SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — The Superhero season is kicking off early with “Captain America: Brave New World”, a continuation of the original franchise as well as a cinematic introduction of Sam Wilson as Captain America.

His Disney+ series, “The Falcon & The Winter Soldier” was released in 2021 and he was announced officially as the new Captain America at the end of 2019’s “Avengers Endgame” almost 6 years ago.

In “Brave New World,” General Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford), now rounding to his 100th day as President of the United States, is taking action over a new resource discovered in the partially emerged Celestial in the Indian Ocean. This resource can be incredibly versatile and every world power is trying to get their hands on it.

He and Sam Wilson have not been on the same page and are even less trusting of each other, but President Ross now feels that the world needs a new Avengers, and tasks Sam with assembling the team.

But before Sam has time to process the news, an assassination attempt on Ross is seemingly carried out by his mentor and the first Super Soldier, Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly). All is not as it seems, and the mystery of who set the hit on President Ross is essential to proving Isaiah’s innocence. Sam and his “new Falcon” Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) will have to uncover the truth in a Spy-thriller that hopes to usher in the next chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

I was a big fan of “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” when it came out and am happy they are bringing in the characters and story arcs introduced from it. Anthony Mackie is as full of charisma and charm as Sam Wilson, but as Captain America, he brings more heart and compassion than what we’ve seen previously. His profession before becoming a Superhero was as a counselor for veterans with PTSD, and I love any time Sam puts the shield down and uses his ultimate weapon; his ears, and his heart.

That said, he has some incredibly fun gadgets and additions to the suit and wings that significantly level up his fighting ability. This Cap can get hurt, he doesn’t have the Super Soldier Serum in his DNA, so to see new ways that he needs to problem solve and adjust to what maybe Steve Rogers could solve by brute force was exciting and raised the stakes.

The big tension throughout “Brave New World” comes from President Ross and Sam. Ross has a history of being ruthless, compassionless, and willing to hunt anyone down including Captain America himself during the events of “Civil War” to “Infinity War”. Ross feels he’s changed, and that he and Sam could start a new relationship but neither of them really believes that it seems.

Harrison Ford does great at making the character his own while also paying tribute to the late William Hurt’s portrayal. You can tell Ford is having fun being the antagonistic President who growls and points with every sentence. The big issue with President Ross’s character arc is it’s heavily reliant on you having seen 2008’s “The Incredible Hulk”, which is an issue that splits the film from being centered on Sam to being a lot of filler and continuity clean-up.

The mystery of who set out to assassinate President Ross again relies heavily on you knowing “The Incredible Hulk”. In many ways “Brave New World” could easily be considered a Hulk-adjacent tie-in (minus Mark Ruffalo). Giancarlo Esposito is brought in as a small-time “Baron Zemo” who is too underwritten to be more than a red-herring for who the real villain is. Casting him in this role was as much of a waste of incredible talent as Idris Elba in the “Thor” franchise, if not worse. He’s of course great, but you know in the vast MCU there has to be a better fit for him that subverts expectations and gives him a chance to build a character.

This film underwent massive reshoots that heavily involved scenes with Giancarlo Esposito. You can feel in the editing that the film is an amalgam of many parts that maybe weren’t initially planned together. I’m not against reshoots at all, but I can’t really understand the reasoning for these other than reactions from test audiences rather than the director needing to expand or amend their story.

We also have to address Sabra’s introduction into the MCU already a big controversy and sparking boycotts from some groups. Sabra is an Israeli Superhero, however, in this, she’s reworked as solely a former Black Widow. I feel the backlash of a fictional character is somewhat silly, I’m only basing my thoughts on the performance given by Shira Haas.

With all due respect to her as an actress and fully acknowledging that Shira had her growth stunted at age 12, I just could not see her in this role physically-wise when she is physically taking on towering and massive henchmen with little to no resistance or challenge. Shira certainly played a tough-on-the-surface agent who doesn’t take nonsense from anyone, but the action and her fight choreography language did not work and were laughable and distracting.

The action that you can tell was most worked on and fun to watch happens over the Indian Ocean, with air dogfights and well-choreographed sequences I was having a blast. The opening action is also good at establishing what this new Captain America can do with the new suit but is realized to the fullest in the Indian Ocean sequence.

I liked the dynamic between Falcon and Cap, it’s different from what we had with Steve and Sam, and hasn’t quite hit that crescendo of really understanding their connection to each other, but they still have fun chemistry and I’m excited to see that moving forward.

The big question on everyone’s mind going in will be all surrounding the marketing for “Brave New World” which is the introduction of “Red Hulk” Thunderbolt Ross. Harrison Ford is having so much fun playing a big angry monster, and his transformation scene is incredible. I like the differences shown between Red Hulk and Banner Hulk, and think the effects work were on-point.

Whether or not you believe Sam can withstand a Hulk smashing will be left to the audience, but I can say it’s an entertaining fight that maybe was placed in the wrong part of the story, but still was fun nonetheless.

Overall, there is good and bad with “Captain America: Brave New World”. I would put this squarely in the middle tier of MCU films that could be fun to revisit later on but could have been better. I love Sam Wilson and I want more for Anthony Mackie moving forward, and hope that his arc is more pronounced in “Avengers: Doomsday”.

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