with clear room for improvement, but imminently watchable for anyone looking for a superhero fix more in line with the early MCU’s more grounded nature than the current glut of science-fiction, space opera, multiversal tales. 3.5/5

Love Hurts - Review: All Pain, No Gain

 

There’s something to be said for a studio that excels at a very specific niche. For Blumhouse, it's cranking out low-to-mid budget horror films. For Amblin, it’s crafting adventure films either for the whole family or that feel like they're from a bygone era. For 87North, the youngest of the bunch, delivers action films with an emphasis on excellent technical stunt work. This has worked well for a while, with the studio’s previous works ranging from “Nobody,” “The Fall Guy,” “Bullet Train,” “Kate,” and more. In theory, teaming up with an actor with a huge amount of stunt experience who’s recently experienced a career resurgence should be an absolute slam dunk. 

“Love Hurts” follows Marvin Gable, played by Key Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “Loki”), a real estate agent who loves to emphasize positive vibes and happiness in his houses and everyday life. One day, after an attack by two goons King and Otis, played by Marshawn Lynch (“Bottoms”) and André Eriksen (“Violent Night,” “The Trip”), and a bird themed assassin named Raven, played by Mustafa Shakir (“Ghosted,” “Luke Cage”), his life is thrown into disarray when his old crush Rose, played by Ariana DeBose (“West Side Story (2021),” “Wish (2023)”), reappears to ask for him to resume his violent, hitman tendencies to help her get revenge against Marvin’s brother Knuckles, played by Daniel Wu (“Into the Badlands,” “American Born Chinese”). 

On paper, everything about this film seems up to snuff. Not only does Quan have the stunt experience (before his acting resurgence, he worked on numerous productions as a stunt coordinator), his smiley, optimistic personality is a perfect fit for a film like this. He’s great, allowing the film’s differing personas for Marvin to take over his performance, resulting in a role that takes advantage of his two biggest skills. His stunt work is excellent, as is the action throughout the entire film. It does end up being some of the silliest material of 87North’s catalogue (a giant novelty spoon and fork are involved at one point) but it's still just as brutal and fluid as any of their previous works. 

Unfortunately, that’s where the positives end though. The rest of the film is a pale imitation of these kinds of action flicks, and much of it is quite simply bad. Despite a runtime of under 90-minutes with credits, first-time director Jonathan Eusebio fails to amass much momentum with the story. Despite being peppered with action sequences, the actual plot is painfully boring, which then makes the actions scenes feel worse than they actually are. When the only thing separating the action scenes is a plot that you can’t get invested in, it makes those action scenes blend together. There’s a “hamster wheel” type of feeling, as if the film is just running in place. 

That script also does none of the actors any favors. Co-writers Matthew Murray (“Sheltered”), Josh Stoddard (“Betas,” “Warrior (2019)”), and Luke Passmore (“Slaughterhouse Rulez,” “Archenemy (2020)”) relishes in its action movie cliches without ever expanding on them. It invites pieces of weirdness in, like the Raven and his feathered weaponry and poetry, but stops there. It’s just weird for the sake of it, without actually relating to any other vibe the film is putting out. Meanwhile the dialogue is just awful. Numerous moments of emotional pathos are ruined by truly groanworthy lines that simply drag the film down. It doesn’t help that, besides Quan, the rest of the cast feel like they’re phoning it in. Wu is a bland antagonist, Shakir plays the Raven with a grimness that feels weird against the strangeness of the character, Lynch and Eriksen feel like they’re trying to channel a Tarantino banter to minimal success, and DeBose, despite winning an Academy Award just a few years ago, delivers her lines like she’s doing a purposely bad impression of a 1960s film noir femme fatal. 

Even the film’s budget is an issue by the time all is done. It makes sense that this isn’t a film that costs a hundred-million dollars, but its cheapness is most noticeable again because of the poor pacing and boredom. If the film had a decent pace, then, just like the action scenes, some of the cheapness wouldn’t be as noticeable. But every set where a fight takes place feels woefully sterile and flimsy, like it's made of paper and put together just to be destroyed. Yes, some of those fights take place inside of Gable’s “for sale” houses, but the bright lights shining through windows don’t feel like bright sun, they feel like giant stage lights from somewhere in a sound stage. 

Here’s hoping that, in the next few years, Key Huy Quan can continue to capitalize on his newfound success, but that he reads the material first. “Love Hurts” certainly stings, as it manages to completely waste both its lead and the talents of its production studio. What’s good here can’t break through the monotony and what’s decent is turned into a slog because of that aforementioned monotony. “Love Hurts” quite a bit, apparently. 1.5/5