The MCU isn’t the guaranteed money-maker it used to be, but honestly, I still think many of the movies are about the same level of fun. These are popcorn movies, little more, and when they got it right, there was a lot of audience goodwill. But the “multiverse saga” isn’t the “Thanos” storyline since, well, there’s no clear endgame, no pun intended, in sight here. There’s just a vague “there are other universes” thing. As it is, a Captain America movie, starring the charming Anthony Mackie as the new Cap, should largely avoid the multiverse stuff and may just be the sort of fun that the best MCU movies tend to be.
I mean, it was this or the new Paddington, and I know what my girlfriend and her comic-loving brother wanted to see.
The movie opens with a presidential election as the former general Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford, replacing the late William Hurt) has been elected to the highest office in the land. Yes, we’re shown that Ross had a history involving one of the earliest and often forgotten MCU movies, but he claims he’s a changed man now despite an ominous phone call. But there’s something new: the frozen Celestial from Eternals is the source of a new McGuffin that won’t mean much, but a portion was stolen by the Serpent Society, led by killer mercenary Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito), and that brings Sam Wilson (Mackie) in as the new Captain America, backed up by his boyish, enthusiastic partner Joaquinn Torres (Danny Ramirez) as the new Falcon. The mission is largely successful, gaining the two men, plus Sam’s pal Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), an invite to the White House for an announcement of a new treaty between multiple countries over the Celestial McGuffin.
But then something odd happens as Isaiah, a former supersoldier himself, among multiple other military men all make an attempt on the life of Ross and the other gathered heads of state. All the men are apprehended, and Isaiah upon capture has no memory of what happened. Sam wants to look into it, but Ross forbids him from doing so. Naturally, Sam looks anyway, and what he finds is there is a connection involving a mysterious figure (Tim Blake Nelson) who has a grudge against Ross, and that grudge may lead to war over the Celestial McGuffin. Can Sam find a way through this mess without a lot of loss of life?
I’ll say it up front: this movie isn’t bad, but it is something of a mess. There are five credited writers, never a good sign, and what comes out is mostly mediocre. I love seeing Esposito in anything as much as the next Breaking Bad fan, but his character feels like something that was added in later. There are moments of blatantly obvious ADR, though nowhere near as bad as all of Ezekiel’s lines in Madame Web, and Ford is, like a lot of older, established actors, just coasting along and counting on his admittedly great onscreen charisma. There’s a good story idea at the center of this movie, but the end result is a blah script that doesn’t do its actors any favors. And the less said about how much Isaiah’s hair seems to change with every scene, the better.
That said, there is a single scene that really worked for me. It’s tacked on in pretty much every respect, something that was probably added to plug the next MCU movie, but it’s a moment where Mackie and another actor making a cameo show some real chemistry that much of the rest of the movie lacks. Mackie’s lines are generally “generic good guy” stuff to advance the plot, but here he gets to display some doubts about his actions and actually seem like more of a well-rounded character. Likewise, Isaiah’s whole story gives the story some depth, but the whole thing is just kinda there, Red Hulk and all.
Grade: C
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