Pop Culture Happy Hour - Captain America: Brave New World And What's Making Us Happy

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Anthony Mackie is the new Captain America, and he's finally got his own movie. In Captain America: Brave New World, Cap finds himself battling President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) who is hiding quite a few secrets.In the run-up to the Oscars, Pop Culture Happy Hour is watching all 10 best picture nominees – and you're invited to join us! Sign up for the NPR Movie Club newsletter series and tell us what you thought of the movies you watched this week. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there's a new Captain America, played by Anthony Mackie. And for the first time, he's got his own movie. Cap finds himself battling a literally monstrous president, played by Harrison Ford, whose rages threatened to destabilize the whole world. I'm Glenn Weldon. And I'm Linda Holmes. And today we're talking about Captain America, Brave New World, which is already a title of something, but that's fine, on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

Joining us today is one of the hosts of NPR's Code Switch podcast, Gene Demby. Hey, Gene. What's good, friends? How are you? We are good. Also with us is filmmaker, pop culture critic, and I heart radio producer, Joelle Monique. Hello, Joelle. Hi, Linda. So Sam Wilson has been Captain America for a little while now in the MCU, having gotten the shield from Steve Rogers at the end of Avengers end game. His early history as Cap has been covered over on the Disney Plus show, the first show, the Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Captain America, Brave New World, finds Sam still wondering whether he's really suited for the suit, particularly since unlike Steve, he hasn't taken any serums that make him superhuman. He's just a guy who's got a lot of really good gear, and, of course,

a pure and patriotic heart. In the movie, Sam tries to untangle a dastardly mind-control plot that led to an attempt to assassinate the president, Sadius Ross, played here by a presumably well-compensated Harrison Ford. Ross is hiding quite a few secrets himself, and Sam has to figure out whether he's a good guy or a bad guy. I represent all Americans now. Hell, half of them wouldn't even be here without the Avengers. The country needs this.

And when we disagree on how to manage a situation, what happens then? Figure it out together. Oh, what a nice idea. He also needs to save Isaiah Bradley, a former super soldier who was unjustly imprisoned for years and now finds himself tied up in a new mess, not of his own making. He's played by Carl Lumley. Danny Ramirez is back as Joaquin Torres. He's stepping up to help Sam as the new Falcon now that Sam, who used to be the Falcon, is now Captain America, if that makes sense.

Also, on hand for this adventure to make a lot of trouble are Giancarlo Esposito and Tim. Blake Nelson. Captain America, Brave New World is in theaters now. I know I mentioned this already, but it's very funny to me that they called it Brave New World because that's already a title of a sort of famous story. But that's fine. That's fine. We're here to talk about Captain America, Brave New World. I'm going to start with you, Joelle. What'd you think? I think I text my group chat afterwards aggressively mid. And to translate is just so average, so in the middle. there was not for me a scene I could take home to my father who loves these movies. Like, you can't wait for you to see this so good.

The more I think on the film, the more disappointed I am. They dumped it in the middle of Black History Month, I think, for a reason. It's supposed to be a political thriller. It's not. I get very annoying people say it is. I think one was set up, but it falls apart in the second act. There's really no thrill or secrecy or guessing. as the movie goes on.

And they give the main storyline to the destructive, contentious president as opposed to Sam, the lead character. He gets family in his TV show. None of them come back. He's barely a person. He's more of a title. And that's deeply disappointing. So I have a lot of frustrations.

I have some good things to say, but we can talk about those later. Yeah. All right. So aggressively mid. Glenn, how about you? Where are you coming down on this one? I mean, this is a surprisingly thin gruel. Full disclosure, I didn't really like Falcon and the Winter Soldier because they built that around the Sam Bucky dynamic.

And that just felt forced. I don't think those two actors chimed off each other. So everything about it felt small and kind of workmanlike. We went from the Marvel Cinematic Universe to kind of a Marvel TV township, you know, unincorporated area, empty lot. This feels like I was watching a two-hour episode of that TV show. It felt small, weirdly dull. So it was an extension, not an experience. And the one interesting thing the TV series introduced, what you mentioned was Isaiah Bradley, played by Carl Lumley, as a black super soldier who was disavowed by his government. And that got to, in a big kind of broad superhero way, it at least addressed the notion of how the American government treats black men. It evoked the Tuskegee experiments. And this film retains those trappings, but does nothing with them. It feels so toothless and so afraid of saying you're doing anything that it just doesn't register. It evaporates the minute you get out.

out of your theater seat, which is fascinating because this film dresses a black man up in an American flag and calls him Captain America. Even if you try to put the politics of that image aside, and, you know, good luck with that. In terms of simple iconography, and superheroes are all about their iconography that should resonate. You should feel something. That should feel charged. It should be subversive.

It should feel dangerous, iconoclastic. It does in the comics, I would argue. but this film narratively keeps striving to do everything it can to dilute that impact. And, you know, the movie can't help the cultural moment it arrives in. But look, this film drops less than a week after Uncle Sam Jackson at the Super Bowl, another black man dressed up in the American flag. Kendrick forms blackmail bodies into an American flag. That carried such a stronger charge.

That felt fueled by history. This movie feels fueled by the need to, you know, preserve the IP. and it's frustrating. Yeah, I would have liked for them to give that some power like you're talking about. Anyway, Gene, I'm going to go to you next. I somehow do not think you're going to suddenly say, I loved this movie. But tell me what you thought. I want to furiously co-sign Glenn and Joelle.

I agree that it was aggressively mid. And to Glenn's point, it seemed to be alluding to all this stuff. And I can't even tell if the illusions were so weak that I couldn't even tell if they were on purpose or just like coincidental. because they weren't doing anything with them, right? Years ago, I had a chance to interview Robert Morales, who was the person who co-created the Isaiah Bradley character. And he talked explicitly about, like, setting it in the sort of Tuskegee experiment and how he was shocked that Marvel let him do it in the comics.

Yeah. And so when you're watching this movie, when Sam was like, but Isaiah, you have to let it go. And it's like, I'm sorry. If you just consider this in-world biography of this dude, why would he want to rock with the president of the United States? It didn't make a lot of sense. I saw this screening with my friend,

Marion in about 10 minutes in, she was like, was this a finished script? Because it's all this stuff in it that feels really undercooked. And then we found out later that all the scenes with Jean-Carlo Esposito were from reshoots. They weren't actually in the movie originally. And it's like, oh, okay. That makes the fact that a lot of this doesn't make sense, makes sense. Yeah. I think the overwhelming majority of the problems with this film are script problems.

And it made me really remember how important what I found to be a really engaging wit was to the first stages of the MCU when I was first really enjoying it and really getting such a kick out of it. And even later, like in Thor Ragnarok and some of the other ones, the humor of it is foregrounded. And that's not true in all of them as much as it is in some. But I really felt a lack of that wit in this film. I think there are a couple of sort of watery comebacks, I guess, and a little bit of a very low-level wisecracking between Sam and Joaquin. Listen, those are both actors. I really like Anthony Mackey. I've liked Anthony Mackey in a whole bunch of things.

I think this is just not as good of a role as he could have, should have had. I enjoyed Danny Ramirez as the new falcon, right? I always will watch Harrison Ford, who I will say, phoned this in much less than I expected when I went into the movie. I just, in the end, thought it was boring. And there are things I would praise about it. I enjoyed some of the action sequences I thought were fun. I appreciate the fact that it's two hours long and they're trying to kind of get a handle on the bloat that these films grew to, you know, two and a half. and then three hours, which they don't need to be.

But on the whole, I just was bored. I had the sense when I was a kid and when I read comics all the time, you know, there used to be like these little asterisks. Like to understand what this conversation is about, go back and read, you know, some other comic that, you know, that I didn't pull or whatever, right? And this seems to be like the problem with the bloat of comic book universes all the time, right? It's like eventually there's too many characters, too many subplots,

too much subtext for you to just pick up a book in the middle of it and be like, okay, I can understand what's going on. This felt very much like, and this is why, like, in comic book on hand, they, like, reboot the universes all the time, right? But it felt very much like, oh, we are deep, so deep into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, right? We got, like, what, 25 plus movies. And this kind of, like, you kind of need to know a little bit about the Eternals to know, like, why there's a giant island in the middle of an in the notion.

Like, I wonder who a movie like this is for at this point. It's like, at this point, you kind of have to be kind of a Marvel completionist at this point to be like, this is something I need to see. But, Gene, I feel like you shouldn't have to be. Right. The sums of the words are not usually, especially in these last maybe two, three phases laid out in such a way that it both invites new people and continues to connect Marvel fans. Listen, I knew we had a problem with this film in my theater.

The most excited anyone got, or when collectively as a theater we got, was when Bucky showed up. Yep. He shows up for about five minutes. He recaps everything that happened in the TV show. so if you missed that, don't worry, except that's placed way late into the film. So late that you're like, why are we doing this now? I've pretty much caught up already to the series.

And I think it signals a really big problem. You know, we have that clip at the top of the episode where President Ross is asking Sam to relaunch the Avengers, basically. If you have Sam and Bucky previously being in the same space, These are two support characters secondary who sort of uplift and add action and heart to the films. And then you give one of them a lead role and the audience is more excited to see the other. That's a big issue for Marvel going forward. And I don't think it's Mackie's fault.

I think this script really doesn't give you a chance to meet the Sam that a lot of Marvel fans love from the comic books. Sam and the comic books is a social worker. He's really a guy of his community. Sam here is a soldier, and we have so many soldiers in the MCU already. We've lost the diversity. And I'm not talking about race or gender or anything, but I mean like individual character diversity that really was driving Marvel forward. There's not that much difference between first cap and second cap and war machine. Like they're all essentially the same type of character.

Even in taking the gig with Ross, it's so me. He's like, well, he's the president, so I guess I have to. It's not really a strong choice for him. Yeah, this movie seemed at times like it was preparing to do something. I knew intellectually it wasn't going to do this. Yeah. But it seemed at times like it was setting up a potential story about what is the relationship between being Captain America, aka pro the country, defender of the country, be adjacent to the military, which is a distinct thing. C, being adjacent to the president, right?

That is a potentially really interesting thing to talk about. When he's sort of going back and forth about I'm Captain America, does that mean I do whatever the president says? Hugely relevant, interesting question. That's not what the movie's about. There is a story here that I think could have been more interesting, but they kind of walk away from it, both for the opportunity for jokes,

which is what lifted something like Guardians of the Games, galaxy for me and the idea of like actually getting in there and doing kind of a political thing, which is maybe a little bit what I liked about Civil War and some of the other ones. So they're kind of like, well, we're not going to do this and we're also not going to do that. We're just going to kind of throw all this at the screen and hope that the fact that you like these people works. It's one thing that to really fully follow this, you kind of have to have watched the TV show on Disney. But they're going back all the way to like to really get everything.

You got to be familiar with 2008's The Incredible Hulk. Starring Ed Nore. A movie, I feel like no one saw. That's not true. That has been Memory Hulk. Yes, absolutely. And unless you know that movie, you're just kind of taking it on. Yes, they say this happened.

So it must have happened. But you don't necessarily remember it happening. I find the decision to go in that direction very strange. So when you get these references to like, oh, you know, you remember the destruction of Harlem. And it's like, well, it's like I know about it. I know about it because I have Wikipedia. But I just, I think the decision to be so reliant on, and Glenn talks about this all the time, the difference between an audience reaction like clapping or laughing that is genuinely

enthusiasm for the material versus simply I get that. Like, it's so funny to me that Captain America is the meme that says I understood that reference. That's so funny. Because that's exactly what this movie is. Like, when my audience reacted to this movie, it was because, oh, I get that. I get that. I know who that is. I've seen that guy before.

I get it. I'm in on this thing. And that was when they would clap. Yeah. I think this movie is landing differently because of the moment it's landing. I'm on record as saying, trying to make superheroes. you know, quote unquote, relevant or grounded or realistic is always a mistake because people keep trying to do it because they think that's the only way anybody's going to care about them.

But that's why superheroes are so tough to write. This movie is a case in point. I mean, superheroes are very flattering mirrors. They are us as we should be. And whenever you try to have superheroes comment directly on our world figuratively with a superhero metaphor or literally as in this movie, you don't bridge the distance between our world and theirs. You just remind us of this big yawning chasm that is separating us from them. It takes us out.

it didn't want to say anything, so it didn't say anything. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. I wish I had picked Elaine. The coolest thing about this movie is that Sam, Captain America, is like, I'm not taking this, like, toxic thing that would allow me to be almost indestructible. I'm going to choose to do this in my natural human state. Cool.

What Marvel has consistently been good at is storytelling through their fights. Every single fight should have felt like, my God, there's no way Sam is going to make it out of this. how in the hell is he going to do this? It's so hard to do this in your regular human body going up against these powerful beings, guns, whatever it is. There's a scene, and it's in the trailer, so I don't think it's a problem to talk about it, but there's an aerial fight.

At one point, Sam is just launching his shield around knocking missiles out of the sky, and you're like, so this feels superhuman. Yep. And it completely derails this sort of thing that, again, they start to set up in Act 1, where it's like, man, he's got a train six times as hard as anybody. It's going to be so daunting. His life is really at risk.

And I think without that level of like really stellar action, there's a cool couple of stunts that work really well. The Hulk looks good, probably some of the best things we've seen from Marvel on the movie theater screen, like in movies in a long time. But I think without having the charm and charisma and action-packed, like intensity that we're used to, and then also not leaning into a genre of the political thriller idea, of it. They really left this film, like, just out to wash.

And it's such a disappointment, especially given how much I think the majority of Marvel fans love Chris Evans, Captain America. It was going to be hard no matter who put on the suit coming after him, trying to fill that role. But to not give the sort of attention and detail necessary to relaunch that. And especially to say, and he's going to leave the Avengers, knowing we have other teams coming up, we have Fantastic Four and Thunderbolts, both team movies coming up, I feel like it's going to get shelved.

And that makes me really sad. Well, and I also think there's an argument to be made that the other guy handed it to you is not the most inspiring origin story for a superhero. And people who love superheroes love their origin stories. Sure do. And to the degree, there is more of a story because Sam was conflicted about doing it or whatever. Most of that happened over on a TV show that a lot of people did not see. So you haven't given him the development of the character. As much as everybody gets tired of the Spider-Man thing where he discovers his powers and all that,

There's a reason why people include it. You need it. It makes it feel like it matters. My feeling about this movie is you can either be fun or you can have ideas, ideally both, but not neither. That's kind of where I ended up with this movie. And sadly, this is kind of what has killed a lot of the DC movies for me is it's not fun and it's not about anything. So I don't care. Last thing I'd like to pick from what Joanne mentioned about the CGI.

And I think this point has been missing from the critical discourse thus far, which is that Red Hulk is hot. Oh, he's super sexy. I'm with you, I think we ignore that at our peril. I'm with you. Those traps are on point. And I can fix him. I mean, he gets a bit brusque. Everybody gets hangary.

I can fix him. Everybody gets hungry. That was exactly the comment that my friend who came with me to the screen. And she's like, hear me out. Red Hulk? Yeah, right. I'm telling you. I do have a point here, which is that Harrison Ford is.

the greatest action movie star of all time, arguably. He's always been fit, even in Temple of Doom. He was muscular. But he missed the era when movie stars had to adopt these wildly unrealistic superhero bodies. Arnold accepted. But in this film, he got there through CGI, which just goes to show you that this Hollywood machine and expectations are coming for you. And we'll chew you up, even if they have to do it retroactively. We're going to get a Jack C.G.I. Buster Keaton.

Spencer Tracy. Oh, God. I mean, how much better would To Kill a Mockingbird have been if Gargoo Peck were swole? Stop it. Swole and shirtless. Oh, Glenn. Oh, Glenn. Yeah, Red Hulk's pretty hot.

I mean, Harrison Ford's pretty hot. Always has been. Although, if you want to see Harrison Ford having a good time, don't watch this watch shrinking. That is my message from me to you. All right. Well, tell us what you think about Captain America, Brave New World. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash pc-ch and on letterboxed at letterboxed.com slash NPR pop culture.

We'll have a link in our episode description. Up next, what's making us happy this week. Now it is time for our favorite segment of this week and every week. What is making us happy this week? Joelle, what is making you happy this week? Okay, guys, I have been scrolling through a podcast. I'm always looking for like something new, something that's despite my interest. I've been talking about food podcasts a lot with my friends.

And it's hard to get a food podcast, right? You can't see the food, how you're going to talk about it. Are we tasting it? What's really going on? Jesse Sparks, senior editor-eater, has a podcast called The One Recipe with Jesse Sparks. You guys, it's so good. Each week he invites on a guest who talks about a favorite recipe, but it's not just about the recipe. It's the history of the recipe.

Who handed it to them? Where did they discover it? It's how often do you make it and why do you make it? And what are you feeling when you make it? And then they walk you through the steps of how to make it. So you're getting like every possible angle of like a great cookbook in an odd. segment with people who really know about food. It is delightful. They're 20 minutes, like really tight, easy for your commute. And then you have a whole bunch of recipes that you're really

excited to try that sound like they're going to taste really good, which is exciting for me. So I highly recommend checking out the one recipe if you're into the foody stuff. And especially if you're somebody who's in the process of learning how to cook or just wants to cook better, they give you such great, like, detailed instructions on how to prepare the food so that you could do it real easy. So yeah, check out the One Recipe with Jesse Sparks. Fabulous. I love it. Thank you very much. Joelle. Gene Demby, what is making you happy this week, buddy? So I know you guys recently revisited Moe, but I had the opportunity to mainline the second season recently. And the world in which Mo has to navigate is obviously fraught, right?

There's all this sort of bureaucracy he has to deal with is like, you know, all these people behind desks who are just like, you're getting on my nerves and his life is hanging in the balance. But there's a scene in the very last episode of the show that is one of the most beautifully rendered moments of praise of worship. And it's maybe more moving because no is not, especially a spiritual person. Anyway, I cannot recommend Mo enough. Even with all those flaws, I think it's just a really fascinating piece of television to sort of try to wrap you on around and sit with.

Love it. Thank you very much, Gene Demby, Mo, which is on Netflix. I think we agree. All right. Glenn Weldon, what is making you happy this week? I've talked about the YouTube channel, No Rolls Bard before, R-O-L-L-S. They're a bunch of British folks. They play board games.

They are charming A-F. I've devoured pretty much everything on that channel. I've always held off watching them play one game, which is called Blood on the Clock Tower, which is kind of like Werewall for Mafia, but, you know, if you pumped it up with performance-enhancing drugs. I watch No Rolls Bar to learn about games that I can add to our regular game nights. And I know that this particular game, which is, among other things, an incredibly complicated Kated Logic Puzzle plus lying, I know for a fact that if I tried to play this game with our friends, it would destroy us.

It would tear us apart. It would end 20 plus years of friendships. There's also the fact that our game nights tend to feature a glass or six of wine. So there's no way we could keep up with the kind of mental gymnastics this game requires. So I will never play this game. But watching these very funny, very charming Brits utterly annihilate each other and work out the incredibly complicated algorithm of lies and deceit and logic. My God, it is addicting.

And these games last like two, three hours. And I cannot stop watching them. Sometimes they play in person on this elaborate set. Sometimes they play online. But I am all in. That is, blood on the clock tower, as played by the folks on the no-rolls-barred YouTube channel. Thank you very much, Glenn Weldon.

I am always happy to end a friendship over a game with you, any time you ask. So what is making me happy this week? I was wandering through Instagram the other day and discovered that there had been in the L.A. area, a benefit staged reading of the Muppet movie script, complete with doing all the songs. Let's go. And it was to raise money for fire relief. And it was essentially populated with people who are from the comedy improv, some musical. improv, some podcasting kind of stuff. So Mark Evan Jackson, one of our most beloved character

actors, played Kermit the Frog, Paul Fomkins, because he's in everything, played Fossey perfectly. Does that include a hell of a rendition of America the Beautiful? Oh, yes, it does. Of course it does. And Nina West, who you may know from Drag Race, played Miss Piggy and is the best Miss Piggy I have ever seen who is not Frank Oz. I loved this. It was exactly what I wanted. It is warm. It is funny. It is a bunch of people's explosively lovely work. This was a good time for me to immerse myself deeply in other people's creative work. I think that this thing is only available to continue to buy a ticket to watch the stream for maybe a few more days as we tape this. So it is a little bit ephemeral, but if you Google the Muppet script, which is what they called it, the Muppet script,

Dynasty typewriter, which is the place where it happened, you may be able to squeeze in and watch it for yourself. Boy, was it the epitome of what's making me happy this week. Lifted my spirits and, you know, for a great cause as well. So that is what is making me happy this week. And one more thing before we go. In the run-up to the Oscars, we are watching all 10 Best Picture nominees, of course, and you're invited to watch along with us. Sign up for the special NPR Movie Club newsletter at NPR.org slash movie club. You'll hear our thoughts about each Best Picture nominee. Plus, we'll share some links to NPR's other coverage of the films you might have missed.

Again, you can sign up at NPR.org slash movie club. That brings us to the end of our show. Joelle Monique, Jean Demby, Glenn Weldon. Thank you so much for being here to talk about this extraordinarily perfect movie that we all love to. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. This episode was produced by Hufsofothamah, Mike Katzif, and Lenin Sherburn, and edited by Jessica Reedy.

Hello, come in, provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Linda Holmes, and we'll see you all next week.