Film: Captain America – Brave New World (2025)

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I’m back into my ‘Marvel Movie Phase’. 👍 Actually, I never went away, but I think Marvel Films itself (who are desperate to rekindle their past box-office successes) have drastically reduced their output of late – so there hasn’t been much to go and see! 🤔

Our destination? My second visit to the Savoy Cinema in Corby (one of our nearest picture houses since the local Odeon closed its doors back in January). Tonight, it’s with great mates, Jo & Janet (Ann ‘passed’ on this one, fearing another Marvel commercial disaster- a bit of a trend for Marvel of late!! 😕).

This one is probably the last from Marvel in its Phase 5 of sci-fi flicks! More specifically, it’s the 35th of their ‘Cinematic Universe’ series with only Thunderbolts* due soon to complete this latest Phase. BTW, the asterisk in that title is deliberate, but no-one seems to know why it’s there! Me included! 🤔. Plenty of theories online though! Phase 5? Want a reminder of the timeline of the Phases? No? thought not! But here they are anyway… 😁

The Infinity Saga
Phase One (2008–2012)
Phase Two (2013–2015)
Phase Three (2016–2019)

The Multiverse Saga
Phase Four (2021–2022)
Phase Five (2023–2025)
Phase Six (2025–2027)

Phase 6 begins later this year (July, if things go to plan) and will involve The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and yes, The Avengers (but not John Steed and Mrs Peel! – or even Tony Stark’s Iron Man) – Confused? Truth be told, there has been a bewildering number of film and TV productions since the very first Marvel outing in 2008 – and that was to become an issue… Read on! Back then, it started well, but with so much to keep track of, over almost 20 years, a new phenomenon was born: ‘Superhero Fatigue’. I’m retired, with more time on my hands than many, and even I found it impossible to watch everything! Additionally, it all became a bit ‘samey’ with the addition of impenetrable plot lines. 😕

So, being the helpful guy that I am, below is a list of all the films to date… For the sake of space, it only includes Marvel’s films and none of their TV-related offerings.

The film list is presented in the best order to watch them (with their release date shown after the title).

Still here? 👍😉

Luckily, brighter souls than me (thanks, Digital Spy) have got their head around ALL of Marvel’s related output and published a COMPLETE watchlist HERE. Films, TV – EVERYTHING! (Easy tiger! The sheer volume is not for the faint-hearted! 😉)

Synopsis

[The new} Captain America finds himself in the middle of an international incident after meeting with US President Thaddeus Ross.
He must soon discover the reason behind a nefarious global plot before the true mastermind has the entire world seeing red

Official Trailer

A Return to Form..?

Right off the bat, I’d say that I couldn’t help ‘tripping over’ the swathe of negativity about this one. I’m quite prepared to make up my own mind about it, but the following doesn’t bode well – and if you’re not a fan of the genre, or more specifically, Marvel Films, this isn’t going to do anything to encourage you to go and see it!

Well, based on these comments, I guess the only way was ‘up’! In my humble opinion, it all began to go wrong for Marvel much earlier than tonight! Current wisdom suggests the rot began a few years ago. First, in 2021 with ‘Eternals’ with then 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Adding to the run of disappointments was 2022’s Thor, Love and Thunder (possibly the worst film I’d ever seen! EVER! – and I’m known for watching quite a lot of rubbish in pursuit of my art!)

The Savoy Cinema

It’s Saturday, 1st March, and one of the few days when it’s been a beautiful day weather-wise – it was even slightly warm too! It really felt like winter was over – at last! – and the perfect excuse to take the short drive to The Savoy after a busy day in the garden. We’ve booked the 5.50pm showing, where I expected that we might be one of the last to see this blockbuster as it was released on Valentine’s Day!

We thought we might have the screen to ourselves, but it soon filled to about 50-60% capacity. Here we go…

Back to tonight! Straight into the story with no overly-long credit sequences – that’s a good start! In the first 20 minutes, there was plenty of action too – I’m liking this. Wow! A coherent plot too – what a very pleasant surprise! 😉. That’s better. This felt like a true return to form for Marvel. Great acting, a story that was easy to follow, plus some really good action scenes. A sprightly 82-year-old, Harrison Ford, probably stole the show for me as the US President, but everyone else gave impressive performances too!

Hey, this was more like Marvel’s films used to be before the stories became over-complicated and the visuals were too reliant on CGI.

Even better news in that anyone can watch this one having no previous experience of Marvel’s gargantuan filmic output (with the caveat that watching ‘The Incredible Hulk’ from 2008 will explain the frequent references to [Bruce] Banner aka The Hulk).

Any disappointments? Just one: and it wasn’t Marvel’s fault. The family of five in front of us managed to break all the ‘rules of the cinema’ that included: talking, using their phone and fidgeting throughout! Thanks! 😕. We felt sorry for the couple to our right who probably had it slightly worse than us as they were closer to the noise! We saw them on the way out getting their money back!! 👍

For devotees of Marvel, don’t forget to stick around for the now obligatory end-credit scene. I won’t spoil it here, but there are two pivotal characters in conversation who set the scene nicely for something VERY big in the future! 👍

and finally…

All-in-all then: We’re loving The Savoy Cinema, and it looks like Marvel might be back on track – Oh, and it didn’t rain today! Happy days!!! 👍👍👍😀😄😊