New Captain America film flies into Trumpian headwinds

The latest in the Captain America film franchise which premiered in Hollywood Tuesday presents a vision of the United States out of step with the Trump era, with a diverse cast, a core message about unity and an endorsement of international diplomacy.

Written and filmed before Donald Trump's return as president, the latest offering from Marvel Studios has already faced an online backlash from some right-wingers over comments by lead actor Anthony Mackie deemed as unpatriotic.

Mackie, the first Black actor to play the superhero, became a target last month after attempting to make a point about the universal message of Captain America as an ideal of good conscience and incorruptibility.

"Captain America represents a lot of different things, and I don't think the term 'America' should be one of those representations," he said at a promotional event. "It's about a man who keeps his word, who has honor, dignity, and integrity."

In Captain America: Brave New World, Mackie flies, fights and flings his famous shield in pursuit of world peace alongside flawed and mercurial president Thaddeus Ross, played by Harrison Ford.

Ross is attempting to negotiate an international treaty with America's allies to share a precious new metal discovered on an island in the Indian Ocean, but is being thwarted by his past associations and an international crime gang.

"I would not taint any movie with the reality of the world we're living in right now," Ford said, on the red carpet for the Los Angles world premiere.

"I prefer the reality of the Marvel universe to the morning's news," said Ford, making his first foray into the superhero stable at the age of 82.

Mackie has taken over from long-serving fan favorite Chris Evans in the lead role of Captain America, and his character's self-doubt and impostor syndrome are a theme in the plot.

He told AFP the new film is building a "second phase" of the franchise, "with a completely different Captain America, a completely different storyline, but still with the same quality of films."

Directed by Nigerian-born Julius Onah, "Brave New World" features a diverse cast including Danny Ramirez and Xosha Roquemore.

Onah has said he insisted on inserting a line at the end in which Captain America tells Ross that "if we can't see the good in each other, we've already lost the fight."

"I think it speaks to the moral obligation that we all have to each other in a shared society, even when we might see things differently," he told Vanity Fair.

Such sentiments are out of fashion in Trump's Republican party, with its hostile stance toward diversity and aggressive "America First" foreign policy.

In his first three weeks in office, the new US president has pursued a "war on woke" by cancelling federal diversity programs, pulled the United States out of international treaties, and threatened America's allies.

It remains to be seen whether the latest Marvel offering can appeal across political lines in such a polarized environment.

Onah said that "telling a story like this, there is always going to be things that touch on the world we live in," but said his priority was to make "a great escape for audiences to go have a good time."

The Disney-owned Hollywood studio is seen by industry observers as needing a box-office triumph after a string of recent television and cinema disappointments including The Marvels, which flopped in 2023.

Fans of the original 1940s Captain America point out that the messages in the latest film - and from its lead actor and director -- are true to those of the Nazi-bashing comic strip, which was created in response to European fascism and America's isolationism during World War II.

The film was released internationally this week. - AFP