Man…if you’d have asked me ten years ago which comic book titan that I liked more, or which one I thought more-deserved world domination, I’d have answered “DC” in about half a second. And I’d have been so, sooo wrong. Marvel has done it again. Black Panther is dope.
THE BLURB:
After the death of his father, T’Challa returns home to the African nation of Wakanda to take his rightful place as king. When a powerful enemy suddenly reappears, T’Challa’s mettle as king — and as Black Panther — gets tested when he’s drawn into a conflict that puts the fate of Wakanda and the entire world at risk. Faced with treachery and danger, the young king must rally his allies and release the full power of Black Panther to defeat his foes and secure the safety of his people.
WHAT WORKED:
Marvel has found a formula, and they’ve refined it and polished it and made sure it worked: start with a character, tie them to something we care about in the real world, and use their superpower to offer a solution to that thing. Black Panther is *particularly* poignant and relevant in that regard: it empowers people of color.
Race is at the heart of this tale, as is the very idea of “what is power, and what should it be used for?” It makes sense that such themes would be so prevalent given the film’s director, Ryan Coogler, who burst on the scene five years ago with his harrowing Fruitvale Station, which was about the shooting of an unarmed black man in Coogler’s home town of Oakland, CA. It also makes sense given Marvel’s predilection to choose filmmakers and let them make a film that matches their personal aesthetic. The other that comes to mind is James Gunn and Guardians of the Galaxy.
Wakanda is dope, guys. The dopest. I love, LOVE the idea of a technologically-advanced society living right under our noses, like Hogwarts, or Atlantis. The fact that it’s in AFRICA, somewhere the western world thinks of as “third-world” and “primitive” is just freaking genius. It honestly teared me up a little bit to see a cast of POCs, men and women, with weapons like the Avengers, suits like, well, superheroes, and LABS LIKE TONY STARK. My favorite character was T’Challa’s sister, the African version of Bond’s “Q,” showing off all her newest cutting edge tech and outfitting our hero with the stuff we knew was about to go “boom” in the next action sequence.
The music was dope. The costumes were INCREDIBLE…but really, the triumph of this film was taking a tried-and-tested character arc in the “sins of the father” and “the man who would be king,” and tying those to a narrative that actually MEANT something in the real world. How genius was it of Coogler to take this mythical, incredible, progressive land of Wakanda, and put them on TRIAL for being absent when so many people of color needed them across the globe.
Michael B Jordan is someone I might have a slight man-crush on. Lupita Nyong’o is goddamn perfect. The DESIGN of Wakanda was just the freaking coooollleeesssttt…especially the lab and the Vibranium mine…Florence Kasumba Ayo was a goddamn beast as the woman warrior in charge of protecting the king…mean, guys, it was awesome. Even the makeup on Killmonger was fucking aaawwwwsssooommmeeee. The color palette is incredible. Art direction, on point.
Really…it’s an A-effort.
WHAT DIDN’T WORK:
Really the only significant gripe I had was story-structure-wise…and it’s honestly not that significant of a gripe at all: it would have been stronger at one point to stick with our main character instead of with the side characters. I can’t really specify what I mean by that since it’d give away major plot points, but suffice it to say there’s a major failure on the part of our hero in Act 3 that then sets up our final act, and I’d have stuck the story on him at that point.
I also wanted more Michael B Jordan. I really felt like we short-changed Killmonger and his story, which robbed us of some of his motivation…BUT, there was such a strong “usurper of the throne” story to follow here, that it didn’t cripple his character. There was also some stuff towards the end of the movie about bondage (the incarceration kind, not the sexy stuff) that could have been elevated by incorporating that into his character’s background…but again, nothing too big.
All in all, I really enjoyed this movie. The fact that it’s one of the very, very few primarily minority-starring comic book/superhero movies ever made really DOES elevate it, particularly when the story and characters were so well chosen and executed. I really have to tip my cap to Ryan Coogler. I know there were several people in the theater who got more than a little misty-eyed at a couple points of the movie that really underscored where we are with race as a people, a country, and a global community. Bravo, you guys. This is the superhero movie that people of color, and everyone else, have deserved for a long, long time.
8/10 – go see it