Captain America: Brave New World is fine.

Let's get this out of the way: Harrison Ford is a wonderful, charismatic leader in over his head. The current American political climate doesn't make Thaddeus Ross an unrealistic choice, and he is indeed a Red Hulk.

Carl Lumbly nearly made me cry. It's always a pleasure to see him in a role so important to the MCU.

It's nice seeing Giancarlo Esposito outside of a video game -- the last I saw him was in Far Cry 6. While he's not dominating (he doesn't really get the time to be), he's a fun "I'm in it for myself" character that's not unreasonable.

Tim Blake Nelson is a very menacing presence in the dark.

Shira Haas as Ruth Bat-Seraph is fine. Danny Ramirez as Falcon is fine.

Anthony Mackie is fine.

It's all just fine.

Stop me if you've heard this one before

Here's a plot for you: Captain America works with a government agency to secure a secret plot device at the start of the film. Cap is successful in retrieving it. The government official he works for seems to be working for the people -- so it all feels above board. Until someone mind-controlled attempts to assassinate a leader. Captain America and his kick-ass side-kick search for who controlled the mind-controlled guy. To defeat him, they ultimately have to force a reset of an entire branch of the US Government. Mind-controlled guy is set free. A hero plummets into water and the film ends with them waking up in the hospital.

Before you ask, yes, I'm currently watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier -- and yes, I will be making a lot of comparisons between these two films.

Before you ask, yes, I'm currently watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier -- and yes, I will be making a lot of comparisons between these two films.

But for the sake of clarification, the movie I described was Captain America: Brave New World.

When I walked out of the cinema, I had that awful feeling of "damn, I think I've actually watched a better version of this film already."

Here's where Brave New World lacks.

The movie wants you to believe every character who speaks is important. In this, it is a liar. We're supposed to feel bad when an ally goes down, but we haven't had enough time with them to know anything about them.

Who is the Falcon?

The Winter Soldier introduced Sam Wilson character-first. We know about his personal life long before we saw him in action: he goes on a run every morning in Washington; he lost a wing-man and it affected him deeply; he no longer works for the military; he likes to help people (and more specifically, military veterans) in his spare time and gave Steve his details to contact him if he ever needs to talk; he has a great sense of humour; he lives by himself.

whoBrave New World introduced Joaquin Torres role-first. We know he knows Sam: he works with Sam, because he still appears to be in the military; he knows how to use the Falcon wings, but not Sam's specific moveset; he can fight; and oh, he's from Miami.

Do you see the imbalance here? Joaquin is here to fill a role. All we know about him is, in the eternal words of Thor, "he's a friend from work." We're meant to feel something for him, except for when he's no longer on screen -- at that point, don't worry about him, because his existence, or lack thereof, is of no consequence to this film. And that's infuriating -- because I really want to love Danny Ramirez.

I want him to be someone important. But he isn't.

Where's the risk?

For a film described as a "paranoid thriller", there's a distinct lack of paranoia. I liken this partially to the current political climate in which the film was released. America has just signed on Donald Trump as its President (again). The Israel-Hamas war is (currently) in a tense reprieve. A societal war against political correctness is ongoing, and if you say something remotely controversial online, it's enough for a public to prosecute you. Nazis are back.

While the MCU is not a direct copy of our reality, Captain America could have commented on these issues. It could have been brave.

Example: for all the controversy about her inclusion in the film, Ruth really was a nothing character. She's not referred to as Sabra, never referred to as such. We're told (by Falcon) that she's Israeli and is an ex-Red Room Widow, now working for the President. I believe she does "suit up" towards the end of the film, but her costume is so well hidden by the lighting and a jacket that there's no way to really nail down what it looks like in one viewing. And, somewhat interestingly, there's no comment on if Ross picked her -- she just happens to be there, as an ex-Widow (and still managed to be on the President's security detail -- but don't worry it's not important). She is, in all sense of the term, "Black Widow, lite edition."

With a source material of near-infinite amounts of characters, why choose Sabra? I want to believe that there was an intention to include commentary about the character or her origins, but Marvel backed out last minute. I also have to wonder if being a Widow is a deliberate attempt to wash their hands of her origins -- as Black Widow established that Widows are all taken and trained as kids. Why bother giving a character a culture if they're trained to infiltrate many cultures?

What's next for the MCU shouldn't be important. What's next for Sam Wilson should be.

The momentum the MCU once had has been struggling to get back to speed, especially since Avengers: Endgame, especially in film. I understand why now.

Yeah, we know. The next Avengers is on the horizon. But remember, in Phase Two, Marvel films didn't deliberately build up to the Avengers. They built to the next sequel in their respective character films. When they all came together, it was all that character development colliding with one another that made the team-ups so powerful.

This is where the MCU is currently going wrong. We're spending so much time trying to get to the next team up, that we've forgotten about the journey these characters need to get there. It's faster to smush characters together in cameos, to hint at "the next big bad for the galaxy". These films are now packed with massive special effects and not enough consideration of character journey.

The Winter Soldier left a question the next Captain America film had to answer: what about Bucky? Sam and Steve talk about it in Avengers: Age of Ultron as a situation still ongoing, but they don't resolve it there. It's not an Avengers problem, it's a Steve problem. So it gets resolved in the next Cap movie.

It's why so many people like Yelena, for example. Black Widow (and Hawkeye) left us the question: what about Yelena? This is a Widow struggling with the death of her sister with no idea what's next for herself.

Why should I care about the next Avengers film if I don't care about any of the characters?

IM3 is my favourite Iron Man film because of the shit Tony goes through -- not because of the bombastic, ridiculous plot. It's my favourite Christmas film. Tony literally goes back to basics because his suit needs repairs he can't do in a random shed way out west; he has PTSD from the last Avengers movie; and he's gotta navigate the consequences of his own stupidity (again).

That's what I want to watch. I want to see these characters struggle.

The only person who struggles in Brave New World is Ross. Sure, Sam gets battered and bruised, but it's nothing he hasn't done before. He doesn't get a moment to feel anything about other characters that get hurt or killed. Everything's just conveniently swept under the rug. "Oh well, gotta get to the next action sequence, we'll see them later."

What's worse: Brave New World doesn't leave us with a question. These characters hit a roadblock and do a full left-hand circle to end up exactly where they were before.

No one has changed.

Except for me. Because I realise now that I don't care much about the mysterious galaxy-wide threat the Leader thinks is coming. I care more about Marc Spector trying to get through daily life than I do the statistical likelihood of a galaxy-wide threat.

Okay, but is it good?

The music's forgettable and action could use some heft behind it, but yeah, it's fine.