Brave New World isn't Terrible, but it is Incredibly Frustrating

After seeing the mixed reviews and the production trouble this movie went through, I wasn't sure I wanted to see this movie. But tonight, I decided to bite the bullet and go see it for myself. While I don't regret watching it, This movie could've have been so much better

The first problem is tonal inconsistency. The first 20 minutes or so are very light-hearted and cheesy which feels like they are going for a B-Movie type vibe. While this seemed odd to me, as it was fun, I was happy to go along with it. But then the tone shifts completely when Ross is seemingly shot by Bradley. The entire movie is taken pretty seriously and things stay tense throughout the rest of the movie. This tone problem extends to the ending as well, where Joaquin and Sam have a nice little chat about what it is like to wear the Falcon suit, and then they go into the credits with a chill hip-hop song. The song works fine for the ending but it does not at all fit the visuals of the flashing red and white screens(which is also incredibly dull). There’s no problem with either tone, but it should have stuck to cheesy or serious for the entire movie. 

Secondly, some of the dialogue in this movie was fucking terrible. There's a scene where Joaquin mentions that the Leader has the agents’ genetic data, and Sam tells him to speak normally. How fucking dumb is Sam then, if he's asking that. Saying that the leader has the data is easy to understand and did not need further dumbing down for the audience. Another thing is the amount of ADR in the movie. It's especially noticeable in the warship scene where it feels like Sam commentates on every little thing that is happening as if the audience isn't paying attention. A good example is when a missile hits one of Japan's ships and he says "That missile just hit one of Japan's ships" or something along those lines. Dude we can clearly see that was happening you don't need to spell it out for us. A different example of bad dialogue is the end credit scene where the leader says there are more people out there and something is coming. The writing of it is so fucking vague, it comes across as utterly meaningless and and is the worst end credit scene in the MCU. It's even worse than Homecoming, Ragnarok and Ant-Man and the Wasp as those were just funny gags, where this is trying to be meaningful, but it has no meaning due to the atrocious dialogue. Despite there being 5 screenwriters, this movie’s dialogue needed another rewrite.

Going along with screenwriting, why is the movie more related to Hulk than it is to Captain America.  Sam's connection to Ross makes sense, but why the hell is this movie a glorified sequel to The Incredible Hulk. Apart from Ross, Sam has no connection to any of the other characters, whether that be the Leader, Betty or Sidewinder. This should have been a Hulk Movie, with Sam's Captain America as a part of it i.e in the vein of Ragnarök, but more serious. Hell even She-Hulk would've made more sense than fucking Captain America.  This is now the third time that Marvel have not committed to a proper Captain America movie. Civil War was a glorified Avengers film and the Falcon and The Winter Soldier should have been a movie instead of 6-part Disney+ series. I paid money to see a film about Sam Wilson as Captain America, so why did I get a sequel to The Incredible Hulk? How hard it is to just make a movie about Captain America, without involving the rest of the MCU. They've done it twice, surely they can do it again?

Going along with bad screenwriting, this movie could have been a lot more politically interesting, especially considering the current climate we are in. Sabra should have been the villain, not the Leader. Why ? Well, firstly we have a connection to Sam, through the president and it would be incredibly potent to have someone from Israel stirring up shit in the United States, especially considering the genocide still going on Gaza,. I really think it could have woken people up to the horrors that are in Gaza, but no of course, we had to side with the American government didn't we? It's never been more clear that the US Government is evil and does not have it's citizens' best interest at heart. If the film really leant into that and dealt with Sabra properly, we could have had a much better movie, or at the very least one that was trying to say something meaningful. Or hell, don’t include her at all. It was a bad idea from the very beginning, and considering the film does not do a lot with her anyway it the film’s quality would improve by not including her

I don't want to be entirely negative though, so I do want to highlight some of the things I did enjoy. Firstly, while I didn't initially think Anthony Mackie could pull off a leading role, within half an hour, my fears are absolved, and he serves the movie really well. Secondly, while  Harrison Ford may just be here for the Paycheck it's not at all evident on screen. He seems to me like an actor, that as long as he is paid well, he will do exactly what the movie needs him to do. I think he was a great recast for the late William Hurt, and I'm happy that it was at least explained as to why his face changed. Also it's rare that I am actively paying attention to the score, but my ears were always very happy to hear what Laura Karpman had in mind for the next scene. I don't remember much of the score from The Marvels, but this is a massive improvement, and after I finish writing this, I am going to listen to some of the score from the movie cause I really enjoyed it. So yeah, there is definitely a few positive takeaways from the movie, it's certainly not an all bad experience.

Overall, while there are a few positives, this film could have ultimately been so much better. It needed to have tonal consistency, it needed better dialogue and a much better plot. I was excited for this movie after TFATWS, but ultimately disappointed with a weak movie that could have been so much more.

EDIT: Made it clearer which characters I am referring to.

EDIT 2: Removed a pargraph about Sam surviving stuff that he shouldn't he of. I missed an interaction about halfway in the movie where Sam mentions to Sidewinder he had a Kevlar vest. That's my fault for not paying attention and I shouldn't be judging the movie for it.