Captain America: Brave New World - Official Trailer (2025)

[Zardnaar]

Yeah. Even if you liked the MCU and many of the remaining characters, everything and its brother was going to get compared to Infinity War and Endgame, and to some people, that meant everything was going to look bad. Add in the general tendency to consider "average" as a synonym with "bad" by some people (I'm deadly serious when I say the rise of the way "mid" has been used is a pox on media and other related area's discourse), and there are fundamental problems with a lot of reviewing right now, and that's even if you exclude the people who are hostile to action movies or superhero movies out the gate.

I didn't even think Endgame and Infinity war were all that. They didn't drop the ball at least. Not a super hero fan as such but I liked Iron Man, Avengers, Black Panther, GotG more than EG/IW.

It was always gonna be a hard sell. I font think the multiversity thing was a good idea vs character arcs early phase 1 set up. Cart/horse scenario DCU had same issue ymmv of course.

 

[Reynard]

Part of the problem is that no new MCU film exists in a vacuum - it is always compared to what came before. From Iron Man in 2008 to End Game in 2019, there was a general upward trend; ups and downs, certainly, but the whole MCU 'congealed' into something rather epic and pleasing to a wide fan base and critics alike.

Somewhere out there, there is a universe in which the MCU ended with Endgame and the whole endeavor is lauded as the most ambitious and successful film franchise in history.

In this universe, every movie and show afterward, no matter how good that individual thing might be, erodes that accomplishment.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

(I'm deadly serious when I say the rise of the way "mid" has been used is a pox on media and other related area's discourse)

I don't entirely disagree, because there is a quite annoying tendency where everything in media, games, books, movies, TV has to be either "GOAT'D" or "TRASH TIER", and like, most stuff isn't either. Mid being used insultingly is part of that.

BUT - and I think this is a significant but - at the same time I think "mid" is very warranted for the intentionally mediocre junk that Disney particularly, but a lot of other companies in general put out, because we know they can do better, and we know that a lot of the reason they aren't is simply because it's easy to put out mediocre stuff, and not even try and just rely on guaranteed audiences. A lot of this comes down to things like director choice - Disney have been doing this weird triple combo of experienced and competent directors, useless Hollywood failsons (and the odd faildaughter) with connections (Hello Trevorrow), and random serious directors who have ABSOLUTELY ZERO experience making either big budget movies/shows or action movies/shows and then putting them on huge budget action.

So I think it's more reasonable to deploy "mid" against bazillion-dollar budget Disney fare than say, some poor writer's slightly dodgy first novel.

no matter how good that individual thing might be

I dunno about that mate. I think the issue is almost none of them have been good.

There's an awful lot of hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars being aggressively spent on mediocrity.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't entirely disagree, because there is a quite annoying tendency where everything in media, games, books, movies, TV has to be either "GOAT'D" or "TRASH TIER", and like, most stuff isn't either. Mid being used insultingly is part of that.

BUT - and I think this is a significant but - at the same time I think "mid" is very warranted for the intentionally mediocre junk that Disney particularly, but a lot of other companies in general put out, because we know they can do better, and we know that a lot of the reason they aren't is simply because it's easy to put out mediocre stuff, and not even try and just rely on guaranteed audiences. A lot of this comes down to things like director choice - Disney have been doing this weird triple combo of experienced and competent directors, useless Hollywood failsons (and the odd faildaughter) with connections (Hello Trevorrow), and random serious directors who have ABSOLUTELY ZERO experience making either big budget movies/shows or action movies/shows and then putting them on huge budget action.

So I think it's more reasonable to deploy "mid" against bazillion-dollar budget Disney fare than say, some poor writer's slightly dodgy first novel.

While I don't entirely agree with you middle paragraph here, I don't disagree with your concluding line. There are a lot of things that can harm a movie that just because someone has a lot of budget and talent to throw at it doesn't mean won't happen; everyone turns out some things that are just average.

But taking that kind of shot at people who are working with more limited budgets and tools is just kicking down.

I dunno about that mate. I think the issue is almost none of them have been good.

There's an awful lot of hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars being aggressively spent on mediocrity.

Abd that's where I can't follow you. I don't actually think any of the post Endgame movies have been genuinely bad, and only one of the TV shows. And some I thought were quite good. You're welcome to see it differently, but to me some of it just looks like unreasonable expectations or calling things bad that are anything but.

 

[Mercurius]

Somewhere out there, there is a universe in which the MCU ended with Endgame and the whole endeavor is lauded as the most ambitious and successful film franchise in history.

In this universe, every movie and show afterward, no matter how good that individual thing might be, erodes that accomplishment.

Pretty much. To be fair, though, that is somewhat true with a lot of franchises. There's an initial great idea and inspired presentation, then diminishing returns on sequels and (worse) prequels that try to re-capture the early inspiration. Some are able to break the pattern, but the vast majority don't.

 

[jian]

So, I’ve seen it now. And overall, I liked it more than I was expecting. Knowing that it was basically filmed 18 months before it came out, some of its plot beats have been overtaken by events, but some of them endure pretty well. I was actually quite impressed by the light touch but heavy impact of some scenes, such as:

Spoiler

Isaiah in prison

I also really enjoyed:

Spoiler

Ross’ whole arc. Ross isn’t Biden or Trump or any particular president, he’s America. He’s a troubled and privileged person who’s done a lot of bad things but is genuinely trying to improve, even while he continues to do bad things. And his best efforts result in a positive outcome - the adamantium treaty - while f*cking up colossally, as seen in the whole red rage monster wrecking the White House incident, which is very on point. I thought the arc of him trying to improve in order to reconcile with Betty and thus having to stay alive and thus keeping Sterns imprisoned, leading to all the deaths and destruction, was a really effective blend of human stupidity and selfishness with understandable motivation. And things are best resolved when Ross and thus America accept what they’ve done wrong and take responsibility. Only then does their legacy mean something.

 

[Reynard]

I dunno about that mate. I think the issue is almost none of them have been good.

There is no accounting for taste. I thought Moon knight was inspired, and Guardians 3 was legitimately good. Antman Whatever was absolute garbage, tho.

There's an awful lot of hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars being aggressively spent on mediocrity.

They still make money, so they still make them.

The one MCU thing I am excited about is Daredevil, and that is only an MCU thing because they are forcing it to be.

 

[jian]

One thing I’ve just realised, as an observation, is that this is arguably a more American Captain America film than its predecessors. I know that sounds weird, but bear with me.

BNW is more grounded in American life in some ways (as FatWS was) than any of its three predecessors, which honestly could have happened anywhere (OK, not First Avenger, but that was basically set in Pulp WW2) and where the main government/military/law enforcement was SHIELD, which is somewhat international. In BNW, the military is very definitely American and the film is comfortable with American militarism in a way more typical of, say, the Transformers films than the MCU has ever been before.

Final spoiler:

Spoiler

They killed off D-Man! WTF, guys?!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

There is no accounting for taste. I thought Moon knight was inspired, and Guardians 3 was legitimately good. Antman Whatever was absolute garbage, tho.

They still make money, so they still make them.

The one MCU thing I am excited about is Daredevil, and that is only an MCU thing because they are forcing it to be.

Agree re GotG3 which is why I used the cheap get out "almost none" rather than the bolder "none"! It's basically a space opera with a ton of heart than a superhero deal - even my wife who loathes superheros really liked it. Very Farscape-lile really.

Moon Knight I respect for being demented and committing to that atrocious accent (I get the excuse pls don't explain it again!) but I think fell into some traps of being too cute and insufficiently weird (it got like 80% weird enough).

Also looking forwards to Daredevil once they changed show runners and brought back Karen and Foggy.

 

[Clint_L]

Offering a bit of an international perspective. I don’t want get into the politics of why, but I note that my interest in paying to see a Captain America film has recently plummeted to around zero, and I overheard a group of my students express a similar sentiment. I’m interested to see how this does at the international box office.