The Show Girl by Nicola Harrison

Posted in Reading/Books by Bizarre Brunette

CW: SA, Forced Pregnancy. I will mention this in my review.

I listened to The Show Girl on audio last month, and this book stuck with me long after I finished reading it. The Show Girl reminds me of another book I loved, The Spectacular by Fiona Davis. There are similarities between both books since they both focus on women who want to break societal norms for that period. The Show Girl was a book I genuinely looked forward to listening to every chance I could get.

Olive McCormick follows her dreams by moving from Minneapolis to New York to become one of the stars of the Ziegfeld Follies. While Olive is happy, she doesn’t get the support from her family and is seen as an embarrassment. Olive meets Archie Carmichael and falls for him, but is she ready to fully commit to him and give up her career? She also has a secret that she’s been hiding from everyone. Will this be revealed to Archie?

Reading The Show Girl now hits different, especially regarding access to reproductive healthcare. Olive ends up getting pregnant in the first few pages of the book. Since this book takes place in the 1920s, she gives birth and puts the baby up for adoption. Listening to Olive’s story, my heart breaks for her. Olive has big dreams of becoming a showgirl and moving to New York. She feels scared of the unknowns of pregnancy, but also of not being able to follow her dreams. I think about women like Olive, who may have had to give up their dreams to become mothers. I feel grateful that I had more of a choice to live the kind of life that I wanted.

The Show Girl follows Olive’s life and details how her dreams impact her relationships. Starting with her parents, there’s something about seeing a daughter sticking up to her old-fashioned dad; I’m here for it. While Olive misses having her parents’ support, I appreciate how she keeps pushing along. It’s sad because when Olive meets Archie, the man she wants to marry, her mother is happy. Although she isn’t as happy regarding Olive’s other accomplishments, once Olive has a man, her mom is happy for her. I think it’s interesting reading Olive’s relationships and how they impact her life.

I loved everything about this book. Olive was an interesting character to read about, and even if she wasn’t always doing the right thing, I think it made her more real. I rated The Show Girl five stars on Goodreads.

8Apr2025

Surviving the Wild in Forbidden Jungle

Posted in Gaming by Bizarre Brunette

One of my family members gifted me the board game Forbidden Jungle for the holidays. It should be no surprise to anyone that I love receiving board games as gifts. It’s a chance for me to play a new board game, and I can take it to family board game nights or a board game night with friends. I played Forbidden Jungle with my brother for the first time, and we lost. I wanted to redeem myself, so I brought it to our latest family board game night. We did win one game but lost the rest.

Image is a photo of a board game sitting on a table. The board game is Forbidden Jungle. It shows a jungle and a blue tunnel at the center. The shadow within the blue tunnel shows an alien with a black body and several limbs holding it together.

Forbidden Jungle is a cooperative board game where players play as a team of explorers. Their goal is to work together to locate a portal. This portal will teleport players away from the jungle, therefore winning the game. Besides locating the portal, the portal needs four crystals to power it, and those crystals must be attached to the portal. To locate both the portals and the crystals, players must reveal game tiles. As they do, aliens will populate various spaces. Threat cards are drawn to raise the stakes, often working against the players. If any of the players lose their health from the aliens, or there aren’t any more alien tokens to populate the board with, the players lose.

Image shows a group of tiles. There are four tiles with glowing pink crystals on it. In the center, there's a tile with four game pieces on it. There's a card at the bottom that says "Recall Dynamo". The card reads - You may move any adventurers that are up to 2 tiles away from you to your tile.

I like how challenging Forbidden Jungle is. As mentioned previously, I have only won this game once. It’s easy for things to slide because there’s a lot to keep track of. This includes how many aliens are populating, where the players are to the aliens, and how many crystals we still need to find. The more times I play, the more I am starting to understand the strategy. In the game that we won, we did a good job of assigning duties to the players. For example, one person in our group was solely responsible for killing the aliens while another player was shifting the crystals closer to the portal. It was rewarding to have finally won at least one game that we played.

Image is a group of three cards. The three cards are as follows: the first card lists "Order of Play" "Actions" Sharing Equipment". The second card says "Healer - You may bring 1 adventurer that is on your tile with you when you move. As an action, you may completely heal 1 player on your tile (including yourself). The third card says "Machines" with four machines on it - Configurator, Compeller, Destruct Switch, and Portal.

Since Forbidden Jungle is a game involving flipping tiles, the game is different every time you play. There are at least three different tile positions, so it keeps things interesting. In our games, we randomized the role cards, which helped keep things fresh. The Chemist and Healer were probably my favorite roles in the game. The Chemist is immune to alien stings, so they can’t die. The Healer is the only role in the game that can heal other players, which is a must if players are cornered by the aliens. If I’m going to own a board game, I’d like a game where I can play it multiple times and not be bored.

Forbidden Jungle is made by Gamewright, and it looks like they have other Forbidden titles, including Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert. I’d be open to playing the others because I like how Forbidden Jungle is designed. Forbidden Jungle is a challenging, cooperative game that offers something different every time you play.

5Apr2025

Second Book in a Series – April TBR

Posted in Reading/Books by Bizarre Brunette

I am on a mission. I am going to try to finish more book series. There are so many series I have started reading and never ended up reading the second book. Since this has become a pattern for me, I decided to make my TBR for April dedicated to reading the second book in a series. All the physical books I picked are the second book in a series. As far as audiobooks, I am listening to the second book in a romance series, and I have another book lined up that’s also the second in a series I never finished. I wanted to share what I will be reading this month.

In March, I read five books. They are as follows:

Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper 5/5 stars
The Briar Club by Kate Quinn 3/5 stars
Even Though I Knew The End by C.L. Polk 4/5 stars
The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang 4/5 stars, re-read changed rating to 5/5 stars
The Show Girl by Nicola Harrison 5/5 stars

Even Though I Knew The End is a book, I wish was a series instead of a standalone book. I liked the world-building and how Helen’s abilities shaped the story. The Kiss Quotient was a book I wanted to read in February, but instead, I ended up casually reading throughout March. I rated The Kiss Quotient four stars when I read it the first time. Shame on me. This book was everything I remembered and so much more. It’s nice to reread a book I loved a few years ago and still love today. The last book I read was The Show Girl by Nicola Harrison. This book ripped out my heart and stomped on it, and I would re-read it again. Olive, the main character, goes through so much and stands up for herself. The Show Girl is a homage to all the women in history who challenged social norms.

Here are the three books I want to read this month:

A Perilous Undertaking: A Veronica Speedwell Mystery by Deanna Raybourn

I read the first book in the Veronica Speedwell series while I was in Europe in 2023. I loved it! Veronica was such a fun character, and she did whatever she wanted. The chemistry and banter she has with Stoker is something I can’t wait to read about in future books. In A Perilous Undertaking, Veronica is tasked to save an art patron from being executed for the murder of his mistress. I’m curious if this book will explore more of Veronica’s past like the first book did.

The Ashes & The Star-Cursed King by Carissa Broadbent

The Ashes & The Star-Cursed King is the second book in the Crown of Nyaxia series. I described the first book as Hunger Games if Hunger Games had vampires and was a fantasy instead of a dystopia. The second book deals with the aftermath of the first book, which I won’t go into. Oraya and Raihn’s dynamic has been forever changed, and I want to know how Oraya will deal with that.

Leather & Lark by Brynne Weaver (Not Pictured)

Leather & Lark is the second book in The Ruinous Love Trilogy. I read Butcher & Blackbird last year, and while dark romance is not usually a sub-genre I read from, I enjoyed the first book. This series is a serial killer romance where one or more of the main characters are serial killers. In Leather & Lark, the male character is a contract killer who falls in love with a musician. This book series is wild, and I’m here for it. I have my copy on hold at the library, and I didn’t pick it up in time before writing this post.

This will be a fun reading month. It will be nice to go back to series I am familiar with.

2Apr2025

You Took Everything From Me – Scarlet Witch Cosplay

Posted in Cosplay by Bizarre Brunette

Before Planet Comic Con, I went back and forth on what I wanted to cosplay. I thought about bringing the Padme cosplay I wore last year. I love that cosplay, and Padme is one of my favorite characters in Star Wars. With that said, I was on Pinterest and looking online for inspiration, and that’s when I found it. I found a complete costume for Scarlet Witch, specifically her look from Avengers: Endgame. I knew that’s what I wanted to do. When ordering a costume, there’s always that fear of whether it will fit, so I didn’t know if this would work. I was so excited when I got the costume, and it fit! I plan on wearing this Scarlet Witch cosplay again.

Image is a photo of me smiling. I'm wearing a red jacket and a red tank top.

This is the Scarlet Witch costume I ordered. I read the size chart several times and took my own measurements. According to the size chart, I was between a small and a medium. I always go up a size in costumes and cosplay because, in my experience, everything is sized smaller than I think it will be. The costume has several pieces: the red jacket, the red tank top, black pants, and the red fingerless gloves. The jacket is the best part of this costume. It’s long and flowy and surprisingly warm. The day of the convention, it was WINDY, and I was never cold. With that said, the jacket is tighter than I anticipated it to be. I found it challenging to lift my arms over my head. I have thought about re-ordering this costume in a large solely for the larger jacket. The red top wasn’t super tight fitting, which I appreciated. It zips from the side, making it easy to get in and out of. The pants… the pants were okay. To be fair, I don’t expect a “one size fits all pants” to work with every body type. I swapped them out for a pair of black leggings I already owned, which was the correct choice. Finally, the gloves! The gloves feel a bit cheap, and I’m curious to see how long they will last. When we left the convention, strings were coming off the fingers. Ultimately, I think they will work for the few times I wear this cosplay.

In the future, I’d love to order a copper wig to complete the cosplay. I had one in my cart, but it sold out. Wig or no wig, I think this cosplay worked. In the comics, Scarlet Witch has brown hair, so my natural hair, in my opinion, complemented the look. Another idea is to order red colored contacts. I order all my colored contacts through a vendor that my optometrist is partnered with, and they don’t have colored contacts in red. I feel a little dicey trying to order contacts online, so if anyone has any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

I plan on making my Scarlet Witch cosplay a staple in my cosplay rotation. My next cosplay opportunity will be at the Critical Role live show in Chicago, but after that, I think my next convention will be CONvergence in July. I have some time to improve upon this cosplay and think of what other types of cosplays I want to incorporate this summer.

30Mar2025

Planet Comic Con 2025

Posted in Life Lately by Bizarre Brunette

Last weekend, I drove to Kansas City, Missouri, for Planet Comic Con. I have family in the area, so I’m fortunate to stay with them, making it a pretty cheap trip. I look forward to Planet Comic Con every year. I always go on Fridays, which ends up being one of the less crowded days of the convention. On Saturday, I spend the day with family roaming around the city, and then I drive home on Sunday. Planet Comic Con was successful, as I bought new comics to read and debuted a new cosplay.

At Planet Comic Con this year, I wanted to buy comics to have something new to read. There are several comic book vendors, but they mostly sell single-issue comics. I used to read a ton of single-issue comics when I went to my local comic book store regularly, but now I have switched to reading trade paperbacks or graphic novels that contain five issues in one book. It’s much easier for me to keep up on a series than trying to purchase each issue separately. I found two vendors selling graphic novels at half off or significantly discounted. I purchased four new graphic novels: Dark Ride Volume 1 Hell Ticket, Crossover Volume #1, Moonknight Volume #2, and Snotgirl Volume #3. I haven’t started them yet, but I plan on reading them in the next few weeks.

Image is a photo of a woman smiling at the camera. She's wearing all red - red jacket, red top. Her brown hair is long and she has lip stick on.

Besides shopping for comics, I debuted a new cosplay! I have wanted to cosplay Scarlet Witch for a while, as I loved her in WandaVision and the various Avengers movies. I have also been reading Steve Orlando’s run on Scarlet Witch. There are a lot of different ways to cosplay Scarlet Witch. There’s her traditional look with the red leotard, all her looks from the movies, and her darker look from Doctor Strange. I found a costume online from her look in Avengers: Endgame with the red coat. I ordered it, and it worked out great! I will write about this in an upcoming post, so I won’t go into further detail right now.

Image is a photo of big block sculpture letters. In white it reads "City" and below it is "Market" in green. City is sitting on top of the letters k, e, and t in Market.

On Saturday, we went to City Market, an outdoor market I had never been to. It’s funny; I have been to Kansas City several times, and each time I go, I always end up going somewhere new. I purchased some candle melts from one of the vendors there, and after, we went to a few breweries. Kansas City is known for its breweries. We went to River City Bluff Brewery and Callsign, the latter being owned and operated by veterans. Both were breweries I had never been to before. We ended up having lunch at J Rieger & Co, a historic distillery, before finally ending up at Boulevard, a brewery that I have been to several times and ends up being a go-to.

Image is a photo of burnt ends, or BBQ. There's picks to the right on the plate and a big bowl of BBQ sauce.

It was a fun filled weekend! It’s nice to be able to leave Minnesota every now and then. I love how Kansas City is only six hours away because you can get away without being too far. Planet Comic Con was a blast as always and I can’t wait for next year.

25Mar2025

New York By Night Season 1

Posted in Bizarre Brunette Big-Screen Watches by Bizarre Brunette

I am always looking for new Vampire: The Masquerade live plays or podcasts to listen to. One of the most watched or infamous live plays out there is LA By Night which streamed on Geek & Sundry. LA By Night’s popularity, led to the creation of NY By Night. Both LA By Night and NY By Night feature Jason Carl as the storyteller / DM. I could listen to all the things that Jason Carl does. The way he tells a Vampire story is enthralling. I finished listening to the first season of NY By Night and it was so good. I have already started watching season #2.

NY By Night’s first season features an Anarch coterie. For context, Anarchs are a group of vampires who don’t want to live by the rules. They want to be able to live, feed, and not be watched by the Camarilla, the governing group of vampires. The four players in this Anarch coterie are Issac Brooks (played by Alexander Ward), Serif (played by Mayanna Berin), Fuego Walker (played by Aabria Iyengar), and Rey (played by Joey Rassool). The coterie is forced to work together and in the first episode, they have to find someone who owes money to a very powerful enemy.

Alexander Ward appears in both Ny By Night and LA By Night as one of the main characters. His portrayal of Issac is unsettling in the sense that he’s polite, but the gestures he makes, it make it difficult to predict what he will do next. I loved Aabria’s portrayal of Fuego. She’s a classic Ventrue and there are times when Aabria is vibing to the music in a way that’s natural to her clan. Rey’s story is interesting as he has more of a bond with the Camarilla than the others do which comes out throughout the story. Serif is also an interesting character and I would have liked to learn more about her relationship with her mom and her sire. Each episode in this series would fly by and a lot of that has to do with the actors and of course, Jason Carl being the storyteller.

Another interesting thing about NY By Night specifically is how this campaign ties into the other Vampire: The Masquerade video games. There are appearances by characters in this campaign that specifically show up in Vampire: The Masquerade – Coteries of New York and Vampire: The Masquerade – Shadows of New York. I was not expecting that and it makes me want to replay these games after watching this series.

There are two seasons of NY By Night. The second season features a Camarilla coterie with an all-new cast. There was supposed to be a third season, but it never happened. Once I finish with NY By Night, I’m tempted to watch LA By Night. I probably should have started with LA By Night since that would have been in chronological order. If you’re looking for a live play series that focuses more on roleplay and less on combat, NY By Night is one I would recommend.

22Mar2025

The Circle of the Serrated Hook – Candela Obscura Wrap Up

Posted in Gaming by Bizarre Brunette

Image is a character sheet for Dr. Vivienne Baker. She's a Doctor Scholar as her character type.

I alluded to this in several posts, but I found a Candela Obscura campaign group. I have been playing Candela with two other players since November and we had our last session to wrap up our circle, The Circle of the Serrated Hook. As a side note, our circle name rocks. I did not come up with this, one of the other players did, but I love it. As we wrapped up our session, I am happy and surprised to say that Dr. Vivienne Baker lives on.

Before getting into the session, I wanted to write a bit more detail on Dr. Baker. Dr. Vivienne Baker was a professor at a college university, but her focus was on providing affordable healthcare to all. She is someone who believes anyone of any status should be able to be seen. At some point, Dr. Baker partnered with Candela to continue her research, but also protect people from Bleed, the corruptive force left behind by Magick. She is not skilled in hand-to-hand combat, but makes up for it in her intelligence and being able to help others who have been injured.

Our circle has had so much happen! Our original lightkeeper was murdered because he was corrupt. It was revealed that he was using Candela to steal items and sell secrets. We got a new lightkeeper who was not well-liked which made for tough social situations for our characters to interact with. This led to the final showdown where our circle was tasked to go undercover in a prison. Once we arrived, our task was to find a secret vault beneath the prison and secure the artifacts or seal the vault permanently.

Horror TTRPGs are all about creating tense situations with players. Our group had to get climbing gear to go underneath the prison. As we tried to maneuver our way around, Dr. Baker got stuck! Talk about horrifying, I couldn’t imagine being pushed up against rocks and not being able to move my body. Thanks to the other players, they were able to pull me out and we came up with a new plan where we somewhat safely got through the claustrophobic-inducing rock tunnels.

We arrived at the vault and saw lights slowly coming on. There was messaging that we found earlier that indicated that light was lethal. As the room started getting brighter, me and one other player dove for cover. The other player tried to commune with the spirit in a glass tube. While he successfully was able to do that, the light shone and that player was incinerated. Uh oh. Now we are in this prison vault with an injured character. While I’m a doctor, I don’t have the medical equipment to treat this type of injury. The other player who dove for cover, he suggests finding a way to turn on the light and that’s how we seal the vault. Genius. Through some discussion, we found a well-wheel that could permanently turn on the light. While that’s happening, a team was sent down to dispatch us and one of their members was incinerated as well. Dr. Baker made it out along with the player who originally dove for cover, but unfortunately, the character that was incinerated did not make it out. RIP.

The Circle of the Serrated Hook has two surviving members and while Dr. Baker made it out alive, I’m sure her partnership with Candela is tarnished after this series of adventures. I am grateful that I was a part of this group. The more I have played Candela Obscura, the more I have enjoyed the system. I’d love to hear Critical Role announce another Candela Obscura live play soon. I’d like for other players to have a chance to play this game and see if they can survive till the end.

19Mar2025

The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

Posted in Reading/Books by Bizarre Brunette

Spoilers for The Briar Club Below

The Briar Club was my friend’s book club book for this month. As usual, I waited till the last minute to read the book and read 200 pages the day before we met. I try hard not to do that, but something about having a deadline worked in this case. I had high hopes for The Briar Club since the average rating of this book is 4.31 stars which is pretty high for a book on Goodreads. Suffice it to say, I will not be rating this book the same as average readers and I’m excited to get into it.

Washington D.C. 1954. Briarwood House has new energy when Grace March moves in. Grace has a way of getting the other residents to open up and many of the women have grown to like her. Four years later, detectives are at Briarwood House investigating two murders. Who was responsible and what secrets led up to the deaths of these two people?

When reading The Briar Club, I liked reading about the perspectives of those who lived at Briarwood House. If I had to pick my favorites, I loved Nora and Fliss’s points of view. Nora was in an abusive relationship which caused distance from her family. Nora meets Xavier, a man with ties to organized crime. Xavier kills the man who hurt Nora and goes to prison for it. Nora breaks up with him in prison because she doesn’t want to be associated with him. I loved seeing Nora sticking up for herself. Fliss is a young mom and her husband is overseas at the height of the Korean War. Fliss sees herself as a bad mom because she’s struggling and when her husband brings up in a letter that he wants baby number #2, Fliss is stressed. Reading about Fliss’s struggles with motherhood felt authentic, especially with women in that period. I thought her perspective was genuine and something many would relate to.

The twist in this book was interesting. The twist relates to Grace March, the character everyone interacts with. It’s revealed that Grace was a Russian spy who defected when she moved to America. I didn’t expect the book to go in this direction, so I was pleasantly surprised. When this was revealed, I started to think about certain sections and things made sense about how Grace acted. The murders are Grace’s fake American husband who was also a spy and a senator who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. While I think things wrapped up too neatly at the end, I can’t help but be enthralled with Grace’s back story.

While there were things I liked about The Briar Club, I HATED how this book was structured. Each perspective was one long chapter and there were no chapter breaks. I read The Briar Club on my Kindle and seeing my Kindle reminding me that it would take me an hour and a half to read the chapter, oh hell no. Why wouldn’t there be chapter breaks?? It would have been so easy to do. This book isn’t even that long, but it dragged on. I’m not sure if Kate Quinn’s books are like this, but if so, I’m not a fan.

The Briar Club was interesting and I’m glad I read it. For the love of everything, please don’t have long chapters. Long chapters are the worst and are a book pet peeve of mine. I rated The Briar Club three stars on Goodreads.

16Mar2025

Cosplay Advice I’d Give My Younger Self

Posted in Cosplay by Bizarre Brunette

There is so much I have learned about cosplay since I started. Cosplay is one of those hobbies where I will continuously push myself and try new things that might be beyond my experience and skill level. That’s what makes cosplay fun. I went from wearing old Halloween costumes to wearing wigs and planning out in-depth what my next cosplay would be. I wanted to share what advice I would give my younger self, but also advice that I hope those new to cosplay will find valuable.

Image is a photo of two cosplayers. One is cosplaying as Kilmonger an the other is cosplaying as Donna Troy in her red outfit.

Don’t Let Cosplay Accuracy Stress You Out

When I say cosplay accuracy, I mean planning a cosplay that looks exactly like the character I’m portraying. I get anxious when I plan cosplays if I don’t think something will look how I want it to. This will lead me into a spiral where hours will go by in my cosplay planning process and I’m still at square one of figuring out how I will pull off this cosplay.

In all my years of cosplay, I have never had anyone come up to me and insult my cosplay because it wasn’t accurate. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but I’m fortunate it hasn’t happened to me. If someone were to do that, I think we can all agree that person would be a jerk.

It’s okay if a cosplay isn’t accurate or 100% exactly like the character you’re portraying. Some of the best cosplays I have seen are when cosplayers do something different. It’s something I need to remind myself all the time as cosplay should be fun and not stressful.

Don’t Be Afraid to Try New Things

I mentioned this before, but I used to not want to wear wigs. Ever. I had this notion that all wigs were uncomfortable, therefore, I had no interest in incorporating them. Now, I love wearing a new wig. I have three wigs in our closet hanging up on hooks and hope to add a few more in the future. I would love to get to a point where I feel comfortable experimenting with body paint. I haven’t found a cosplay yet where body paint will be needed but never say never. I won’t be as nervous to try body paint because I know I will figure it out.

I wish I didn’t spend so much time avoiding wigs because now I love them. I’m applying this to other aspects of cosplay going forward.

Making Mistakes is a Part of Cosplay

It wasn’t until last year that I learned how to wear wigs correctly. When I started wearing wigs, I would put my hair in a low bun at the back of my head. I would put the wig cap on and the wig after. This left a bump at the back of my head. I went to a panel at CONvergence last year where two panelists explained that the best way to style hair before putting on a wig is to pin hair with bobby pins or braid the hair and pin it on top of your head. This allows for the wig to be applied without any bumps. The next convention I attended, I did this with my hair and it worked perfectly. I didn’t have a bump and everything lay smoother than before.

I laugh at myself for figuring this out recently. I wouldn’t change anything because now I can pass that wisdom on.

Make Time for Hair and Makeup Practice

For every cosplay, I do what I call a trial. A few weeks before the convention, I put together the whole look. Starting with the wig, styling the wig, doing my makeup routine, and putting on the cosplay. I would repeat this at least two or three times before the convention. I didn’t used to do this and it would take me much longer on the day of the convention to get ready. I would highly recommend this to all cosplayers. If something doesn’t fit right, the wig isn’t the color you want or the wig isn’t comfortable, it’s good to figure this out weeks ahead. Nothing is worse than realizing something isn’t going to work and there isn’t time to fix it.

I have been there and I won’t be doing that again. I always style cosplays ahead of time and it’s made it so much easier to get ready.

Wear Comfortable Shoes

Do I need to expand on this one? I will always prioritize wearing comfortable shoes even if my cosplay isn’t as accurate.

Cosplay is a hobby that continues to challenge me in creative ways. There’s so much I could go back and tell my younger self, but at the same time, I wouldn’t have learned as much if I hadn’t made mistakes along the way.

10Mar2025

Captain America: Brave New World (2025)

Posted in Bizarre Brunette Big-Screen Watches by Bizarre Brunette

Image is a movie poster for Captain America Brave New World. It shows the Captain America shield with Harrison Ford, Anthony Mackie positioned on opposite sides of the poster.

Captain America: Brave New World was released on Valentine’s Day. I watched The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney+ so I was hyped for this movie. This was supposed to be the movie that would establish Sam Wilson as the new Captain America setting the stage for the future of the MCU. Captain America Brave New World was so underwhelming and Anthony Mackie deserved a better debut movie than whatever this movie was trying to be.

Sam Wilson (played by Anthony Mackie) and Joaquin Torres (played by Danny Ramirez) are sent to Mexico to retrieve an item that’s being sold to a mercenary group. After successfully retrieving the item, Sam and Joaquin are invited to The White House. Sam asks Isaiah Bradley (played by Carl Lumbly) to accompany him even though Isaiah has mixed feelings about coming along. During a presentation, Isaiah attacks President Thaddeus Ross (played by Harrison Ford) which is uncharacteristic of Isaiah. Although stopped by Sam, Isaiah is arrested and is protesting his innocence. He doesn’t remember attacking the president and Sam is determined to uncover what’s going on and how Isaiah got looped into this.

When I think back to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, that movie is centered on Captain America. He has his allies which are obviously Black Widow and eventually, Sam Wilson. In Captain America: Brave New World, I felt Sam Wilson wasn’t the star of his own movie. There’s so much build-up linking all these events together. I wish this movie focused more on Sam’s relationships with his allies. Sam being a mentor to Joaquin, how did they meet? Why did Sam feel connected to him? I would have loved to see more moments with Sam and Isaiah or Isaiah specifically teaching Joaquin a thing or two. Instead, Isaiah is in prison for the majority of the movie. It feels like a waste since Sam feels protective over Isaiah and deeply cares for him. If Captain America: Brave New World followed the pattern set in The Winter Soldier, I think this movie would have been excellent.

Another critique I had for Captain America: Brave New World is the movie was slow. This should be exciting! Sam has military training and excels at hand-to-hand combat, so why did I feel bored while watching this? I would have liked to see more from Joaquin. Aside from one hand-to-hand combat in an underground bunker and him in the air, that’s about it. He has earned the title of Falcon, so let’s see why! I think injuring him in the latter half of the movie was a mistake. He could have shown up at the end when Red Hulk started trashing The White House.

Captain America: Brave New World made some questionable choices. This movie relies on viewers to have seen The Incredible Hulk and Eternals. Why would you link to a movie that everyone pretends doesn’t exist? That was a choice. This is what I mean by the build-up. Since it’s been a bit since The Incredible Hulk’s release, there is a lot that has to be explained, so instead of giving Sam Wilson more screen time, you have to link these things together. It bogged down the movie and wasn’t satisfying. Instead, I think Captain America: Brave New World should have centered on Sidewinder (played by Giancarlo Esposito) and have Sam and all his allies go after him. This way, you can have an action-packed movie while building the relationships that Sam has.

It sounds like I hated the movie. I didn’t. It’s like the classic parent line, “I’m not mad, I’m disappointed”. That’s how I feel towards Captain America: Brave New World. The MCU is capable of making great films and this was not one of them.