'Brave New World' is a lazily-retrofitted and dumbed-down hybrid of 'Winter Soldier' and 'Civil War' that trades present-tense topicality for 'Incredible Hulk' nostalgia.
Well, that was a depressing read. I love Winter Soldier and Civil War, so how did I never notice the racial subtext in Nick Fury's speech about how his "grand-dad loved people, but he didn't trust them very much."? I suppose in retrospect, those two films are scarily prescient American political horror stories, so I don't know if that'll help them age better or worse. And I also enjoyed The Falcon and the Winter Soldier for its plot, characters, and themes, including it addressing real-world American racism both past (Isaiah Bradley and his killed comrades as Tuskegee-like experiments) and present (Sam gets cornered by multiple white cops for Arguing While Black). While the Flag Smashers' villainous plans don't have sensible goals, all the other supporting characters like Zemo, Walker, and Sharon had interesting developments that I want to see more of. I was also expecting Malcolm Spellman to continue his story from that show (or 4.5-hour movie in 6 parts) with this film, so it's disappointing to hear his momentum and vision were compromised. I agree that it would be unnecessarily cowardly for Disney to enforce that the story avoid any real-world topicality or conflict in a PG-13 action movie, especially in a science-fiction/fantasy franchise that can do whatever it wants, where the events of Winter Soldier and Civil War have already occurred with these characters. It's also funny to think that Ross has been able to become a general, then secretary of state, then president after creating two monsters that basically destroyed Harlem and enforcing the Sokovia Accords, causing the Avengers' civil war that resulted in them not being united to stop the (eventually temporary) destruction of half of all life. But it wouldn't exactly be true anymore in today's insane world to say that it's "unrealistic" he got elected president after former president Ritson's obliviousness to the fiasco in Secret Invasion. It's insanely frustrating and pathetic if Disney's defeatist cowardice due to blowback is really being scapegoated by the studio on Lightyear, a movie with one lesbian character who's only in the first third, and is really about an older guy learning to come to terms with his worst impulses and accepting the mistakes his selfishness caused, by working with and encouraging others to save the day alongside him. It's really just like Top Gun: Maverick from that same summer! Well, at least Keke Palmer now has Nope, One of Them Days, and soon Ice Age 6, while Chris Evans (who ironically played Captain America) now has, uh... his Deadpool and Wolverine cameo? I'd joke about how I wonder when he'll come crawling back to the MCU, though the sad part is he technically already has and it wasn't even a big deal. Brave New World's critical failings certainly don't bode well for this year's other MCU movie with characters from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier that was written and filmed around a strike and with a presumed mentality of "Disney+ shows and characters are important to general audiences." This underperformance is especially bad news for anticipation for Thunderbolts, since while Sam Wilson's Falcon has been in popular MCU movies since Phase 2, Yelena Belova's Black Widow Jr. has only been in the MCU since the less-popular Phase 4 projects, and she appears to be the main character and team leader. Pugh and Zegler better swap Villeneuve and Spielberg's phone numbers and sneak away from Disney now before getting unofficially banished, and as for Fantastic Four, that movie's also completely dependent on its quality and not being too generic, since audiences are so familiar with the MCU formula at this point, and can watch dozens of superior, original-recipe versions of it at home. Needless to say, the MCU is definitely facing an uphill battle with general audiences this year depending on if their movies still come with the presumption of quality standalone stories, or shoddily stitched-together and redundant formulas. Today's kids and teens don't give the MCU the benefit of the doubt that yesterday's children did, so they'll have to release individually great movies before Avengers: Doomsday to win them away from, uh... Minecraft and Five Nights at Freddy's? Maybe Doomsday and Secret Wars should take place in a video game world? But anyway, I believe Disney should just allow Raimi to do Doctor Strange 3, George Miller to do Thor 5 if he actually wants to, and Cretton to do Shang-Chi 2 as an epic "brother vs. sister" action fantasy after he finishes Spider-Man 4, where Peter's friends remember who he is through magic so Favreau, Zendaya, and Batalon can keep getting those paychecks and his story doesn't have to start from scratch. I can't be the only one who thought this would be undone immediately after watching No Way Home, right?
Well, that was a depressing read. I love Winter Soldier and Civil War, so how did I never notice the racial subtext in Nick Fury's speech about how his "grand-dad loved people, but he didn't trust them very much."? I suppose in retrospect, those two films are scarily prescient American political horror stories, so I don't know if that'll help them age better or worse. And I also enjoyed The Falcon and the Winter Soldier for its plot, characters, and themes, including it addressing real-world American racism both past (Isaiah Bradley and his killed comrades as Tuskegee-like experiments) and present (Sam gets cornered by multiple white cops for Arguing While Black). While the Flag Smashers' villainous plans don't have sensible goals, all the other supporting characters like Zemo, Walker, and Sharon had interesting developments that I want to see more of. I was also expecting Malcolm Spellman to continue his story from that show (or 4.5-hour movie in 6 parts) with this film, so it's disappointing to hear his momentum and vision were compromised. I agree that it would be unnecessarily cowardly for Disney to enforce that the story avoid any real-world topicality or conflict in a PG-13 action movie, especially in a science-fiction/fantasy franchise that can do whatever it wants, where the events of Winter Soldier and Civil War have already occurred with these characters. It's also funny to think that Ross has been able to become a general, then secretary of state, then president after creating two monsters that basically destroyed Harlem and enforcing the Sokovia Accords, causing the Avengers' civil war that resulted in them not being united to stop the (eventually temporary) destruction of half of all life. But it wouldn't exactly be true anymore in today's insane world to say that it's "unrealistic" he got elected president after former president Ritson's obliviousness to the fiasco in Secret Invasion. It's insanely frustrating and pathetic if Disney's defeatist cowardice due to blowback is really being scapegoated by the studio on Lightyear, a movie with one lesbian character who's only in the first third, and is really about an older guy learning to come to terms with his worst impulses and accepting the mistakes his selfishness caused, by working with and encouraging others to save the day alongside him. It's really just like Top Gun: Maverick from that same summer! Well, at least Keke Palmer now has Nope, One of Them Days, and soon Ice Age 6, while Chris Evans (who ironically played Captain America) now has, uh... his Deadpool and Wolverine cameo? I'd joke about how I wonder when he'll come crawling back to the MCU, though the sad part is he technically already has and it wasn't even a big deal. Brave New World's critical failings certainly don't bode well for this year's other MCU movie with characters from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier that was written and filmed around a strike and with a presumed mentality of "Disney+ shows and characters are important to general audiences." This underperformance is especially bad news for anticipation for Thunderbolts, since while Sam Wilson's Falcon has been in popular MCU movies since Phase 2, Yelena Belova's Black Widow Jr. has only been in the MCU since the less-popular Phase 4 projects, and she appears to be the main character and team leader. Pugh and Zegler better swap Villeneuve and Spielberg's phone numbers and sneak away from Disney now before getting unofficially banished, and as for Fantastic Four, that movie's also completely dependent on its quality and not being too generic, since audiences are so familiar with the MCU formula at this point, and can watch dozens of superior, original-recipe versions of it at home. Needless to say, the MCU is definitely facing an uphill battle with general audiences this year depending on if their movies still come with the presumption of quality standalone stories, or shoddily stitched-together and redundant formulas. Today's kids and teens don't give the MCU the benefit of the doubt that yesterday's children did, so they'll have to release individually great movies before Avengers: Doomsday to win them away from, uh... Minecraft and Five Nights at Freddy's? Maybe Doomsday and Secret Wars should take place in a video game world? But anyway, I believe Disney should just allow Raimi to do Doctor Strange 3, George Miller to do Thor 5 if he actually wants to, and Cretton to do Shang-Chi 2 as an epic "brother vs. sister" action fantasy after he finishes Spider-Man 4, where Peter's friends remember who he is through magic so Favreau, Zendaya, and Batalon can keep getting those paychecks and his story doesn't have to start from scratch. I can't be the only one who thought this would be undone immediately after watching No Way Home, right?
I’ve just seen it and enjoyed it enough but I can’t argue with anything you say Scott.