I've got conflicting thoughts about this one. Coming from me, the first question I will answer is that I did not find any controversial elements in this film. That might be my first criticism. This film plays it so safe that it borders on uninteresting a majority of the time. I suspect this is a result from of reshoots, and as a consequence, we get three different takes on Sam in one film.
- We get snarky, comedy Sam
- We get super serious and focused Sam
- We get vulnerable Sam
Surprisingly, vulnerable Sam is the one I liked the most, but we spend little time with him. Mackie does a decent job most of the time, but he doesn't have the presence to stand out like his Marvel peers. I felt like Harrison Ford (President “Thunderbolt” Ross) and Carl Lumbly (Isaiah Bradley), who are both serviceable in their roles, overshadowed him in both screen presence and emotional tone. In conversational scenes with Harrison, Mackie's serious posture appeared robotic.
Shira Haas as "Not Sabra" is reduced to a literal ex-Widow who just happens to be from Israel. She doesn't get much to do here. I've seen critiques of her being so small that it makes her action sequences unbelievable or "girl boss"-like. She's not impactful enough for me to feel that way, and I would be hypocritical if I didn't point out the same behavior when Scarlett's Black Widow took out a bunch of people in her Iron Man 2 debut.
Danny Ramirez does an okay, but borderline annoying, Joaquin Torres. He is essentially comic relief. It was hit and miss for me but not offensive. My only problem is he is some kind of super hacker and can do whatever the plot needs him to do.
This leads me to my three biggest issues in this film:
- We don't know anything more about Sam than we did in FAWS
- The film has a weak antagonist
- The script is poor
1 and 2 are no doubt because of bullet 3. This film plays like it was chopped up from a number of reshoots where themes were dropped and replaced with something just to move the plot forward. We get very little of Giancarlo, who is just a mustache-twirling mercenary. Tim Blake Nelson does okay with what he's given to work with as Samuel Sterns, aka The Leader. He has mostly contrived reasons for the things he does.
I believe there was a cut of this movie where Ross was the primary antagonist—or at least, the third act ended that way. The film reveals that at some point, Ross pinned the events of The Incredible Hulk on Sterns, then gave him increasing doses of gamma and held him prisoner. After learning he has a terminal heart condition, Ross promises to release Sterns if he heals him and delivers him the Presidency. Sterns' powers make him a human supercomputer that can predict events based on probabilities. Sterns creates pills for Ross that keep him alive; however, they have traces of gamma that accumulate over time. The script doesn't show us Sterns' intelligence in practice, though, aside from the attack seen in the trailer. He is surprised and fails more than he succeeds. He is written like a victim, and it doesn't work for me. The Leader is only a villain because of what he does in this film. There is no connective tissue to Banner or the Hulk movie other than Sterns taking the fall.
This leads us to Harrison Ford's take on Ross. Ford doesn't totally mail it in, but it isn't exactly an Oscar-worthy performance. His motivation (which I believe was added in reshoots) is to prove he's changed so he can repair the relationship with Betty. Similar to Sam, we get two versions of Ross:
- The Ross that wants to work with Sam, do the right thing, and make things right by Betty
- Ross, who has just been doing diabolical things for his own gain
This is a film in conflict with itself. Ross's primary aim is to sign a treaty to prevent a fight over the newly discovered Adamantium found on what is now called Celestial Island. He must say 100 times how "important the treaty is." It gets old quickly. It isn't believable because we know he gained office through dubious means. We know this because the script reveals everything extremely quickly and mostly through exposition. It might have worked better if we didn't get the Ross-Leader connection until much later, but the short runtime doesn't allow it. We don't get enough time with the characters to absorb the political thriller the film tries to be. There is little mystery and intrigue because the film keeps telling us everything. In other words, it breaks the rule of show, don't tell entirely too often.
The Manchurian Candidate story was already done in the MCU. It feels like a retread here. Sterns uses mobile devices to trigger mind control over whatever victim he needs. It's overused, and since he has the ability to seemingly do this to anyone, he never uses it against his most obvious foes—like Sam. This diminishes him as an antagonist. Remember, his power is supreme intelligence and calculations that effectively make him an oracle of sorts. His arc boils down to exposing Ross for what he is, a simple revenge plot at its core.
We get a cameo from Bucky after Joaquin is injured. This is the first of two scenes where we get vulnerable Sam, and it works for me. These actors have great chemistry, and even though I don't agree with the conclusion of the conversation, we finally see a different side of Sam. We quickly get back to overly stoic, can't-fail Sam, which has been a problematic theme in the post-Phase 3 MCU. The script fails the most here. Sam doesn't change throughout this movie because he isn't forced to. His convictions about not taking the serum are touched on but not actually explained.
When you have an antagonist that doesn’t face true adversity or is forced to change from the journey, the plot just happens. Today's Hollywood writers struggle with this. They write events and then fill in the blanks so those events just occur. It doesn’t feel organic, and events don’t happen due to causation, which would naturally drive the plot forward. This film suffers from this syndrome. No matter what scenario the plot puts Sam in, his literal plot armor does whatever the plot needs it to do. This degrades Sam as Captain America. The suit can be a shield, do a sonic clap, or shoot knives. It has the MCU default nano-tech helmet and is made of Vibranium. It also gives him enhanced abilities for whatever Sam needs to do. Need super strength? Check. Need to charge up a wing for a super kinetic attack? Sure. Need to shoot some wing knives? Yup.
All of this culminates in a rushed third act vs. the Red Hulk. Sterns, after having his plot foiled, turns himself in to expose Ross. Ross is finally triggered into Red Hulk, and what you saw in TV spots and trailers is most of it. Sam finally knocks Red Hulk down, but he gets up. This prompts Sam to talk Ross down by telling him he has good in him and reminding him about Betty. Ross and Sterns get sent to the Raft, and Sam visits Ross to give him credit for "taking responsibility" for his actions. It honestly makes no sense and leaves the film with no true bad guy. Once again, we get the victim and the misunderstood antagonists. Ross is even rewarded with a visit from Betty. I was left with the message that well, you did all of these mostly bad things but you had a noble thought so I guess you’re ok. The writing is so clueless it doesn’t realize his one noble thought is still based on selfishness. He wants to repair his relationship with his daughter.
I won’t say this is the worst MCU movie I’ve ever seen. It’s not on the level of Eternals or The Marvels, but as the fourth Captain America movie, it doesn’t come close in themes, character development, stakes, or execution compared to its predecessors. The character interactions are shot like a TV show. There are too many close-up shots that make the viewing experience disjointed as you switch to wide-shot action sequences you would expect from an MCU film.
Protagonists and antagonists can only be as smart as the writers, and the writing fails this movie far too often to be good.
I rate it a 2 out of 5.