“Captain America: Brave New World” Review: Anthony Mackie Takes on the Iconic Shield and a Hulked-Out Harrison Ford

Nearly six years after Steve Rogers handed Sam Wilson the Captain America shield at the end of 2019's Avengers: Endgame, Anthony Mackie is finally one of Marvel's leading men.

In Captain America: Brave New World, Mackie, 46, takes on the mantle passed from Chris Evans' Marvel character after the events of the 2021 Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, in which he and Sebastian Stan's Bucky Barnes grappled with the weight of Steve's legacy.

Now fully installed as Captain America, Sam is back to work with the U.S. military — including the new Falcon, Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez). That's until the newly elected U.S. president Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross (Harrison Ford, taking over for the late William Hurt) invites Cap to the White House, asks him to help re-form the Avengers and all hell breaks loose.

Sam, Joaquin, Ross and newly introduced characters, like the president's head of security Ruth Bat-Seraph (Shira Haas), are thrown into a political conspiracy after a mysterious terrorist attack at the White House nearly kills the president just as Ross attempts to finalize his efforts to bring about world peace in the wake of Endgame and 2021's Eternals.

Along the way, Captain America battles villains like Giancarlo Esposito's mercenary killer Sidewinder and Samuel Sterns, a role Tim Blake Nelson reprises for the first time since 2008's The Incredible Hulk.

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Mackie's Sam capably stands alone as Captain America, even in a movie that reminds his character of his non-superpowered status compared to Evans' genetically enhanced super soldier at Sam's lowest moments.

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Ford, who previously portrayed a president in 1997's Air Force One, brings the right amount of gusto to his role as Ross as both his character and Mackie's struggle to put conflicting ideologies on how superheroes should operate on hold in order to face new threats together.

And when Sam realizes the Star Wars alum is at risk of turning into a red version of the Hulk, he has to help cool the jets on both a risky international incident and Ross' inner rage.

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Directed by Julius Onah, Brave New World is one of the more back-to-basics MCU entries in recent years. Sam has not been tasked with dealing with the multiverse or traveling across alien galaxies — even as the corpse of a giant god-like creature from Eternals remains stuck in the Indian Ocean, triggering a worldwide arms race to extract its natural resources.

When the Avengers do re-form in May 2026 for Avengers: Doomsday, Mackie is positioned to be the group's new leader, deservedly so.

Captain America: Brave New World is in theaters Feb. 14.

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