The latest MCU entry does little to revive the beleaguered franchise.

We’re currently at something of a crossroads when it comes to the world of superhero cinema. While James Gunn is preparing to launch his all-new DC Universe with the release of the hotly anticipated Superman later this year, the once lauded MCU has continued to develop at a pace that could probably best be described as “sputtering along”.

Despite the great financial success of Deadpool & Wolverine last summer, there’s a growing sense that the franchise’s best days are behind it – that each new release finds it desperately attempting to cling onto past glories while failing to bring anything new or exciting to the table.

Which brings us to the latest film to be sputtered out, Captain America: Brave New World. The first of three big screen offerings for 2025, and the 35th film in total for the increasingly beleaguered franchise, this particular entry doesn’t exactly herald a return to form.

Instead, it’s a flat, insipid experience – exactly the sort of rushed and cobbled together effort you’d expect from a film which required extensive reshoots and boasts three different credited writing teams.

This is notably the first film to see Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson – the erstwhile Falcon – taking on the Captain America mantle following the events of Avengers: Endgame and the 2021 Disney Plus series The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. As the film opens, we find him working closely with Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross, who is now President of the US and played by Hollywood icon Harrison Ford (original actor William Hurt sadly passed away in 2022).

Of course, it’s no great twist to report that this will be something on an uneasy alliance, and when an early White House get together ends in a violent outburst, it becomes increasingly clear that something is afoot. And so we’re drawn into a plot that brings us back to some familiar places and faces from the MCU past, most crucially Tim Blake Nelson’s Sam Sterns making his first appearance since The Incredible Hulk all the way back in 2008.

This immediately gets at one of the film’s biggest problems: its insistence on linking back to events and characters that will largely have been forgotten by all but the most die-hard fans. While early MCU iterations were praised for the seamless way in which they created a large interconnected universe, the Marvel world has now become so unwieldy that any attempts to link it all together come across as clunky and a little desperate.

Perhaps it’s the surest sign yet that one franchise producing 35 films – not to mention multiple TV shows – in a relatively short time span is simply not a workable proposition, lumbering us with a needlessly convoluted picture that seems stretched to breaking point and sapped of genuine creative spirit.

But even aside from the bigger issues facing the MCU writ large, Captain America: Brave New World flounders as a satisfying piece of cinema in its own right. It’s pretty much a full house of failings: An underbaked central narrative, bland and frequently expository dialogue, consistently drab visuals, flat characterisation, nondescript action scenes that barely linger in the memory for more than a few seconds after watching. There’s simply nothing here that’s especially engaging, and so what we’re left with is a political thriller with barely a whiff of any actual intrigue and a conspiracy plot with no tangible tension or paranoia.

None of this is really the fault of Mackie, an irrefutably charismatic and personable on-screen presence who is more than capable of being a leading man. But unfortunately, the way Sam is written here very much feels like a supporting character shoehorned into a leading role: there are myriad references to the fact he is “not Steve Rogers”, but not nearly enough care is given to exploring why that needn’t be a bad thing.

As for the supporting cast, there are faint signs that Joaquin Torres star Danny Ramirez – first introduced in the aforementioned Disney Plus series – could strike up something of a fun rapport with Mackie, but the bantering dialogue they’ve been saddled with is too forced to really strike a chord, and they ultimately have too few scenes together to build a properly enticing dynamic.

Ford, at least, appears to be having fun – lending the picture a degree of gravitas that it doesn’t quite deserve – while Giancarlo Esposito does his best with yet another of the cookie-cutter, sinister villain roles that have come to characterise his post-Gus Fring career.

There are, of course, some surprises and Easter eggs along the way – a few nuggets that give long term fans at least something to cling to. But when the most enthusiastic reaction in a near two-hour film is for a largely meaningless cameo (we won’t divulge who here), you know something has gone a little wrong. Sputter, sputter, sputter.