Brave New World with Harrison Ford, Trump’s USA and Musk in a deformed mirror (barely)

We breathe! After a series of bad testosterone films with “multiverse”, which will have ended up boring the patience of spectators, Marvel raises her head and offers a new blockbuster worthy of the name, well anchored on firm land. Fourth film dedicated to the patriotic superhero carrying the banner of the United States as a costume Captain America : Brave new world, carries a title which clearly refers to the anticipation novel of Aldous Huxley, The best of all worlds. This is not lacking in irony, in views of the worst worlds described during the two hours of continuous spectacle, full of Castagne and chase led a thousand on time.

The intrigue does not bother with frills. It features a comic-book America subject to immense threats from elsewhere. A giant meteorite crashed into the ocean. In the heart of this island of stars, there is a new miracle ore: Adamantium. The United States seeks to make an alliance with Japan, France and India to exploit this open-air gold mine.

To camp the new President of the United States, Marvel went to get Harrison Ford, the Lord Indiana Jones of Spielberg or the Han solo of Star Wars. The symbol is strong. At 82, still valiant, Ford embodies Thaddeus Thunderbolt Ross, a generally boutish general who in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) has never really had a good reputation. He already appeared – with a beautiful big mustache – in the guise of William Hurt in the previous films of the saga (of Hulk to Avengers). Father of Betty Ross (Liv Tyler), the fiancée at Bruce Banner/Hulk, Ross claims to have changed. The American people therefore elected him president. This head of state handles the iron grip in a velvet glove.

The trap closes

As for Captain America, he too has changed. It is no longer Steve Rogers, a big blond superman with blue eyes embodied on the screen by Chris Evans, but Anthony Mackie, who plays the role of Sam Wilson. This new Captain America Noir was the torch by Steve Rogers in person a few years ago. He was even entitled to his own TV series on Disney+ (Falcon and the winter soldierbroadcast in 2021).

Brave New World Add to that an additional threat in the person of a mystery prisoner, detained in the basements of a top secret military base. Doctor Samuel Sterns, cell biologist (Tim Blake Nelson) has everything crazy. He once helped Bruce Banner temporarily control the effects of gamma rays which transformed him into Hulk. But he ends up switching to the dark side of the force. In this fourth film, he plays gray eminences by manipulating brains from a distance. And especially that of Harrison Ford, whose amateurs already know that his character of Thaddeus Ross will transform into “Red Hulk” at one time or another.

The spectator never really has time to get bored in this rhythmic spying blockbuster, cheerfully mixing politics-fiction, uninhibited action, renewed superheroes, and breathtaking special effects. What Marvel does here is rather smart. From the first minutes, the new Captain America was offered to work with the President of the United States. Despite all the grievances he keeps against the former general of the US Air Force without mercy, Sam Wilson agrees to collaborate with Thaddeus Ross. The trap closes. A farandole of cascade plots will follow.

The director of this fourth part, Julius Onah (The Cloverfield Paradox, Luce) Hads herself drawn parallels between today’s America and that described in his popcorn film. It is only to think of this whimsical genius with the overpowered brain who manipulates in the shadows an ambivalent statesman and going to war … all this reminds us without being too much supported by the current tandem Elon Musk/Donald Trump. We thus understand that comics from pop culture have never ceased to offer since their birth in the forties a fairly faithful (although distorted) mirror of the socio -political situation crossed by America over the decades.

Captain America Brave new world is no exception to the rule. Leaving this blockbuster which is openly displayed as a pure entertainment full of adrenaline, one cannot help but reconsider its title: “The best of the worlds”. What if the dark futuristic dystopia of Aldous Huxley said true?