Everything You Need To Know Before Seeing The New 'Captain America' Movie
'Captain America: Brave New World' hits theaters today, marking the fourth film in the franchise and the first starring Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson instead of Chris Evans as Steve Rogers - and if you need a quick refresher on all that you need to know/remember going into the movie, I've gotcha covered. I know the Rotten Tomatoes score isn't exactly all that inspiring....
....but can I remind everyone that those scores have been all over the place post-Endgame (and don't always reflect the actual quality of the film) without sounding like a shill? They're a total crapshoot. Take 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3' for example - I think we all agreed that was an amazing recent Marvel project that gave us feelings of old. It's sitting at 82% Certified Fresh right now, which is pretty great....
….but it's still FIVE SPOTS lower than 'Ant-Man and the Wasp' at 87% - which was a good movie, but would absolutely be crucified if released in this era of Marvel….
I also thought 'Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings' was a good post-Endgame offering from Marvel (one of the better ones actually), but it has a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and is ranked as the seventh best film in the entire saga, above the likes of 'Guardians of the Galaxy', 'The Avengers', 'Captain America: Civil War', 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier', 'Avengers: Infinity War' and more. Even 'Infinity War' ranking as the 15th best Marvel film with 85% should throw these numbers out the window in your mind. Hell, even 'Thor: The Dark World' has a fresh 67% rating! It makes no sense!
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It's a big part of the reason why Jeff and the LCB boys wanted to create an alternative in MovieRankings.net back in the day (RIPip) - the percentage system they use indicates the amount of critics who gave the film a positive review, not the actual quality of the film. If 100 critics say a movie is a 70/100 C-, Rotten Tomatoes scores that as a 100% Certified Fresh. It's dopey. I know that it probably just sounds like I'm grasping at straws now, though, and trying to justify this new 'Captain America' being a good movie. I'm just pointing out that the Tomatometer means very little with these big polarizing franchise movies nowadays.
Just saying - I've seen a lot of people I trust who liked the new Cap, and I'm still going in with an open mind (and low expectations) hoping to enjoy it as well. Clem and I will be seeing the first showing this afternoon and recording our instant reaction video and review pod immediately afterwards. Make sure to look out for it!