With a dissent in popular opinion and critics seemingly agreeing this is one of the weakest installment of the franchise, I’m here to throw the tables upside down and explain why I love Anthony Mackie in the tight-fitting costume of the world-saving superhero, but also how I got into the film way more than I should have.
Alright, I’ll admit it. I’m not the target audience for Marvel films. I’m not proud of it, but age, mostly, and gender have prevented me from being a die hard fan of The Avengers, Captain America and The Incredible Hulk. Until now that is.
Because there is something about Anthony Mackie as Captain America that simply feels right. Harrison Ford taking the place of the late William Hurt as President Thaddeus Ross — formerly known as "Thunderbolt" Ross — and now having removed the mustache he has always sported in the comics, while joking about his “different” appearance throughout also does it for me. There is no one who can play the baddie turned good guy who maybe isn’t quite what he seems as Ford does.
Add in the supporting characters, actors like Danny Ramirez as Joaquin Torres who could become the next Falcon, Carl Lumbly as Isaiah Bradley and Giancarlo Esposito as Sidewinder and you’ve made a Marvel Studios believer out of me. But wait! There’s more. In fact, casting Unorthodox actress Shira Haas as the Israeli trained Black Widow agent Ruth Bat-Seraph is a stroke a genius, in our current political age.
I’ve noticed here and there publications referring to the film as “Zionist propaganda.” I wonder if those writing those words know what they mean, or are simply throwing that around to show off their freedom of the press — which I’m all for, in case you were wondering. Of course Haas is, yes, a Jewish Israeli actress, though most of her work has been about combatting the sexism and prejudice that come with her religion and nationality. And Ruth is a strange powerhouse of a character, one kind of super heroine I can identify with: smaller, smarter and strangely ambiguous. It doesn’t hurt that I remember interviewing the pint-sized star back in the days, for the cover story of Flaunt Magazine. If I was going to cast a firecracker of a character in a film, I’d definitely cast Haas, as the filmmakers here have done.
At the recent press conference for the opening film of Berlinale The Light, lead actor, and another personal favorite I’ve featured in my writing Lars Eidinger, pointed out: “As Bertolt Brecht said “contradictions represent hope” and if we can make our peace with that, we can make major progress. Our societies are ailing because of these categories -- good and bad, and wrong and right, and black and white, and right and left. This kind of thinking in psychology is known as 'cognitive distortion'. It’s simply madness to think in just terms of black and white.” It is this living in shades of grey throughout the story that makes Captain America: Brave New World such an interesting film. Despite what one might call a slightly stilted dialogue and the lack of depth in the film. In the film’s press kit, the current installment of the franchise is touted as happening in “a more grounded, more geopolitical landscape punctuated with issues that feel real.” That proves the appeal to me, personally.
A friend and editor I admire deeply went to watch the film with his sons, all Marvel fans. They were disappointed in this film, and my friend said it felt like a space saver of sorts, until the next great, much anticipated and hinted at Avengers installment comes out. I don’t know if I agree, and I’ve been thinking about his statements a lot. I think Captain America: Brave New World may be a more adult film than what Marvel fans are accustomed to, which makes it a more difficult sell. But this past President’s Day weekend saw the film topping the box office and it is slated to repeat its winning numbers this coming weekend too, with little or no competition from other films. What is certain is that we’re all talking about it, and some who have entered the conversation would have never done so for a more tradition Marvel title, with a more everyday man kind of hero. That reason alone makes one love the film, right?!
Adding an extra layer, if we interpret the film and its assorted cast of characters as a blueprint for our screwed up modern world, particularly when it comes to the place America (the USA) occupies within it, the film shows its shades of brilliance at every turn. Even in the casting of an Israeli actress as someone we may or may not want to trust completely.
And don’t even get me started about a Black Captain America, the true elephant in the room, and in a good way. When Mackie says in the film “I wonder if I’ll ever just be enough,” I started to tear up. Modern America is Black America and until we realize that and how we’re all just guests there, we’ll never be able to appreciate a film like this one.
This changeover, to a less “traditional” superhero, happened at the end of Avengers: Endgame, when Steve Rogers (played in the 2019 film by Chris Evans) passed on his vibranium shield to Sam Wilson (Mackie), who had stood beside the Avengers as the winged Falcon. Wilson’s complex decision and his journey from Falcon to Captain America was explored in Marvel Studios’ The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, a 2021 series for Disney+.
As the film’s producer Nate Moore says, “Brave New World is about him [Wilson] taking the mantle of Captain America and running with it while facing threats that are bigger than what we’ve seen in the past. We’re putting Sam through the paces to prove to people, not only that he should be Captain America, but that he can be Captain America in a way that even Steve Rogers never was.”
It is a strange new world, this Trump-elected-for-a-second-non-consecutive-term America, and the film’s themes capture that perfectly. Perhaps for younger fans of Marvel comics and films this latest Captain America may feel like an interlude until the next Avengers film finally comes out. But for me, it felt like the beginning of something interesting, a Marvel film franchise that even I would be a fan of. And that’s no small feat to accomplish.
The film’s director Julius Onah admits being influenced by such classics as The Day of the Jackal (1973), Point Blank (1967), The Parallax View (1974) and Onah’s personal favorite movie, the neo-noir crime thriller Le Samouraï (1967). I would add in The Manchurian Candidate, as a lot of what happens with Isaiah Bradley at the beginning of the film made me think of the original 1962 John Frankenheimer film, but also the 2004 remake starring Denzel Washington and directed by the late Jonathan Demme.
It did help that I watched the film in IMAX, as it was shot using IMAX cameras and the sound was mastered for IMAX. So if you watch it on your mobile, for example, you’ll simply be missing the point. Great credit goes to Costume Designer Gersha Phillips for making superhero clothing that feels lived in and real, as well as Laura Karpman, the film’s Soundtrack Composer and Dave Jordan who supervised the music. As you can tell from the tracks I’ve embedded in the piece, the songs are tap-along phenomenal and very new era Captain America.
As a funny aside, I used to watch the 1970’s series The Incredible Hulk with a family friend, the writer and journalist Oriana Fallaci. She loved watching Bill Bixby’s David Banner transforming into Lou Ferrigno’s Hulk right before our very eyes and, much as she would say the same about John Wayne movies, she would tell me how the characters in the TV series offered a roadmap to living in America. I was a pre-teen then, still living in the hills of Florence, but also highly impressionable and very vulnerable to the words of a woman I considered extraordinary — and still do. So somewhere within me, I must still be following her credos. For those who know me, it’s not hard to see me transform into the big, green thing when I get angry… You just have to wait for the right, or rather wrong, moment.
Images courtesy of Marvel Studios and Disney, used with permission.