Producers: Kevin Faige and Nate Moore  Director: Julius Onah   Screenplay: Rob Edwards, Malcolm Spellman, Dalan Musson, Julius Onah and Peter Glanz   Cast: Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Harrison Ford, Tim Blake Nelson, Shira Haas, Carl Lumbly, Xosha Roquemore, Giancarlo Esposito, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, William Mark McCullough, Takehiro Hira, Liv Tyler and Sebastian Stan   Distributor: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures 

Grade: C-

If you remember how fascinating the trade negotiations were in “The Phantom Menace,” you’ll have some idea of how dreary the central plot point of this entry in the MCU is.  “Captain America: Brave New World” is focused around newly-elected US President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford)’s push to get other world leaders, especially Japanese Prime Minister Ozaki (Takehiro Hira), behind a pact to share the supply of the harder-than-vibranium element adamantium found in a “celestial mass” in the Indian Ocean.  (If you want to investigate its origin, watch “The Eternals” again, if you dare subject yourself to that bomb a second time.)

But the adamantium is really a MacGuffin in the unwieldy screenplay cobbled together by no fewer than five scribes.  It’s merely one link in a complicated chain devised by the villain, a scientist named Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson).  For his origin, the reference point is the “The Incredible Hulk” (2008), in which, almost as an afterthought, he comes into contact with a substance that begins his transformation into what he is now—a nasty green-tinged fellow who wears his brain atop his head, a sign of the super intelligence that allows him to confect intricate plans by predicting how events will unfold.  He seethes with a desire for revenge against Ross, who, in his previous role as a gung-ho general, made Sterns what he is today.  That revenge indirectly involves The Hulk, whom Ross had spent his former career fixated on. 

So how does Captain America—or rather Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), the new CA who inherited the shield, though not the superpowers, of Steve Rogers (see “The Avengers: Endgame,” and the Disney series “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”)—fit into things?  Well, he’s introduced leading a group on a mission to rescue hostages being held by Seth Voelker (Giancarlo Esposito), who’s there to sell a canister of stolen Japanese adamantium to a mysterious Buyer (shortly revealed as Sterns) as well as, it appears, to kill CA.  Cap is helped in foiling Voelker by an eager sidekick, soldier and computer wiz Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez), who has taken on the role of The Falcon, Wilson’s previous costumed persona.

After their triumph Wilson and Torres are invited to the White House for the treaty-signing ceremony despite the President’s previous hostility to superheroes.  Wilson insists on bringing his old friend Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), like Torres an alumnus of the Disney series, who holds a grudge against Ross for abusing him in the super soldier program.

Then all heck breaks loose as Bradley, along with four other gunmen, attempt to assassinate Ross at the ceremony, disrupting the entire agreement.  Ross desperately tries to salvage things, only to encounter additional obstacles and growing increasingly agitated in the process: only emergency doses of pills keep him going. 

But those pills, it turns out, are just another part of Sterns’s convoluted scheme to reveal Ross for the monster he is (or rather was), a fact that continues to estrange him from his daughter Betty (Liv Tyler).  It’s up to Captain America and Falcon to save the day when the American and Japanese militaries are at point of war in the Indian Ocean. 

But that doesn’t short-circuit Sterns’s nefarious plot, in which Cap must confront a red Ross in fully Hulky form among DC’s cherry blossoms.  One wonders why Sterns, whose predictive powers are supposed to be astounding and has developed a mechanism of mind control as well (thus his army of minions), has had to resort to such an elaborate series of interconnected events to achieve this result, but if he didn’t, the movie could have been shorter than even its two-hour running-time, mercifully brief for one of these MCU pictures.

As this precis should make clear, an acquaintance with previous installments of the MCU, both large and small-screen versions, is integral to understanding the whys and wherefores of “Brave New World,” but the effort is hardly worth it.  For the most part the movie is another tedious slog in the Marvel superhero sausage factory.  Under Julius Onah’s prosaic direction, the expository scenes don’t have much oomph, and the action sequences, filled with less-than-stellar CGI, are pretty pedestrian too.  The technical crew–production designer Ramsey Avery, cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau, editors Madeleine Gavin and Matthew Schmidt, as well as the effects army—go big and splashy in the naval confrontation scene and the final battle between Cap and the thing Ross has become, but even here the result looks second-rate, and the booming tones of Laura Karpman’s score are more notable for decibels than impact.

One feels for Mackie and Ford (replacing the late William Hurt as Ross), both of whom give all they have to put across the pedestrian material.  Mackie strikes all the right heroic poses, but the banal dialogue sabotages his best efforts, while Ford huffs and puffs with such intensity that you might actually worry about the strain the octogenarian is putting on himself.  Ramirez brings some much-needed fun to the proceedings even if his verbal interjections are juvenile and Lumbly brings some gravity to his psychologically bruised veteran, but Nelson has nothing to lean on but his unflattering makeup and Esposito just smirks and glares his way through Voelker’s smugness.  Others given little opportunity to shine include Shira Haas as Ross’ hard-nosed security head who becomes Wilson’s ally, Xosha Roquemore as an aide to the President who feeds Cap information, William Mark McCullough as an army commander he can always rely on, and Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson as one of Voelker’s brutal enforcers.

“Brave New World” is the thirty-fifth feature episode of the MCU, which of course also makes use of other formats in constructing its elaborate fantasy world.  It’s not as bad as some previous installments, but far from good, and it certainly doesn’t bode well for the promised reemergence of the Avengers to which it serves as an introduction.  Even the most devoted fans will find it a letdown.

Producers: Devin Keaton, Robert Rippberger, Martin Medina, Jay Burnley and KT Kent    Director: Robert Rippberger   Screenplay: Luke Medina, Martin Medina, Robert Rippberger and David Largman Murray   Cast: Frankie Muniz, Violett Beane, Taylor Gray, Craig Lamar Traylor, Estes Tarver and Marcia Gay Harden   Distributor: Seismic Releasing

Grade: C-

The development of AI has progressed so rapidly that current events make a picture like “Renner,” which aims for a putatively prophetic sci-fi feel, seem positively quaint.  Of course, even if the script were smarter, the modestly-budgeted execution would undermine the picture, which moves from character study to would-be thriller to something like torture porn.  You can appreciate the effort, but the result falls short.

Frankie Muniz, who’s been making a gingerly return to acting after largely stepping back since his TV series “Malcolm in the Middle” ended in 2006 (a revival is now in the works), takes the title role here as a young tech wiz who’s sadly uptight, as are many such nerdy types in movies.  He’s created an AI “life coach,” a big round eyeball called Salenus, reminiscent of HAL-9000 but speaking in a feminine voice that’s far from the seductive one Scarlett Johansson lent to Spike Jonze’s “Her” (2013).  Instead, in the tones of Marcia Gay Harden, Salenus is rather maternal, in a brusquely authoritative way.

Renner has fashioned Salenus to help him become more confident and assertive, but in actuality the device controls him to a large extent, telling him how to dress, overseeing his morning ablutions, and directing him to keep his sparsely furnished apartment scrupulously clean.  It’s programmed, we will learn, after his recently deceased mother, who was, as he describes her, a fanatical control freak under whose thumb his mousy persona was formed. 

It goes without saying that Renner lives alone in a largely empty building, devoid of friends and certainly female companionship.  He goes to an unspecified job carrying a big metal briefcase into which he regularly transfers Salenus (after removing it from a floor safe), and apparently survives on carry-out. 

He’s also refuses to sell the code he’s invented for Salenus, determined to keep its supposedly groundbreaking algorithm to himself.  Of course, he’s as dependent on it as he was on his mother while she lived.  But he intends to rely on it to help him introduce himself to his new—and apparently only—neighbor, Jamie (Violett Beane), an ebullient, friendly, and decidedly pretty girl who’s moved in across the hall.  He contrives to meet her when she returns from a run, and invites her over for dinner.

Unfortunately, she brings along her roommate Chad (Taylor Gray), a rude, condescending boor whom Renner takes to be her boyfriend, though he turns out to be her slacker brother.  Despite the guy’s intrusiveness, a romance blossoms between Renner and Jamie, and he’s hopeful it will progress to something major.

Naturally Salenus raises doubts about her sincerity and motives.  Its warnings become increasingly adamant, and Renner begins to unravel emotionally as he suspects that the device could be right about the girl.  When his precious code is endangered, he reacts with uncharacteristic violence, and though in the end it appears that he and Jamie have a chance at happiness, it’s not to be.  As for Salenus, it proves to be as stable and reliable as HAL was.

One can be impressed by the futuristic look production designer brings to the building hallway and Renner’s apartment, and cinematographer Sean Emer uses the limited locations to create a decidedly claustrophobic effect.  Rony Barrak contributes an unsettling score, and Gabriel Cullen editing that’s languid for the first hour before joining Emer’s camerawork to ratchet up the excitement in the third act. The VFX is adequate.

Beane makes an effective femme who’s perhaps fatale, and Gray a convincing cad.  And Muniz definitely tries very hard, although his initial milquetoast is more persuasive than his anger-fueled avenger.  He deserves credit for stretching, but the result is more effortful than natural. 

But no one could have overcome the essential implausibility of “Renner”—the notion that anyone might be willing to spend lots of money and go to great lengths to acquire the secret behind a device that in today’s world almost seems antique.  MacGuffins needn’t be entirely believable, but they must possess enough credibility to make you overlook their essential absurdity.

In short, the reality of AI has already rendered Salenus obsolete, and “Renner” proves as defective as its central gimmick winds up being.

Incidentally, there’s a post-credits scene that isn’t all that clever, but if you’ve watched the movie and are willing to continue through a rather long scroll, be aware that it’s there.