There is no denying it’s been a rough few years for Marvel. The whole “Multiverse Saga” has fallen flat for the most part, with fans struggling to keep up with all the Disney + content in addition to being underwhelmed by the movies. Last summer, the entire Marvel schedule revolved around “Deadpool & Wolverine” so that it could start the process of righting the ship. It didn’t hurt that DP&W was just a great movie.

2025 starts off the Marvel revival with a brand-new Captain America movie. If by chance you zoned out the last few years - and lots of people did - here are a few things to know. Steve Rogers is chilling out on a secret SHIELD moon base (we think?) and Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), previously “The Falcon,” has been given the iconic Captain America shield and bestowed the title by Steve himself. During the events of “Falcon and the Winter Soldier” on Disney +, Sam gave the shield away, which led to the rise of US Agent John Walker. He then quickly took it back when that went sideways and ended up getting his white comic book Captain America costume and saving the day.

From here on out - beware of spoilers, we are going to discuss the whole movie.

Brave New World tries so hard to recapture the magic of The Winter Soldier. It succeeds at times, even though it doesn’t hit the high notes of TWS. I don’t think the characters in BNW are bad, but it’s a tall order to compete with the emotional gut punch of Steve seeing his reborn best friend back from the dead. BNW goes in a different direction, trying to focus in on Sam’s counseling abilities. It feels like in almost every scene he tries to talk someone down or be the voice of reason.

Fast forward to now and Sam is back, stopping bad guys and getting chummy with President Thaddeus Ross, played wonderfully by Harrison Ford. Ross is trying to reconcile with his daughter, Betty, played again in this movie by Liv Tyler. Betty isn’t returning his phone calls, and he is determined to fix that relationship.

The movie kicks off with Sam recovering a sample of adamantium from the Serpent Squad - the secondary antagonist of the movie. Sam and Joaquin are successful and are then invited to the White House for a summit, along with Isaiah Bradley from Falcon and the Winter Soldier. After a surprise attempt on the President’s life by Bradley and other agents, it is discovered that some mysterious party is using mind control technology to influence people to do their bidding. Sam confronts Ross about the Summit, Bradley being innocent and accuses his team of being compromised. That goes sideways and Sam and his new protege Joaquin Torres - who is the new “Falcon” - set off to uncover the truth.

However, the central conflict of the movie centers around the discovery of adamantium on Tiamat, the dead Celestial. It is claimed to be stronger vibranium and most importantly, Wakanda doesn’t control it, so other nations can power up to compete with the isolated African nation. President Ross is quite keen to make sure the US is in control of adamantium, even as he positions a few other countries as partners in this endeavor.

Japan is one of these countries, and they are fed information to help push them closer to war with the US. The Leader hopes this will dismantle the fragile alliance presiding over the discovery of adamantium, turning the countries against each other.

Ross - and Sam for that matter - seem to be continually thwarted by this unknown force pulling strings behind the scenes. When Sam and Joaquin investigate an underground Army base, they find the secret lab of The Leader from the Incredible Hulk movie. I can’t say I was a huge fan of his design in this movie. I understand from a design perspective what they were trying to accomplish with his design, but I just don’t feel it worked very well. Regardless, the character was well done, and his arc and motivations make sense. We find that Ross essentially kept him chained up in the basement since the end of The Incredible Hulk, promising him freedom in exchange for using his advanced intellect. He primarily used his “incredible” knowledge to help save Ross’s life when doctors could not. Secondly, the Leader’s intelligence allows him to run the odds of events and how they will play out. This is played off as him knowing the future, but Sam is able to surprise him a couple of times.

The Leader’s plans revolve around getting revenge for how Ross treated him. His method is to slowly gamma-dose the now-President and turn him into Red Hulk, which will “reveal the monster inside”. 

As Ross gets more and more agitated with how events are playing out, he takes a US warship and goes to Tiamat’s location to protect his interest in the adamantium. A brief battle ensues, with Falcon getting hurt, Sam saving the day, and Ross getting so angry he almost turns into Red Hulk - before Sam ends the conflict in the nick of time.

Oh, and we get a surprise cameo from Bucky, who pops in to check on Torres in the hospital while Sam sits with him. Bucky is also now running for Congress, apparently, which will be fun to see play out in Thunderbolts*.

As the movie progresses, the Leader’s plan is set into motion at a press conference at the White House. The Leader seemingly gives up, but has already started his plan to push Ross over the edge and finally unleash the Red Hulk. As all of the President’s misdeeds are made public, the moment arrives and Red Hulk appears and begins smashing things as you would expect. Counselor Sam tries to talk him off the ledge, which does not work. So we are treated to the film’s climactic action scene, where Sam and the Red Hulk destroy part of the White House and the surrounding area. The action is very well done and I thought Red Hulk’s CGI was fantastic as well.

Since Sam has no super soldier serum - which he talks about earlier in the movie - he has to rely on his super counseling powers. At the end of the day, Sam lures Ross to a grove of cherry blossoms, which evokes his memories of Betty and he is able to successfully talk Red Hulk back down into his Ross form.

Tying up the story nicely, Ross resigns as President, accepts his sentence and gets sent to the Raft. Sam visits him, surprising the former President by bringing his daughter Betty along for a chat. Sam also talks to the Leader, who warns him of others coming to the MCU. Sounds like a great setup for multiverse hijinks coming in the Fantastic Four movie and Avengers Doomsday.

I’m a Captain America fan, so I think I was predisposed to like this movie. I have my favorites but honestly I don’t dislike any of the MCU movies, so I am for sure not an objective reviewer. That being said, the action in this movie was good, and the story was pretty good as well. Everybody, including Sam Wilson himself, is aware that he doesn’t have the super soldier serum and realistically shouldn’t be able to last two seconds with a Hulk. The story itself is like a “Diet Winter Soldier” and I think it succeeds on those merits. It’s not as world-shaking as that movie was, but that is going to be harder and harder to accomplish with this being the 35th MCU movie.

The Captain America trilogy is tough to beat - all three movies are absolute classics. The First Avenger is a classic, The Winter Soldier is an amazing thriller and one of the best MCU movies ever, and Civil War is essentially an Avengers movie. I don’t know if Sam will get a trilogy, and if he does I doubt it will be able to compare to the original Cap trilogy. That’s not only okay, it’s actually for the best. We need to let Sam’s Captain America be its own thing and stop comparing and trying to shoehorn it into the shoes of Steve Rogers.