The Black Captain America Movie Is the Opposite of ‘Woke’

"Captain America: Brave New World" is neither brave nor new, but better than you’d expect.

Eli Adé/Marvel

For weeks, my friends and I have been giving Captain America: Brave New World various affectionately pejorative names in anticipation of seeing it: Uncle Tom’s Cab-Tain America, Captain Americablack: It Takes a Nation of Red Hulks to Hold Us Back, and my addition to the mix, BlackTain America: Brave New Negro. Part of this is just the language of Blerds (Black nerds), but it’s also reflective of the anxiety Black people have going into a movie centered on a Black man taking on the mantle of Captain America. In a Trump 2.0, post-Kendrick halftime show world, a Black man donning the red, white and blue without acknowledging what those colors represent in the Black Cinematic Universe isn’t exactly a good look. Captain America Brave New World isn’t a bad movie. In fact, it was much better than I expected. However, it’s definitely not a “good” film by Marvel standards and definitely won’t become required viewing in any future Black History Month.

Beware, there are spoilers afoot in this review. (That’s why you’re here, right?)

I called this movie Brave New Negro because of its smarty-pants wordplay on the “New Negro Movement” of the 1920s. The New Negro Movement represented a shift from accommodating how whites viewed Black people, like Booker T. Washington, towards a greater centering of ourselves, championed by the likes of W.E.B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey. After a historically racist president, white terrorism that destroys entire cities and a once-in-a-century pandemic, shouldn’t Black folks get a bit more serious? And if you can’t tell if I’m talking about the 1920s or the 2020s, that’s my point. Unfortunately, the Brave New Negro is everything that Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) as Captain America turned out not to be. Maybe we shouldn’t have been surprised seeing as how Mackie’s character is literally named after Uncle Sam.

Captain America: Brave New World wants to be a grounded, tight conspiracy film, similar to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, mimicking the spy thriller genre in everything from the plot to the credits. However, conspiracy thrillers require two things: a complex but understandable world of shadows and a protagonist confident enough in his convictions to buck the system when everyone tells them to bow down. Brave New World is weak on the first and downright soft on the second element.

Brave New World is basically a sequel to The Incredible Hulk (2008), where evil scientist Samuel Stearns is seeking revenge on then-general-now-President Thaddeus Ross (played by a grumpy Harrison Ford who replaced the late William Hurt) for using him as a weapons-producing guinea pig for the last 16 years. Stearns wants to ruin Ross’ legacy and doesn’t care if that endangers the planet, and Ross just wants his daughter to forgive him for his sins against the Hulk. On paper, this should work; Ross is a racist old coot who hates superheroes. He put Sam Wilson as Falcon in jail after Captain America: Civil War and held Sam’s mentor — the first Captain America, Isiah Bradley — in jail for 30 years to conduct experiments on him. It’s the classic MCU setup for a villain who hasn’t quite gone full evil, but whose methods go too far, with the added mix of a president who is a legitimately terrible guy that the hero has every reason to dislike and distrust.

Instead of going through this complex emotional and political story, Sam Wilson jumps into the fray like Stephen from Django Unchained with a degree in family therapy, defending Ross against all comers even when the president literally calls him BOY to his face. No matter how advanced those Wakandan wings are, Sam Wilson can’t fly out of the Sunken Place. Maybe this would be different if Mackie were a stronger lead, but he portrays Sam Wilson as a typical Hollywood, neutered version of a Black male hero that makes David Oyelowo look like Shaft. Even though he has a family, we never see him interact with his family. Despite Secret Service Agent Leila Taylor dropping more hints than a jeopardy category, Sam shows no romantic interest. By the end of the film, it’s still not clear why he deserves to carry the mantle Steve Rogers gave him. Combine that with the inconsistent fight choreography and powers (How is a guy with wings flying around at supersonic speeds? Is he Iron Man now?), and the center of this supposed Brave New World does not hold.

Now, there will be some MCU apologists who will say: “What are you expecting, a Black Lives Matter rally onscreen? Marvel doesn’t do that.” Except they can, because they have. Let’s not forget that Nick Fury was WHITE in every Marvel Comic for 60 years before Samuel L. Jackson snatched that role almost 20 years ago, and now no one even blinks an eye at the change. In Captain America: Civil War, Falcon was talking about police brutality, in Secret Invasion, Nick Fury and Rhodey had a whole exchange about the weight of being Black men in a white superhero world. Sam Wilson’s only confidants appear to be other sidekicks. Where’s Nick Fury? Where’s James Rhodes? Heck, where’s Papa Pope? Does Wilson not know any Black people in D.C.? Somebody needs to take him to Ben’s Chili Bowl and set him straight.

The irony is that Captain America: Brave New World will be attacked by the usual right-wing culture warriors as being “too woke” or foisting a DEI Captain America on the country, when, in fact, the movie is nothing of the kind, to a fault. There was almost nothing that Sam Wilson said or did in this movie that couldn’t have been done by any other white character from Happy Hogan to Peter Parker. Forget wokeness, Brave New World could’ve been a chance to explore a real bootstrap Black hero. Sam isn’t pumped up with performance-enhancing drugs like Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes and John Walker; he’s basically trying to save the world on a budget with Wakandan hand-me-downs. To be fair, every Black man knows he can’t show up at the new job outshining his co-workers, especially when he just got the promotion. But damn Sam, give us something to work with here.

Wilson’s passive reaction to the injustices around him made it hard to empathize with the character. From Captain America: The First Avenger to Captain America: Civil War, Steve Rogers evolved from an “aw-shucks” patriot to a government skeptic who probably had his own Thanos Snap conspiracy subreddit. I feel like Steve Rogers would’ve broken his friend out of jail if he thought he was unjustly imprisoned. In fact, he did it for Sam. Meanwhile, other than some tacked-on “responsibility” speech at the end of the film, the audience doesn’t know what Sam Wilson believes in. All things considered, Captain America: Brave New World isn’t necessarily a bad movie, but it’s not great either. It’s better than most of the post-Endgame movies (The Marvels, Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Eternals, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Black Widow), and that’s a marked improvement. It starts slow but gives a satisfying if predictable final battle as well.

If you’re tired of the CGI messes of Ant-Man and the radical tone shifts of The Marvels, you will enjoy a movie that gets back to basic beat-em-up action. Just don’t go in expecting a New Negro, because this one definitely isn’t trying to shake up the world order.