Captain America Brave New World's One Big Problem...

The Take Film TV Movie

Captain America: Brave New World, the new film starring Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson finally taking up the mantle as Captain America, has been a huge box office success but a disappointment...

Transcript

00:00Captain America Brave New World brings us into a new era for the Avengers.

00:04But unfortunately, while the film made bank at the box office,

00:07its reception among critics and audiences alike was not great.

00:12But what specifically went wrong with the film has been a point of debate.

00:16And it turns out the real problem is a lot deeper than many might have imagined.

00:21So what really went wrong with Brave New World?

00:24Let's take a closer look.

00:25One of the first culprits people often turn to when a superhero movie doesn't meet expectations

00:30is superhero fatigue.

00:32The idea that there have just been so many of these films coming out every year for so long

00:38that people just can't really get excited for yet another one.

00:41It can often feel like the studios have just run out of ideas,

00:45instead just rehashing the same handful of stories over and over and over again.

00:49Plus, with the sheer volume of films,

00:51it can feel like if you do finally come across one you're interested in,

00:55you'll have to first watch through 800 hours of prior films and shows

00:59just to be able to have any idea of what's going on.

01:02But this doesn't actually seem to be a big problem for Brave New World.

01:06Or at the very least, it's certainly not the main problem.

01:10While Marvel has been pumping out Avengers content at an astounding rate,

01:14it's been nearly a decade since Captain America got his own standalone film.

01:19This film seemed to be set up in a pretty great position.

01:22It's passing the torch to the next era,

01:23while still getting to utilize an already known and loved character to take up the mantle.

01:28Captain America the First Avenger was a foundation for the universe to be built upon to Endgame.

01:34Now, Captain America Brave New World is a foundation for the second phase of the universe to be built on.

01:40But it was also in this that the movie encountered another sticking point.

01:45The 7th Steve Rogers was a very beloved character.

01:48His Captain America was the centerpiece of the Avengers,

01:52and we got to watch him grow and overcome obstacles small and large and galactic over the years.

01:57So it's no surprise that some would be unhappy about having to let him go,

02:02and to see someone else come in to take his place.

02:04But on the other hand, many were excited to see where things would go.

02:08Chris Evans himself was more than happy to pass the torch to his friend.

02:12This is one of those things where his excitement for me becoming Captain America knew,

02:18let me know that he knew I could handle it.

02:21And many were more than willing to accept that things would just have to change after the events of Endgame,

02:25that it was time to move on to a new era.

02:28Endgame was called Endgame for a reason.

02:31It was the end of the game.

02:32There was no way, right, there was no way to pick up from Endgame and keep building.

02:37This concern over taking over the title and duties of Captain America also plays out within the film.

02:43It's not just a smooth and easy transition for Sam,

02:46where everyone's super happy to see him take on the role.

02:49This is Anthony Mackie has had to deal with in real life,

02:52Sam was confronted by a society who wasn't all in on him becoming the Captain America.

02:57Though how the film deals with this leaves a lot to be desired, as we'll discuss in a moment.

03:02Sam has to deal with feeling like he'll never be able to live up to Steve's legacy.

03:06He also, importantly, doesn't have superpowers, which makes his transition all the more difficult.

03:12But actually, this is a thread that Sam and Steve share.

03:15Steve wasn't born with powers either.

03:17It was his character that was his true power, and the super bits were foisted upon him.

03:23Sam too has to become super due to the circumstances he finds himself in.

03:27Passing the torch from Steve to Sam also allows Captain to be fit into our modern era in a new way.

03:33Steve was literally pulled out of another era.

03:35So while he is beloved, he also felt removed from everyday modern humanity in a way.

03:40Sam, on the other hand, is from our modern world, and so feels more grounded in our current reality.

03:46And so more relatable, or relatable in a different way, because of that.

03:50To better understand the actual problem with the film,

03:52we need to take a closer look at that subtitle, Brave New World.

03:57The film takes its subtitle from Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel Brave New World,

04:01which took its title from a line in The Tempest by William Shakespeare.

04:05In The Tempest, sorcerer Prospero flees to a remote island with his daughter Miranda,

04:10after being usurped by his brother.

04:12Prospero is jaded by what has happened to him,

04:15and in fact the rest of the story is set off by him conspiring to create a storm,

04:19to crash his brother's ship onto the island so that he can enact revenge.

04:23But Miranda, having grown up only knowing the peace and safety of the island,

04:27is unaware of the treacherous nature of these new men,

04:30and is excited at the prospect of widening her view of the world.

04:34She says,

04:35Oh wonder how many goodly creatures there are here.

04:38How beauteous mankind is.

04:39Oh brave new world that has such people in it.

04:42To which her father essentially responds that she only thinks it's a good thing

04:46because it's so new to her.

04:48She hasn't yet learned about how evil the world, and the people in it, can be.

04:52In Huxley's novel, society has become entrapped in a kind of secluded island of the government's making.

04:58Humans are engineered and kept docile through the use of psychological manipulation,

05:03and Soma, a drug that helps keep the population happy.

05:06While traveling outside of the world state,

05:08psychologist Bernard meets a woman who had left the world state,

05:12and her son John, who was born outside of it, and thus had never experienced it.

05:16He, like Miranda, imagines this unknown world as interesting and beautiful.

05:20What John finds instead is the very dark, disengaged, empty reality of a world of humans

05:27forced to distance themselves from the basic essence of their own humanity.

05:32The brave new world for Sam is this new post-Endgame world.

05:36Unlike Miranda and John, he isn't necessarily naive,

05:39but even so still comes to be surprised by the depth of the depravity and destruction he ends up encountering.

05:44Even being aware of the corruption and darkness inherent in the world he inhabits,

05:49he still somehow holds on to the belief that this new world is something positive,

05:53something that is worth both working towards and protecting.

05:56But in Brave New World the novel,

05:58as he becomes confronted with more and more of the reality of this world he had dreamed of,

06:03John becomes not only disillusioned, but distraught.

06:06Sam, on the other hand,

06:07never seems to really waver in his belief of some kind of inherent good at the core of this world,

06:12no matter how much evidence he's given to the contrary.

06:16And this is where we come upon the film's real problem.

06:20Brave New World suffers from an issue that has become more and more of a problem over the years for Marvel films,

06:25while earlier films were allowed to really confront dark realities

06:28and interrogate flaws in the world, even in their protagonists.

06:33Over time, this willingness to engage with difficult subjects in a real way

06:37has been sanded down to the point that it's now almost non-existent.

06:41Sure, they'll wink at problems or bring them up in a roundabout way,

06:44but then will refuse to actually grapple with them in any real way,

06:49while still seeming to want a pat on the back just for pointing out that the problem is there.

06:53And this is a major problem for Brave New World.

06:56It knows that it has to, to some degree,

06:58contend with the prejudice and pushback Sam is faced with as he takes over from Steve,

07:02but his ability to really dig into these issues is rendered toothless

07:06in favor of essentially just making sure that, in the end, he's rewarded for being good.

07:11Steve was actually allowed to push back and question authority more,

07:15even though Sam has far more reasons to.

07:17Robert Daniels hit the nail on the head in his review for Robert Ebert, writing,

07:21From the beginning, Sam Wilson, now Captain America, trusts the sanctity of the US government.

07:27But why does Wilson want to be part of the system?

07:30Why does he grin and bear it in the face of people who so clearly despise him?

07:35Is representation alone really the balm for a broken country?

07:38To fully approach these questions, the MCU would need to be something it's not, radical.

07:43Instead, this film series wants normalcy, to be everything for everybody.

07:50That misbegotten desire brings down Wilson,

07:52and makes this latest installment in cinema's longest-running soap opera its most out-of-touch yet.

07:58The perilous aspects of this Brave New World that mirror our own are brought up,

08:02the racism, the power-hungry president, etc.,

08:05but they're generally glazed over in order to not be too challenging or thought-provoking.

08:10Charles Plymore wrote in his review for The Verge,

08:12While Brave New World's world-building seems promising at first,

08:16it all falls flat under the weight of its exceedingly muddled political messaging and rehashed plot points.

08:22Some try to make the argument that superhero films shouldn't be vehicles for this kind of discussion,

08:27but that's pretty ahistorical since superhero stories have been about

08:30dealing with these kinds of conversations since their very inception.

08:34Ross, the destructive president, obviously has a lot of parallels with our modern day.

08:38And while on the one hand how easily things are fixed

08:41and Ross is brought back down to Earth could come across as hopeful,

08:44there is a degree to which it feels deflating.

08:47Because the after-school special nature of it is so incongruent with what we're experiencing in the real world.

08:53Sam Adams wrote for Slate,

08:54Brave New World, whose script has more credited writers than Dr. Octopus has mechanical arms,

08:59wants to say something about power,

09:02and the moral exemptions that men, particularly white American men,

09:05will grant themselves in the name of what they can convince themselves is right.

09:09But it's so studious about not taking sides that it can't say anything at all.

09:14And the fact that it's plainly been re-shot and re-cut within an inch of its life doesn't help.

09:18Brave New World's biggest problem isn't that it's necessarily a bad film,

09:22or the fact that there's a new Captain America,

09:25but instead its own fear of really stepping up and doing the tough thing because it's the right thing to do,

09:31just like Captain America himself would have done.

09:33It wants brownie points for touching on real deep issues,

09:36but then wants to quickly hand-wave away every problem,

09:39in favor of pretending that everything has a quick and easy fix.

09:43But even though things might not have gone well this time,

09:45that doesn't mean that all is loss.

09:47While Brave New World certainly has its fair share of problems,

09:51it also has a lot of positives too.

09:53Anthony Mackie is of course great, and the action scenes are a lot of fun.

09:57The studio and filmmakers might have gone too far in the safe direction

10:00out of fear of scaring people away from this new era of the Avengers,

10:04but we can hope that moving forward they'll become more willing to truly explore and engage with the topics in a real way.

10:10Though given the direction Marvel has been moving, that feels more and more unlikely.

10:14But that doesn't mean it can't happen.

10:16Sam Wilson deserved a better film to set him up as the new Captain America,

10:20so we're hoping that future outings give him the story he deserves.

10:25That's the take!

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