Captain America: Brave New World review – look, it's Harrison Ford as the Hulk!

On paper, the premise for the brand-new Captain America film certainly sounds like a juicy one: Anthony Mackie, wielding the iconic shield, facing off against the Red Hulk, aka Harrison Ford with a mountain of CGI added to his face. I mean, come on. And yet, scratch the surface and there’s more going on underneath the surface of the MCU’s latest oeuvre. For this is, of course, Anthony Mackie’s first feature film as the titular Captain America, taking the reins from Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers.

As usual, there’s a lot of smashing enemies to do. The film seems keen to prove that Sam is a worthy successor to the shield, so we get images of him wielding a brick, smashing his way through enemies and taking down anybody who tells him he’s not up to the task (“The Captain America I dreamt of killing was bigger than you,” one guy tells him – before getting his arm broken). This is a lither, more agile Cap, aided by the shield, but also by some nifty wings that manage to absorb the energy from bullets and deflect it back at his enemies – as well as a superhuman ability to walk away from bullets, stabbings, explosions and broken ribs seemingly unfazed.

What’s the plot? To save time, it’s all about Adamantium (yes, the Wolverine one – another nod to the ever-increasing likelihood that the X-Men are due to make their debut soon), which has made its appearance in the MCU thanks to the corpse of a celestial being that has popped up in the Indian Ocean. Countries around the world are starting to scrap over it, and a tenuous alliance between them is thrust into chaos when Sam’s mentor figure Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) goes rogue and attempts to kill the President – aka Thaddeus Ross, played here by Ford with maximum gruffness. And while it’s hard to imagine that the team foresaw quite how things would be playing out in the US around launch date, the film does feels scarily prescient: war, trade spats over precious substances, a blowhard US President.

Is Isaiah really guilty? Of course not, and Sam’s attempts to exonerate him soon bring him into contact with another baddie from the very dawn of the MCU. As he digs, he uncovers all sorts of nasties. Though the plot isn’t massively complex, it’s dense, involving multiple references to previous Marvel shows (including the unloved Captain America and the Winter Soldier), while also shoehorning in a series of last-minute plot twists that don’t quite make sense. But hey, if you’re not into that – look! A giant Red Hulk!.

Fortunately, Sam’s relationships with his friends – especially Isaiah and Joaquin (Danny Ramirez) – balance out all the action and add some welcome levity to proceedings. Through them, the film really leans into and explores what it means for a Black man to take on the role of Captain America, especially when his mentor Isaiah (one of the first to get the super-soldier serum) was robbed of the opportunity back in the days after the Korean War.

Isaiah’s plight adds a welcome dimension to Sam’s struggle to solve the mystery of who’s behind it all, even if the film’s ultimate baddie does veer into pantomime territory at times (by which I mean the costume gives weird Eighties Frankenstein vibes). Of course, the whole thing devolves into a joyless slugfest at the end: what else are Marvel films for? But even so, the image of Red Hulk roaring on top of the White House – before smashing up both that and the Washington Monument – is iconic. Is there a more potent symbol for what’s going on in the world right now? It’s enough to make you wish that superheroes existed after all; at least they get happy endings.