“Captain America is answering to the President?” Sam Wilson’s prickly mentor Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), secretly the world’s first super-soldier, can hardly believe what he’s seeing early in “Brave New World.” Despite reaching a tentative understanding with the new Cap over how he chooses to serve the country that turned its back on him in the Disney+ show “Falcon and the Winter Soldier” (this sequel is technically a follow up to the previous “Captain America” trilogy, the spinoff streaming series, the “Avengers” epics, and, for reasons I’m still trying to figure out, “The Incredible Hulk” and “Eternals”), Sam has gone right back to toeing the company line. Thaddeus Ross (a thoroughly enjoyable Harrison Ford, taking over for the late William Hurt) has just been elected President of the United States and, despite the animosity he’s shown towards Earth’s Mightiest Heroes on multiple occasions in the past, duty demands that they work together in order to “rebuild the Avengers.” To Bradley, it’s like everything’s reset back to the status quo. Sooner or later, audiences may end up sharing that same pervasive feeling as the rest of the story unfolds.
Needless to say, things don’t work out according to plan. After a perfunctory action sequence in Mexico catches audiences up to speed on Sam, his Falcon-in-training sidekick Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez), and Giancarlo Esposito’s minor antagonist Sidewinder (and I do mean “minor” — the Serpent Society are a big nothing-burger here), a chilling assassination attempt on President Ross involving sleeper agents threatens to throw the world into chaos. The plot that proceeds to embroil our main trio of Sam, Joaquin, and Isaiah is, quite frankly, too convoluted to even spoil. There are world summits and critical treaties centered on the “Celestial mass” left sticking out of the Indian Ocean from “Eternals,” a modern Cuban Missile Crisis-style situation threatening to erupt between America and Japan over control of precious adamantium (which, in a franchise of Macguffins, might be the Macguffin-iest of Macguffins), and, somewhere in the midst of all this, a shadowy figure pulling the strings from behind the curtain. Oh, and yes, there’s another Hulk and he’s red now.
That hasty plot summary leaves out several key bits of context, however. Entire conversations and characters (looking at you, Shira Haas as controversial Israeli security advisor Ruth Bat-Seraph and Xosha Roquemore as Agent Leila Taylor) exist for the sole purpose of dumping exposition onto viewers. The writing team (or should I say “teams,” made up of Rob Edwards, Malcolm Spellman and Dalan Musson, and Julius Onah and Peter Glanz, and who knows how many other uncredited passes along the way) tries to capture that familiar MCU quip-fest and one-liner vibe, but basically falls flat on its face — especially when undermining the few emotional moments it has. Mackie and Ramirez fare the best amid all this, with the former effortlessly channeling his own unique spin on Chris Evans’ oh-shucks earnestness as Captain America, while the latter actually manages to become the rare character to convey anything resembling a personality. But in case anyone’s hoping for a sequel that might have anything worthwhile on its mind, either thematically or politically or otherwise, prepare to be disappointed. That may have been the case in the script as originally conceived, but all the hard edges have since been sanded off.
Unlike its title character, who barrels through hordes of goons with lethal force despite his commitment to saving lives, this is a movie that appears committed to pulling its punches at every turn.