Captain America: Brave New World - Limited Edition 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray SteelBook

There are a lot of ways to describe the MCU Phase V slump. Some want to pin it on Superhero Fatigue, that the genre as a whole just doesn’t have the ring and luster it once did. That’s certainly possible, but I think a recent interview with Disney CEO Bob Iger pits it correctly, quantity over quality is the problem. In the post-Endgame MCU era, Marvel and its parent company pivoted hard into creating films and series with the misguided idea that more content would equal more audience retention. While more can be fun, the consequence of numerous films and television series was nothing felt like an event anymore. It all felt like homework we had to watch so we could enjoy something else without feeling behind.  

On that note, if you didn’t watch Falcon and the Winter Soldier Season One, you’re going to be left out in the cold on Captain America: Brave New World. You’ll especially feel lost if you don't remember 2008’s largely forgotten The Incredible Hulk. Even then, the stumbling pace and sprawling geopolitical plot still might not be enough to hook newcomers or satisfy longtime MCU fans. 

Our story opens with Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) fully embracing his new role as Captain America fighting alongside his New Flacon pal Torres (Danny Ramirez). Mission after mission, they execute with efficiency. As the newly elected President, Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford) aims to cement his political future and sway the global response to the Celestial Tiamut and the massive deposits of adamantium. But as Ross is about to claim a political victory lap, his plans are shredded when his darkest secret, the gamma-enhanced Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson) comes looking for revenge.

There’s a lot to say about Captain America: Brave New World. For my own sake, I don’t think it deserved the sharp criticisms lobbed its way. Certainly didn’t deserve the nonsense from the basement dwellers online. I’m not going to say it’s perfect because it’s far from that, but it’s also far from being the worst MCU project. Perhaps more frustrating in some ways, it’s just a middling entertaining piece of filler that doesn’t seem to push the connected universe narrative in any direction beyond exhaustively repetitive mentions of “adamantium.” (Seriously take a shot every time someone mentions the metal key to Wolverine’s iconic skeleton and claws and you’ll be dead drunk under the table before the second act.)

Keeping to some positive notes for a moment, Harrison Ford was a terrific replacement for the late William Hurt - to the point that I left the theater wishing Ford had been Thunderbolt Ross the entire time so that his arc with the character felt more meaningful. Hurt was a fine actor, but you could always tell when he thought the material he was in was beneath him. Mackie fits the winged Captain America role nicely. That was a fine set of comics back in the day and he’s more than capable of leading a franchise like this, it just needed to be a slam-dunk film where he was more front and center than the side characters. I also really enjoyed the return of Tim Blake Nelson as Sterns even if his version of The Leader is quite a bit more monstrous than a more comic-accurate appearance. 

I also loved the action sequences. Anytime Mackie’s Captain America flies into a scene and goes toe-to-toe with the bad guys, it’s an exciting time. The thrill of the flight crashing into a fisticuff brawl is a wild swing in momentum and intensity. I also like that he’s not physically overpowered so it takes time to wind down an enemy while taking a few tough hits too. That aerial battle over the Indian Ocean around the Celestial Island is blisteringly fun and a true highlight of the flick. 

The principal issue for Brave New World is that its sprawling plot feels more suited for a Disney+ series than a two-hour film. There are a lot of plot ins and outs with various characters that harken to classic paranoid thrillers like Three Days of the Condor and The Manchurian Candidate, and those kinds of films don’t always allow for a lot of big-scale whizbang action spectacle in a condensed timeframe. To make it all work in such a short period, there is a lot of stopping the plot to explain what’s going on because so much of what happens depends on doing your MCU homework. It’s been seventeen years since The Incredible Hulk and in that time a lot of story has happened so this movie feels like it’s unnecessarily dragging the audience along to catch up. If done correctly, dialog can be exhilarating, and it can be as dynamic and exciting as any action sequence. Here, these exchanges just pull the movie to a stop and then force it to try and pick up the momentum again.

Then there’s how this film was marketed as a showdown between Captain America and Red Hulk. As a general rule, you shouldn’t market a film entirely on your late third-act twist. Granted, something as big as that was bound to get out, but this film doesn’t hinge on that specific moment. That showdown is the payoff to the long game, not the journey itself. The final Red Hulk reveal should have been akin to Steve Rodgers picking up Mjölnir in Endgame, a true audience “holy s#*t!” moment that pins you to the back of your theater seat, not the key to the marketing campaign.

If the scuttlebutt is at all true, between the union strikes, rewrites, and reshoots, this was certainly something of a troubled production. Going forward, if a project isn’t clicking on all cylinders, Marvel needs to actually be brave and do what they did on Daredevil: Born Again - stop production, retool, and then start again. This game of trying to fix it in post is becoming old hat, obvious, and leads to a cheaper even more incomplete-feeling final product. And I say that as someone who did enjoy this film! Brave New World could have been one of the MCU greats. You can feel the pieces of a grand exciting story in this film, but they rarely shine through. Instead, we have some excellent action scenes and fine performances stuck in a middling adventure that isn’t confident in the direction it’s going. 

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 
Captain America: Brave New World flies onto 4K Ultra HD with a two-disc 4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital release from Disney. For this review, we received the stylish SteelBook and I have to say it’s one of the more exciting SteelBooks to come out of Marvel. The 4K is pressed on a BD66 with a BD50 serving the 1080p edition and the bonus features. The discs load to the standard Disney language menu option before jumping right into the main feature.

I caught Captain America: Brave New World on 3D IMAX with shifting aspect ratio, and while I’d love to see that presentation come to disc, I’ll give credit where it's due for this 2160p 2.39:1 Dolby Vision transfer. There is no shifting aspect ratio here, but it remains a visually exciting image. Details are sharp and clear right from the start. Facial features, costumes, and set design get their due. Some of the more CGI-heavy sequences can look a bit soft, but a lot of the big action setpieces come off well! As I mentioned it’s pretty easy to spot the reshoot moments, but in 2D they actually blend a little better than the 3D IMAX - you could really notice in theaters when that sense of depth would just disappear or if a character just “hovered” in the scene. That’s less noticeable here. The Dolby Vision grade is excellent, really lets the color dynamics pop. This especially comes in during the big second-act action scenes when Ross is taking command of the fleet in his aircraft carrier war room with the red lights and dark shadows. Colors are bold without looking over-saturated. Black levels are nice and inky and again, those shadows recreate an excellent sense of depth. Contrast is right on point. My only gripe really comes down to that I wish more Disney projects would get BD100 discs to free up the disc space, give the bitrate a little more wiggle room, and really let these presentations sing.

On the audio front, we have an exhilarating Dolby Atmos mix to enjoy. Given all of the flying sequences between Captain America and the new Falcon, the soundscape spread is a lot of fun. Elements zip through the front/center channels through the sides and rears and up into the heights with a lot of robust vigor. When the action sequences kick in they certainly deliver the goods. The conversational sequence slips back into being a more Front/Center presentation with more incidental surround pieces. Throughout dialog is clean and clear with no issues there. LFE is nice and rumbly for the big explosive impacts - which there are a lot of those in the last 45 minutes of the film. All around a nice track. On the included Blu-ray, it slips back to being a DTS-HD MA 7.1 track - which is pretty damn good, but it just doesn’t quite land the spread and LFE as the Atmos. Still weird Disney doesn’t opt for Atmos on both discs.

Bonus features are on the slim side. The two featurettes, albeit briefly, do cover some interesting relevant ground, but hardly in-depth. The audio commentary with director Julius Onah and cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau is the meatiest piece here as the pair dig into crafting the film. The gag reel is just that and the deleted scenes don’t amount to anything groundbreaking. 

4K UHD Disc 

• Audio Commentary featuring Julius Onah and Kramer Morgenthau 

Blu-ray Disc 

• Audio Commentary featuring Julius Onah and Kramer Morgenthau 
• Assuming the Mantle (HD 11:08)
• Old Scores, New Scars (HD 9:46)
• Gag Reel (HD 2:12)
• Deleted Scenes (HD 4:45)
• A Heartfelt Thanks
• The Mission
• Stick Around

Captain America: Brave New World should have been a slam dunk. It needed to be a slam dunk. While an entertaining film, it feels like middling filler to pass the time as we wait for something bigger to happen. Mackie remains an excellent Captain America, Harrison Ford was a terrific Thunderbolt Ross, and I dug the hell out of Nelson’s return as Sterns - I just wish the film itself had been better as a whole. I don’t think it’s terrible by any means, some folks really had the knives out for it, but it’s not the high water mark for the MCU that it could have been. It’s a fun filler film instead of the grand entry for a new chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. On 4K, the film comes home with an excellent Dolby Vision transfer and Atmos audio to match. Bonus features aren’t a whole lot to speak of but the Audio Commentary is worth the listen. Ultimately this MCU entry is Worth A Look