Captain America: Brave New World is now playing in theaters, and while fans seem to be divided on the overall quality of Marvel Studios' latest, one aspect of the movie that's come in for almost universal backlash is the post-credits scene.
Spoilers follow.
In the stinger, we see Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) drop by the Raft - a floating prison where the world's super-powered villains are sent - to see Dr. Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson). After some back-and-forth about how they don't share the same sense of humor, The Leader makes some vague hints about mysterious "others" that Sam and his New Avengers are going to have to prepare for, seemingly setting up the MCU's next big event film, Avengers: Doomsday.
Uneventful? Definitely. Perfunctory? Sure - but was it really all that bad?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to go all out in defence of the scene, I'm simply offering a counterargument that, all things considered, it didn't stand out as being a particularly terrible sequence. We've had a few excellent and exciting MCU stingers over the years, but if you think about it, the majority of them don't feature any surprise cameos or major reveals, and really just serve as fairly standard little teasers for upcoming releases.
Had Brave New World been a truly great film (for what it's worth, I thought it was a mediocre effort for the most part), then this particular post-credits scene may have been more of a disappointment. For this film, it was pretty much par for the course.
One could argue that the scene was a missed opportunity, and I don't necessarily disagree. Maybe it was low expectations after hearing about what a "disaster" it was beforehand, but I didn't walk out thinking it was a lowlight of the movie or anything (Sabra exists, after all).
I will say this, though: I wasn't overjoyed at having to sit through the entire closing credits to get to it! If ever a scene was crying out for a mid-credits spot, it was this.
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After meeting with newly elected U.S. President Thaddeus Ross, played by Harrison Ford in his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut, Sam finds himself in the middle of an international incident. He must discover the reason behind a nefarious global plot before the true mastermind has the entire world seeing red.
Captain America: Brave New World also stars Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Xosha Roquemore, Carl Lumbly, with Giancarlo Esposito, Liv Tyler, Tim Blake Nelson, and Harrison Ford. The film is directed by Julius Onah and produced by Kevin Feige and Nate Moore. Louis D’Esposito and Charles Newirth serve as executive producers.
Marvel Studios’ Captain America: Brave New World opens in U.S. theaters on February 14, 2025.