Director: Julius Onah
Cast: Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Carl Lumbly, Harrison Ford
Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Somehow I’ve made it halfway into the month of February and this is my first film both released this year and seen in theaters.
Did I Like It: Giving it a moment’s thought, I’ll say this was a nice little action movie that will soon be forgotten and have a relatively benign place on any number of lists on Disney+. There is some action, a couple of dodgy special effects moments, and a tag scene that hardly seems worth it anymore. The film may truly be suffering from the moment it is unleashed and/or a pronounced deficit in the wow factor, as the money shot in this film of the President of the United States (Ford, still feeling like he’s awake for all of this, which is something) transformed into the Red Hulk and standing on top of a slightly demolished White House elicited a bigger laugh than anything I saw in Deadpool & Wolverine (2024).
It is weighed down by some of the same problems that would weigh down any series approaching its 40th—yes, you read that right—film. As a public service announcement, I’ll list here a couple of the touchstones this film hits and some feelings about how lost you, the viewer, might be if you missed them in the glut of material from the franchise:
I’m real glad I somehow bothered to watch The Falcon and the Winter Soldier or nearly every second of the first hour—and let’s not kid ourselves, pretty much the entire movie—would be desperately searching for some semblance of context. I might have just given up and accepted that Isaiah Bradley (Lumbly) is important to Wilson (Mackie), but just accepting that Wilson is now Captain America coming off the events of Avengers: Endgame (2019) is too much. The film would have had to have a cameo from Chris Evans to set us all right, and even with that context present, I think we still could have used him thematically. It’s not like he’s above still showing up for these films, right?
I’m also infinitely glad that I have both seen, mostly remember, and kind of liked that mostly forgotten entry in the series, The Incredible Hulk (2008). The film ultimately is a direct sequel to that entry, but a cameo (spoiler) by Liv Tyler at the end really doesn’t have the same hit it might because a) she isn’t reuniting with Harrison Ford, she just met him, and b) I’m now wondering more about how she might relate to Mark Ruffalo. Honestly, both of the actors she worked with in that film were recast for various reasons, did we have to have her back?
I’m apparently not at all bothered that I still haven’t seen Eternals (2021). It seems like it might be a charming film, but as long as I accept there’s a whole mess of adamantium in the Indian Ocean (and I do) the film remains on my watchlist.
But, ultimately, this is held together not by an idiot plot, where people aren’t communicating with each other in an effort to keep the story moving along, but instead populated by idiot elements, where things that simply don’t add up are injected into a film with confidence that the audience would not notice.
I noticed. Yes, they are mostly related to the Presidency and the politics of the whole situation.
Why is the Secret Service agent (Xosha Roquemore) also a close adviser of the President? That seems like an unwise conflict of interest.
Never mind that every single person on planet Earth and beyond—including and especially Secret Service agents—should probably know that shooting any particular Hulk isn’t going to do much. They probably shouldn’t be shooting the President anyway, even if the cabinet somehow has had time to invoke the 25th Amendment.
Finally, and most importantly: It’s established we are hovering around the end of Ross’ first 100 days in the White House, but when Bucky (Sebastian Stan) shows up for a cameo, he has to immediately leave for a campaign stop, because he apparently is running for Congress now. Really? You’ve both announced and are running a full-time campaign for a House seat less than six months since the last election? I don’t believe that, and neither should you. Had he tried to shake down Wilson for campaign funds, then maybe.