Just watched Brave New World, I’m very confused
Not confused by the plot but by the film itself. It’s blatantly a Hulk film with Captain America shoddily taped into it, so much of the film works in theory, and there are really some stand out performances and scenes, but the main plot is an Incredible Hulk sequel and would work so much better with that character as the lead.
I loved Anthony Mackie in this and was the saving grace of the “Cap” aspects of the plot, but so much of the Cap specific scenes, moments and set pieces just feel cut and pasted from Winter Soldier. I don’t hate the film, but it’s held up by the performances, not the story. Have I missed any BTS stories or information that might add more context to how this film came to be how it is?
I loved Anthony Mackie in this and was the saving grace of the “Cap” aspects of the plot, but so much of the Cap specific scenes, moments and set pieces just feel cut and pasted from Winter Soldier. I don’t hate the film, but it’s held up by the performances, not the story. Have I missed any BTS stories or information that might add more context to how this film came to be how it is?
Commentaires
They used all of the Hulks biggest adversaries without the damn Hulk in it. It was an odd choice. And Red Hulk would fucking Smash Sam…
Confused how they thought this was going to be a decent movie. Had some okay scenes and acting but I didn’t like it at all. I’m a huge Marvel fan and this is one that I choose to put in the same tier as Scrubs season 9, the 4th Matrix, and GoT season 8.
Stunted dialogue, poor shot framing, a somehow slow yet way too rushed plot, culminating in a fight with no tension and a wet fart of an end
Didn't like the end fight but that's most marvel movies
Sure, the casual Marvel film audience might not know, but all the fan spaces would have guessed right left and center all across the internet that Ross was likely going to turn into the Red Hulk and that would have slipped out to regular news outlets pretty quickly and ruined any sort of surprise it would tend to be otherwise.
Marvel can't reuse comic storylines and characters for their tentpole productions and not expect certain elements/character reveals/transformations to get out or be guessed, so I kind of understand why they just put it in the trailer/posters....
It worked in Winter Soldier, fans all knew it was Bucky but the reveal and the realization is partly what made that movie so good. But I suppose they also didn’t want to copy the winter soldier formula too much because that would have become the talking point.
Having known that Ross was going to turn into Red Hulk undercut the entire experience. There was no tension where there was supposed to be some. The whole movie turned into “how are they going to make Ross the Red Hulk,” not “what is Captain America up to these days and why should I care.” It ended up being a distraction hanging over the whole viewing experience.
I get that it’s hard to keep a secret these days, but it feels like they didn’t even try. Cynically, I think they probably leaned into it so heavily because they felt that it was good marketing for the movie. And maybe it was, insofar as it made people interested in seeing Harrison Ford become a Hulk. But the marketing killed the film’s ability to tell its own story on its own terms, and in doing so made it a harder film to enjoy IMO.
I don't think falcon as cap has been as successful of a transition as they hoped. Honestly, I don't think Mackie does it very well even though I like him in other stuff I've seen. I think they have him act too stoic when he's better when he can be charismatic and a bit silly. I'd guess it's a direction problem, but idk. Also, it's just generally hard to replace evans.
I have to believe once it was spoiled they simply leaned into it. I have to believe they would have saved it as a surprise if there wasn’t a delay.
I stand by the fact that this should have been an Avengers movie of him collecting his team. I didn’t like the Hulk arc, I didn’t like Ross being recast or the actor, I didn’t like that it did absolutely nothing to advance the character of Cap or the storyline toward Doomsday. BNW should’ve connected to Thunderbolts and Thunderbolts to F4. We’re literally a movie or two away from Doom, Marvel needs to stop messing around it’s exhausting.
Also i dont know of you are awere that william hurt passed away before this started filming.
But dot the rest i agree.
The only thing that frustrated me was that it wasn't willing to stand for anything too loudly. The Isiah stuff could have been so much more. Ross's terrible choices could have been more impactful. The agony over whether Ross was dirty or not could have been more suspenseful. But because they didn't push harder on those themes it did not feel like it believed in itself.
In the hands of a great writer and perhaps a more open-minded producer/distributor, it could really continue that Captain America tradition of storytelling that challenges the concepts of freedom, individuality, and government, and I think it had enough to do it better and more viscerally. It’s a shame, really.
But the plot is actually solid, & the cast is great. I agree with the notion that they should've committed harder to the themes they were hinting at.
And then you see the Avatar and Apes movies and you remember what it can do when implemented at the highest level.
No joke, my wife & I actually fast-forwarded through about 45 minutes of Way of Water because we got bored, & it didn't seem like we missed anything (it helps that the captions stayed on during the fast-forwarding).
For a political thriller, it doesn't thrill whatsoever.
What you're describing is called a "bad" movie btw. And if the same were all true for the latest DC or F&F movie you would probably not hesitate to call it "bad." You're just trying your hardest not to use the word because its an MCU movie.
It just _screams_ "we had to change the script and could only film actors, separately, against a green screen". I mean it's not even that bad a film in the end, but it is such a glaring hatchet job that could only ever have existed in this weird space where the franchises overall momentum was more important than the quality of an individual film, or they'd either have delayed further or just binned the whole thing.
The horrendous cutting around Giancarlo Esposito any time he has to do an action scene already shows the baffling decision making going on behind this movie by trying to paint an legitimate senior citizen as a physical threat to Captain America.
I'm not sure why people say this when there's really no space for Bruce Banner to have been in the film.
Sam doesn’t. And he’s like a side character in his own movie
Marvel wants to tell hulk stories but because universal owns the film rights to hulk they can’t so they instead have to put hulk elements into other movies instead.
It’s as if every character had their own little side thing they all had to do with nothing linking them together. No foils, no arcs, barely even a motive for the villain(s)
Yes. The biggest piece of that puzzle is that Disney has *production* rights to the live-action Hulk film franchise, but not *distribution* rights. They can't make a solo Hulk film without offering it to Universal for distribution (& thus letting Universal take a huge chunk of the box office), but they can use Hulk IP wherever they want as long as it's either television (e.g., She-Hulk), or another character's franchise (e.g., Avengers, Thor, Cap), or animation (e.g., Where Monsters Dwell).
For comparison, Disney doesn't have distribution *or* production rights to Spider-Man^* at all; every time the MCU uses Spidey elements in live-action, Sony has to grant permission, even in other characters' projects.
^* ^(except in non-theatrical animation under 40 minutes, like What If/Zombies or Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man)
He just doesn't have the screen presence to carry the themes he's trying to tell us that he's conveying.
I loved that Harrison Ford seemed to be having a good time with it, and Danny Ramirez was fun.
Its just a mish mash of at least 4 different average scripts and the green screening is awful. FF4 had this similar problem recently with so many sequences of people shot against a green screen in isolation. I could forgive it some if the script was good - but they're all painfully average and "safe". Disney dare not take risks with their films anymore.
Could have been something special - outbreak of a modern Cuban missile crisis (against Japan lol) against the backdrop of a dead celestial...
It was shit. And it joins the growing number of MCU films that I will not go back to rewatch.