The cast for Captain America: Brave New World is immense. The first-ever theatrical motion picture headlined by Sam Wilson’s iteration of Captain America not only featured staples of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but also contained key players from The Incredible Hulk and even a Celestial from Eternals. Naturally, the final film was very overstuffed. There was so much going on that even Wilson himself ended up feeling sidelined in what was supposed to be his big theatrical movie break. Inevitably, supporting players like Leila Taylor or Joaquin Torres/Falcon had barely anything substantive to do.
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However, three specific Brave New World characters, all of them rooted in decades of Marvel Comics lore, were especially wasted by this movie’s scattershot narrative tendencies. This trio of characters exemplifies the creative shortcomings of a motion picture too enamored with “redeeming” Harrison Ford’s President Ross to ever create interior worlds for its supporting players. Behold and grieve for the lost potential of this trio of Brave New World supporting characters.
Warning: Captain America: Brave New World spoilers below
Samuel Sterns/The Leader
Lord knows it’s always good to see Tim Blake Nelson in any movie. The concept of seeing Nelson reprise his Incredible Hulk role as Samuel Sterns, now fully transformed into his green-skinned comic book villain counterpart the Leader, sounds like a fantastic idea. However, doing that within Brave New World just opened up countless cans of worms for this production. For one thing, Brave New World never figures out a good hero/villain dynamic between Wilson and Sterns. Their adversarial relationship feels incidental rather than reverberating with more specific personal details.
More pressingly, Sterns isn’t in Brave New World too much. When he does show up, his most distinguishing feature is how he can apparently walk on foot from suburban houses to isolated military bases within only an hour or two. His eventual shrug of an ending (where he gives himself up at a hospital where Torres is being cared for) solidifies how boring he is as Brave New World’s antagonist. The script seems so ready to barrel towards Ross as Red Hulk that it forgets to give the Leader anything to do, a sharp contrast to all his fun heightened villainy in the comics. Tim Blake Nelson really deserved better for his MCU comeback.
Seth Voelker/Sidewinder
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Consider this section a memorial to the potential of the entire Serpent Society and not just their leader, Seth Voelker/Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito). Brave New World takes all the enjoyably maximalist visual tendencies of the Serpent Society (a group of baddies who look out for each other while wearing colorful snake-themed garbs) and turns them into a generic Black Ops team. What fun is that in a superhero movie? None of the Serpent Society members leave an impact in their minimal screen time, especially with those drab outfits.
Sidewinder, meanwhile, only gets a trio of scenes to exist in. Esposito has some roguish charms in his screen time, but he’s mostly there to deliver exposition and create action shots for Brave New World’s trailer. A legendary actor like him deserves more. Ditto the Serpent Society, which had so much more potential to leave an impression.
Isaiah Bradley
Introduced in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) is one of the most fascinating Marvel Cinematic Universe characters, not to mention (like his comics counterpart) one rooted in real-world American horrors. The possibilities were endless in bringing this character to the big screen for the first time. Instead, Brave New World opts to once again falsely incarcerate Bradley just so Wilson has the motivation to travel down a web of conspiracy. Sitting behind bars is all the Brave New World writers could think of for Bradley to do in this feature.
Worst of all, after Bradley’s been ignored in so much of Brave New World’s run time, the movie’s ending fails to account for how emotionally traumatic this experience would be to this man. Once again falsely imprisoned by his country, Bradley just drops a “what took you so long?” quip to Wilson upon securing his freedom. It’s another sign of how Brave New World doesn’t treat this character like a human being. Many Marvel Comics fixtures drew the short straw in Brave New World’s egregiously overstuffed script. However, the lack of imagination in utilizing Isaiah Bradley is especially insulting.
Captain America: Brave New World is now playing in theaters.
