I'm not gonna lie, throughout this movie, I was crossing my fingers - hoping - for one of the characters to yell, "WHY ARE YOU RUNNING?" at someone. That would've been fantastic, honestly. It's a missed opportunity if ever there was one.
Black Panther was directed by Ryan Coogler (who did Creed, which I absolutely loved) and stars Chadwick Boseman, Lupita N'yongo, Michael B. Jordan, Andy Serkis, Martin Freeman, and Forrest Whittaker, among a number of other people. As you already know, this film is the 18th entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and takes place right after the events of Captain America: Civil War. This follows the story of T'Challa and the things he does following the capture of Helmut Zemo, and dabbles a lot in his return to Wakanda.
Personally, I was hyped for this movie, but not for the reasons that most other people were. The reason I was excited to see this was because Ryan Coogler was at the helm, and he had done Creed, which was one of my personal favorite films of the past decade. Many other people who had worked on Creed, such as Michael B. Jordan and composer Ludwig Gorannsson, were also brought on board to help, and that got me excited.
Seriously, I love it when these two team up.
As for the end product, I enjoyed it. There was definitely a lot in it that I liked, and some elements that I loved. In the end, I thought it was a good movie - a pretty good one, at that - but I won't go so far as to say it's great. This isn't a perfect movie, and it does have its flaws, but before I get into those, I wanna talk about things in Black Panther that I enjoyed.
Quite a bit.
First of all, this movie looks absolutely incredible. As you may already know, this movie takes place in Africa - a lot of the hype surrounding this movie is because it's the first big-budget superhero movie set in Africa - and that, in itself, lends itself to a lot of really incredible design choices. Africa is a place that's really rich in culture and it shows that the art team really did have a passion for what they were doing. The production design was fantastic and Wakanda does look fantastic.
And that sense of beauty is helped a lot by how well Black Panther was directed. As I mentioned earlier, I love Ryan Coogler and all the work he's put out so far, and, on a purely aesthetic level, he's three-for-three in my book. Each scene in here was put together nicely and really well-directed.
The camerawork in here was top-notch stuff, as well.
I also wanna talk about the shots in this movie because a lot of them truly are magnificent. I can't think of any shot in Black Panther that felt dull or uninteresting. Visually, the movie has all the appeal you want, and maybe more, depending on how much you appreciate African art - which I do, a lot.
As this is a movie set in the MCU, there are a couple of staples of the franchise that find their place in this movie - like a car chase involving black SUV's- but they pull them off in ways that are interesting enough to keep them somewhat fresh. The rest of the action in here, though, is great to watch. Having followed the director for a while, I know for a fact that he loves his long-take action sequences, and this movie's got one, and it's bad-ass.
There was this one other action scene that happened earlier on in the movie that reminded me a bit of Sicario with how it built up tension before shit hit the fan, and I thought it was cool, albeit a bit dark. Every other fight scene in it was solid, but - bar the long-take scene - it was the ceremonial fight scenes that really captured my imagination.
There was just something about them that I, personally, really liked.
Most of what I enjoyed watching about the ceremonial fight scenes was how steeped in culture they were. I enjoy seeing cultural rituals, especially from places I know next to nothing about, and this movie gave me some interesting cultural bits that intrigued me to no end.
Speaking of the culture, the film did an excellent job of making Wakanda feel alive, you know what I mean? The place and setting, as a whole, felt like a character in itself. The movie dabbled into the culture without really taking you on a history class, but it gave you all that you needed to know, and presented those pieces of information in really interesting ways. I liked seeing how these people behaved, especially in a times as trying as the events that took place in the movie.
I especially enjoyed the score, too. In some ways, it reminded me of a mix of Creed (they're from the same composer, so that's kind of a given) and The Lion King, and I thought that made for an interesting blend. As for the original songs, I thought they were pretty okay, mostly because I don't listen to Kendrick Lamar. Overall, though, the soundtrack was solid, and I dug it.
He was great in the movie, too.
Okay, now a lot of people are talking about Killmonger, and I can't blame them for it - the dude is an interesting villain. He's creating a lot of buzz for a reason (I mean, other than the fact that he's incredibly handsome), and a lot of it has to do with his relevance, especially in today's social climate. Killmonger, as a character, had clear motivations and did a great job of letting the audience marinate those in their own heads. I mean, shit, I was even thinking to myself, "You know, this dude's got a point, guys."
Any villain who gets you to think that he's got a point to what he's doing, is a great villain, in my book. I don't generally equate relevance to something being good in a movie - sometimes things like that can come off as preachy - but Michael B. Jordan's performance as Killmonger was so spot-on, and delivered with such charisma, that I really couldn't help but think about it.
I can't say there's a single weak performance in here - basically, everyone was either good in it, or great. I thought Andy Serkis was great as Klaue, as well as Letitia Wright (who I'd love to hang out with, by the way) as the quirky tech-head sister Shuri. Martin Freeman makes a return and makes the most out of it, despite being somewhat undercooked.
I could tell he had a lot of fun with this role.
I thought Chadwick Boseman was good, although I, personally, can't say that I'm completely swayed that he's the only person who could ever carry this role. It's kinda how a lot of people I know felt about Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, and I can respect that. That being said, doesn't change the fact that I thought he did a good job in here, and I thought he was cool.
However, like I said earlier, this movie isn't exactly perfect. I also said that I thought this was a pretty good movie, but not quite a great one. Going into it, I felt like the hype train around Black Panther had become, like, this insane vortex of hype, that it was almost inevitable that not all expectations set for it were going to be met. I also feel as if it's important to address these flaws, and hold this movie to the same standard as all other movies.
We shouldn't give it a pass for being this or that.
For a movie that was touted as being something so revolutionary, Black Panther didn't exactly take too many narrative risks. The plot reminded me a lot of The Dark Knight Rises, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. However, there are a lot of parallels one can make between Black Panther and TDKR, and once I picked up on those parallels, it became clear to me which movie was doing it better.
Both movies have similar second halves, but TDKR, personally, executed it better. I feel like, in Black Panther, they could've done a bit more to establish what exactly was at stake and play up the whole political turmoil angle leading into the final act in the film. Going into the end fight, I didn't quite feel that sense of, "Oh shit, things are hitting the fan now, T'Challa's got to stop this nonsense," and I thought that was a bummer. I've seen people complain that this movie was too long, but I could've gone for an extra fifteen minutes just to set up the endgame alone.
There's also this extended period of time in the movie wherein Killmonger doesn't show up at all, to the point where he kinda took a backseat in my head. I would've liked to see him do more, especially since he, as a character, was one of the most interesting parts of the movie.
I could've gone for a more interesting internal struggle, as well.
I might get a lot of shit for this, but T'Challa wasn't as interesting as he was in Civil War - which I thought was a shame, because I liked him quite a lot in Civil War. Sure, Chadwick Boseman was good as T'Challa, but, beyond him kicking ass as the Black Panther, he wasn't all that compelling as a king. He's a straight-forward good man with a moral compass, but I could've gone for some sort of moral dilemma biting him in the ass, and a moral dilemma that would've been unique to T'Challa as a character.
Another thing that kinda bummed me out that, in a movie that had consistently been a visual spectacle, had a number of moments in it that looked like Spiderman 3 - if I'm being optimistic about it, Amazing Spiderman 2. Some of the CGI and the green screen elements were a bit unpolished, which I thought was a bit of a letdown, too.
However, despite its flaws, I enjoyed a lot of things about Black Panther, and I'm looking forward to see where the creative team takes the story from here. It was great to look at, and a lot of fun, and presents a lot of compelling social commentary amidst all the action. I thought it was pretty good, and, in my book, it goes down as a Jar Jar thumbs-up.
Don't @ me.
Since everyone's already seen Black Panther, I'm instead gonna ask whether or not you liked it, and if there's anything in this review that you wanna have some nice civil discourse over. It's okay, we're all friends here.
And, as always, this has been Rafa. Stay classy.
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