Captain America: Brave New World Rotten Tomatoes Score Ranks Near the Bottom of the MCU

Captain America: Brave New World doesn’t soar to new heights for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, according to the first batch of reviews that landed online Wednesday. While the first social media reactions out of Tuesday’s red carpet Hollywood premiere were mixed to positive, professional critics’ early reviews have grounded Captain America 4 with one of the lowest Rotten Tomatoes scores in the 35-movie MCU: Brave New World is currently sitting with a 47 percent “rotten” rating on the review aggregator.

The score will fluctuate as more reviews continue to come in, but early reviews indicate a trend that even Captain America might not be able to overcome. (Scores below 60 percent are considered rotten.) That puts Brave New World on par with 2021’s Eternals, which was the lowest-rated MCU movie at 47 percent until that movie was surpassed by 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania‘s 46 percent.

RELATED: Action-Packed Captain America: Brave New World Final Trailer Shows Off a New Cap, a New Falcon, and a New Hulk

On Metacritic, the first Cap movie in nearly a decade currently has an average of 44, indicating “mixed or average” reviews. To compare, 2018’s Black Panther remains the highest-rated Marvel Studios movie at 96 percent, while 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier and 2016’s Captain America: Civil War were better received with matching 90 percent approval from critics; 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger, which was the first to star Chris Evans as the living legend of World War II, scored an 80 percent.

ComicBook critic Evan Valentine wrote in a 3.5 star review, “One of the biggest surprises of Captain America: Brave New World was how it lived so well in the shadow of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. There are a few funny moments but, for the most part, Brave New World is a film that takes itself quite seriously and truly dives into its more mature overtones throughout. Gone are aspects of the multiverse and wise-cracking variants muddying up the screen and instead, Brave New World takes a much more grounded approach to the film’s benefit.”

“Though it ties together threads from the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole, Brave New World is neither particularly good or bad. It’s just another Marvel movie,” reads an excerpt from Observer‘s review. Empire Magazine describes Brave New World as “pacy and punchy,” adding “it isn’t quite up to the standard of The Winter Soldier, [but] it offers the same reminder that good people can fight for American even when their government falls short.”

The Associated Press equated the Valentine’s Day release to a “highly processed, empty calorie, regret-later candy of a movie,” praising the high-flying action but criticizing the script and its “quieter moments.” Entertainment Weekly‘s review names the 82-year-old Harrison Ford’s rampaging Red Hulk “the main attraction,” even if the MCU movie in which he makes his Marvel debut is a “hodge-podge” — in part due to the screenplay’s five credited writers.

“If [Disney+ Marvel series] The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was a streaming series that occasionally approached the cinematic,” writes The Film Verdict, “Brave New World too often feels like TV on the big screen.” Variety‘s review was more favorable, stating that the 35th MCU movie is “a reasonably diverting time filler that feels like what it is: a pit stop in the MCU’s rebooting-the-Avengers strategy. What’s old is not new again. But it’s just fun enough again.”

The most scathing review is from RogerEbert.com critic Robert Daniels, who writes that Brave New World “argues for unearned forgiveness while making rushed, last-second nods to the weight of Black excellence, the fight to gain a seat at the table, and the importance of representation. It not only turns its hero into a Magical Negro. In an effort to soothe white America’s anger and hurt, it also asks its hero to grin and figuratively tap dance off screen. Even as Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly anthem ‘I,’ a choice meant to illicit joy, adds a declarative note, you can’t help but feel icky. This is our Black Captain America? This is our piece of the pie? This movie is anything but brave. It is the most feckless, spineless blockbuster of the last decade, a film in need of burning down the old world before daring to look for the new.”

Directed by Julius Onah and starring Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Carl Lumbly, Xosha Roquemore, Giancarlo Esposito, Liv Tyler, Tim Blake Nelson, and Harrison Ford, Marvel Studios’ Captain America: Brave New World soars into theaters on Friday.