Marvel movies likeCaptain America: Brave New Worldare often at their best when they lean into other genres.Guardians of the Galaxyis a wacky sci-fi action comedy.Shang-Chiis a martial arts fantasy.Thor: Ragnarokis a metal-inspired epic.Brave New Worldfeels a lot likeCaptain America: The Winter Soldier, the franchise’s best political thriller. Sticking with the theme,Brave New Worldtook inspiration from John Frankenheimer’s groundbreaking 1962 classic,The Manchurian Candidate.
It’s bizarre how easy it would be to fix the consistent complaints about Marvel’s blandness. Every film feels the same because the studio often overwrites the will of the creators. All filmmakers have to do is maintain astrong body of inspiration. If Marvel allowed them to bring new and interesting material to the franchise, just as comic book authors did to make the characters popular, the films would remain engaging without fail. Marvel suffers an unforced error each time they put out a boring superhero movie.
How does Captain America: Brave New World connect to The Manchurian Candidate?
The trailer forCaptain America: Brave New Worlddelved into the well-hidden plot of the long-awaited film. While a ton of details remain completely shrouded in mystery, the basic outline seems clear. Marvel’s official logline states that Sam Wilson “finds himself at the center of an international incident and must work to stop the true brains behind it.” Dedicated fans can probably figure out some of the brains behind it. The trailer showed off the potential incident.Carl Lumbly portrays Isaiah Bradley, a character who debuted inFalcon and the Winter Soldier.
Bradley is one of the most bracing character concepts in the MCU, though he hasn’t been given the appropriate spotlight to show off. He’s anAfrican American super soldierwho received the serum in a series of unethical experiments by the US military. He and his fellow enhanced men were held prisoner for years. Bradley fought Bucky Barnes during Barnes' Winter Soldier era. Bradley escaped containment, faked his death, and went into hiding in Baltimore. InBrave New World, he’ll meet President Thunderbolt Ross. The trailer depicts Bradley suddenly and inexplicably drawing a weapon and openingfire upon President Ross. Bradley, a Korean War veteran and victim of experimentation, has become the brainwashed weapon of an unknown foreign manipulator. The popular term for that concept and a network of similar concepts is “Manchurian candidate.”
Release Date
Jul 13, 2025
John Frankenheimer’sThe Manchurian Candidateis an adaptation of Richard Condon’s 1959 novel of the same name. It remains one of the most influential and important political thriller films of all time.Condon’s novel is far less well-received. It’s a sharp, satirical, and paranoid work of political skullduggery. The plot follows Frank Sinatra’s Major Ben Marco, a confident army man who nominates Sergeant Raymond Shaw for the Medal of Honor. After returning home from the Korean War, Marco begins to suffer bizarre dreams. Repressed memories dig through his subconscious into his waking life. He gradually learns to acknowledge the fact that he, Shaw, and their platoon became sleeper agents after a brainwashing expedition in Manchuria. Shaw is the unwitting pawn of a Communist conspiracy that seeks to place a preferred candidate in the White House. Only Marco can intervene, overcome Shaw’s mental conditioning, and save the United States. The film remains one of the most hotly debated political polemics ever made. Its use of violence was groundbreaking at the time. Many fans will recognize its basic plot outline as a common narrative concept that appears in a ton of TV and film projects. Even Marvel has already played with the idea in itsportrayal of the Winter Soldier.Brave New Worldseems to include a more explicit reference.
IsThe Manchurian Candidateremake worth watching?
In 2004, the great Jonathan Demme directed his version ofThe Manchurian Candidate. The shifting political circumstances of the early 2000s necessitated some substantial changes. Hisversion sees Denzel Washingtontake the Sinatra role while Liev Schreiber plays Shaw. Perhaps most interestingly, Meryl Streep appears in the role Angela Lansbury won an Oscar for. As a standalone project,The Manchurian Candidateis still a gripping and powerful thriller. It’s still intense and engaging, but it lacks many of the shocking traits of its predecessor. Its conclusion is jaw-dropping, for reasons entirely unrelated to those that gave the first film the same effect. Audiences had only just started to turn against remakes in the early 2000s, leading to a mild box-office reception for Demme’s effort. It’s still a solid film, but nothing quite stacks up with the original.
The Manchurian Candidateis one of those “patient zero” films that immediately opens up a viewer’s perception. Watching it for the first time will simultaneously explain a thousand references, callbacks, and visual homages. Countless comedies have taken the time to make jokes aboutThe Manchurian Candidate. A lot of scholars have picked the film apart. A ton of other thrillers borrow notes from its original impact.Captain America: Brave New Worldseems to use it as shorthand and a solid foundation. It’s hard to know whether fans will get more out ofBrave New Worldafter watchingThe Manchurian Candidate. They will, however, get more out of most thrillers.
