Review: In ‘Captain America: Brave New World,’ a new Captain copes with a reckless president

Thirty-five films into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I wonder if Cumbersome would be the more accurate c-word in MCU. What will it take in 2025 to make one of these movies really interesting? Or a massive hit? Will “Thunderbolts,” arriving in May, answer those questions?

Based on the Super Bowl-aired trailer, that one looks very much in the spirit of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” last year’s second-biggest moneymaker after “Inside Out 2.” “Deadpool & Wolverine” got the box-office job done ($1.3 billion worldwide) by odd-coupling two marginalized Marvel superheroes who heckled their own movie for two hours and seven minutes, with just enough last-minute heart to provoke some shock and awwww. People went.

Up against that, what chance does the earnest, glumly chaotic fourth “Captain America” feature, “Captain America: Brave New World,” have, really?

“Brave New World” gives Anthony Mackie his first starring turn as Sam Wilson, former flying sidekick to Chris Evans’ Captain America. He is now the wielder of the shield and a valiant if heavily burdened remnant of the now-disbanded Avengers. Harrison Ford takes over for the late William Hurt as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, newly elected U.S. president, seen early on taking tiny little tablets in secret.

Ross is determined to distinguish his first 100 days in office with the successful signing of a peace treaty with Japan and other nations, built on equitable sharing of the limitless resources promised by the emergence (at the end of the 2021 film “Eternals”) of the mighty undersea big rock candy mountain known as the Celestial mass. The mass is made of wondrous adamantium, similar to Wakanda’s coveted vibranium.

But Ross has a past, and some vengeance-minded prior associates suffered for it. The much-experimented-upon adversary known as the Leader (Tim Blake Nelson, in mini-”Megamind” latex) controls seemingly half the planet by computer hacking acumen or, more dramatically, “Manchurian Candidate”-brand mind control.

Director Julius Onah, working from a screenplay credited to five writers plus the usual reshoots, follows Wilson and his eager sidekick Joaquín (Danny Ramirez) as they tangle with enemies of shifting allegiances, from Oaxaca to the Indian Ocean to the White House Rose Garden. The excellent Giancarlo Esposito rolls in as Sidewinder, like the Leader a survivor of insidious Tuskegee-tinged medical experiments in superhero/superkiller enhancement.

It may be too forgiving to say that the MCU movies benefit from having recently rewatched several of the narratively pertinent earlier MCU movies. It’s surely true, but at some point it’s just busy work, as well as foisting story-tracking clarity onto the viewer and off of the filmmakers. This script has a lot going on, but after a while you may feel like Ford looks in certain shots: committed in theory, struggling to engage in practice.

There’s a seriously cautious approach taken here to what should’ve been seized. Wilson is defined, however sketchily, as a man internally torn and troubled, regarding the burden of expectation that comes with his relatively new Captain America gig. He’s working, reluctantly, with an American president in thrall to dark forces and violent impulses. It’s no secret that Red Hulk makes an appearance in “Brave New World,” illustrating what can happen when a testy world leader with anger management challenges has had enough of the diplomacy game.

Oddly, neither Mackie nor Captain America foregrounds the action sufficiently, at least for me. Mackie’s a strong and subtle actor and he meets expectations even when the material doesn’t. But we wait for the inevitable, just as Captain America must: a routine action climax, featuring a newly engorged Ross trying to kill the all-too-human Wilson underneath a Washington, D.C., street lined with cherry blossoms. And you know? It’s nothing special. We’ve seen literal dozens of MCU action climaxes along these lines. “Brave New World” may be more human-scaled than most, but in terms of kinetic filmmaking technique, it rarely rises above the usual, punishing visual/digital noise.

The movie wouldn’t feel human at all, really, if not for the convincing emotion bond established between Mackie and Carl Lumbly as Isaiah. The job pressure Mackie’s loyal American warrior acknowledges at one point may not need underlining as having a racial component. That stuff’s not in the cards right now anyway. Instead, while we wait for “Thunderbolts” to arrive, No. 35 offers a few stray diversions as it sorts through plot strands and ties up loose ends while keeping other loose ends loose. Because so many future Marvel movies depend on it.

‘CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD’

2 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of violence and action, and some strong language)

Running time: 1:58

How to watch: In theaters