“Captain America: Brave New World” isn’t impressing critics.
This new Marvel movie comes to theaters Friday and is meant to be Sam Wilson’s (Anthony Mackie) first full debut as Captain America. The hope was that this would be a great start to a new era of Marvel.
But critics hav. Here is what they have to say.
What are critics saying about ‘Captain America: Brave New World’?
The new Marvel movie scored a 53% on the Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes.
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes called it “clunky” and “just another Marvel movie” instead of the big, amazing introduction to Wilson as Captain America that it was built up to be.
“Instead of feeling like a big, splashy debut of a new era for the MCU,” top critic Caroline Siede said, according to Rotten Tomatoes, “Brave New World feels like the subpar sequel to a better movie that doesn’t exist.”
Many critics continue to feel strongly that the new movie isn’t what Marvel movies used to be. But one critic on Rotten Tomatoes pointed out that it felt “like the series may be finding its soul again.”
With a overall score of 43/100, “Captain America: Brave New World” is a whole five points lower than the next lowest Marvel movie, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” according to Forbes.
One critic from Collider wrote that this “is not the 2025 start that Marvel fans may be hoping for” and that this puts more pressure on the next movies coming out.
Despite the lack of positive reviews for the movie itself, some critics don’t feel that is of any fault to Anthony Mackie’s or Harrison Ford’s performances, per Metacritic.
What does this mean for Marvel going forward?
“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantaumania,” “Eternals” and “The Marvels” had the three lowest scores on Metacritic — before “Captain America: Brave New World” — and they all underperformed at the box office, per Forbes.
“Captain America: Brave New World” is predicted to have a “solid global opening of almost $190 million,” according to Forbes.
Forbes also reported that, on Metacritic, critic review scores are usually higher than fans'. And if that is the case for Sam Wilson’s debut, this might pose as a problem for the character, as he is a big player in future Marvel Cinematic Universe projects.
However, it is possible that the new movie could be similar to “Deadpool and Wolverine,” where fans liked the film more than critics did.
More will be able to be said about the future of film when it is released in theaters Friday.