Captain America: Brave New World is officially back on track, and as the MCU’s second-ever fourth installment for a character’s film franchise, some fans are worried this new installment will look more like Thor: Love and Thunder. While there are some obvious differences in how both of these sagas' fourth films are set up – Chris Hemsworth has played Thor in every appearance since his 2011 debut and the upcoming Captain America movie features a legacy hero taking over the mantle – the largely negative reviews to Thor: Love and Thunder imply the setting of some worrisome standards for any MCU hero’s fourth feature film.
Captain America and Thor have long elicited comparisons from fans of the films’ shared universe. Both Captain America and Thor’s film sagas debuted around the same time, both characters veered into several “fish out of water” tropes when brought to the main world, and both had their self-appointed identities stripped away with the dismantling of the institutions they represented (SHIELD and Asgard, respectively), just to start. While Captain America’s first three movies are more consistently loved among Marvel fans, both heroes' initial trilogies acted as feats of larger-than-life world-building and storytelling within the superhero genre. However, Thor: Love and Thunder could be the blueprint to undoing Marvel’s fourth installment experiment.
Both movies are their character's fourth entries
Both characters’ third films were beloved by fans from their initial release dates. Captain America: Civil War not only introduced two of the most popular Marvel Comics heroes into the MCU, but it also seamlessly picked up plot lines that The Winter Soldier left unresolved and set the stage for shattered character dynamics that wouldn’t be resolved until Avengers: Endgame. Civil War effectively broke up the Avengers right before their next team-up movie, all while maintaining the tones and themes of a thrilling action flick. It sets its main characters on opposing sides of an issue and many fans still debate over who was actually in the right. It asks the big question seemingly ignored by previous films in the MCU: to what extent are these heroes responsible for the devastation of the events they set out to fix?
While Steve Rogers’ fate was sealed at the end of Avengers: Endgame, despite many mixed reviews from fans of the character, the legacy of the Captain America figure lives on in Rogers’ chosen successor. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier sees Sam Wilson finally accept the shield and follow in Rogers’ footsteps – all the way to a solo movie of his own.
After Thor: Ragnarok breathed new life into its main character following two rather stale solo films, many fans felt that Taika Waititi’s take on the franchise was the best thing that could have happened to the character.
Thor: Ragnarok was fun. It allowed its characters room to exist within their own space and embraced the duality of joy and heartache in its story. It followed the tonal shift set by Guardians of the Galaxy and proved that there was room for levity and fun in the MCU, especially at a time when everything else was dire and drab and dangerously approaching melodrama. While many fans were excited about the follow-up to Thor: Ragnarok, a film that many still consider one of the MCU’s best of all time, Thor: Love and Thunder’s over-reliance on unseriousness was just one of the many reasons audiences left the theaters unsure of what kind of movie they had just watched. This, in addition to other obvious missteps that Love and Thunder took, sets a lackluster example of what a Marvel hero’s fourth movie can be.
What can Captain America 4 do differently?
Many of the criticisms for Thor: Love and Thunder lie in the film’s obvious identity crisis. In many ways, the film feels as though it is actively trying to decide what genre it belongs to as the story progresses – all while relying on jokes that hardly land to push its story forward. What could have been a powerful film that introduces two of the most popular characters from the Thor comics and beautifully tells their stories, Gorr the God Butcher (played by Christian Bale) and Jane Foster’s The Mighty Thor (played by Natalie Portman) aren’t treated with the reverence their stories deserve and add opposing performances that further confuse the ever-shifting tone of the film.
For a movie that relies on the ramifications of death as a driving force behind many of its main characters and plot lines, its forced silliness in an attempt to emulate what worked with Ragnarok is its undoing. There is no balance in Love and Thunder and, as a result, it allows no room for its serious subject matter or brilliant performances from some of its lead actors to shine through the jokes and somewhat unfinished-looking visual effects.
Captain America: Brave New World can avoid this same outcome by accomplishing one thing: telling a cohesive story. So long as the writers know what story they are telling, this new installment has the potential to solidify the Captain America franchise as one of the best of the MCU, rivaling that of the Guardians of the Galaxy and Spider-Man sagas as well.
Captain America 4 has one advantage
Captain America: Brave New World is breaking new ground for the MCU by introducing a legacy character as one of their main heroes. Fans have seen Sam Wilson through the beginning of his superhero journey in The Winter Soldier, and have grown to love The Falcon as one of Captain America’s supporting characters. Now that the shield has been passed down, fans are eagerly awaiting Anthony Mackie’s portrayal of the next generation’s Captain America.
Mackie’s Captain America is already a breath of fresh air from the version audiences are used to. While the two have a very similar moral code, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier already gave audiences a look at how Sam Wilson’s identity as a Black man in America already changes the way he operates in the superhero space. Wilson sees the world around him in a different way because his world is strikingly different from the one Steve Rogers operated in (pre- and post-70-year-nap). Having this universe’s classic symbol of The Great American Hero be worn by a Black hero is the necessary representation of America as it exists today.
Mackie taking over the mantle is undoubtedly the smartest move for the franchise because no one else could play the role better after Chris Evans’ departure. Anthony Mackie is a true talent with a dedication to the character of Sam Wilson that easily shows through in his performance. Fans know and love the character and are excited by this change in the roster for the Captain America franchise. Being joined by the likes of Harrison Ford as General Thaddeus Ross, Tim Nelson returning as The Leader, and familiar faces from Mackie’s Disney+ series returning (Danny Ramirez as Joaquin Torres and Carl Lumbly as Isaiah Bradley), Captain America: Brave New World is shaping up to be a soft-reboot the franchise may need.
Captain America: Brave New World is set to premiere on May 3rd, 2024.