Directed by:
Ryan CooglerCinematography:
Rachel MorrisonComposer:
Ludwig GöranssonCast:
Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Sterling K. Brown (more)Plots(1)
Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther” follows T’Challa who, after the death of his father, the King of Wakanda, returns home to the isolated, technologically advanced African nation to succeed to the throne and take his rightful place as king. But when a powerful old enemy reappears, T’Challa’s mettle as king—and Black Panther—is tested when he is drawn into a formidable 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 and their way of life. (Walt Disney US)
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Black hasn't been this cool in a long time. The boys and girls at Marvel seem to have understood that a watered-down save-the-world story with a ton of visual effects best applied to the destruction of a major American city wouldn’t hold up again, or at least not until the next Avengers (who imho pull a slightly different strand of entertainment). So they decided to be smart about it and use the current geopolitical issue of refugees to their advantage, and crammed national and racial disparities into a cool heroic story full of moral values and fine ideas, spiced it up with a healthily ambitious plot. It might not be the best Marvel flick, because Avengers, with Captain America will pummel it with all those cool dudes and a plethora of TOP figures on one set, but it is certainly one of the smartest comic book movies. Plus, with heroes who, strangely enough, don't want to destroy the world, but to liberate it.
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All the blackness aside, it's actually a pretty typical Marvel creation with all the slow waxing of boredom and laziness over generic visuals and impassioned speeches. I guess it's understandable, since young black folks would also like to have a hero they can identify with in the Marvel universe, so they really only had to do the same thing they did before, except in inverted colors. Fine, but it's still a chore and I can't stop marveling at how little it takes to satisfy people. Namely, the protagonist has no character, he functions like a hero in FPS video games so that as many people as possible can project themselves into him. It pretends to be a humanistic story, but the whole thing is an elitist quest where members of the nobility solve their problems somewhere in a country we know nothing about because the film has no interest in telling us about it. This detachment from reality is probably already just a projection of the real detachment of the filmmakers, who only know the outside world from Facebook, so we can at least entertain the fact that whenever the camera decides to go somewhere down among the working people, there are always farmers' markets on that street, whether we're in the US, South Korea, or Wakanda. It's great how this builds up the illusion after the fact that while the main characters, who never eat and always look worried, have to worry about the big problems for all of us, while the everyday people down below are actually doing nothing but shopping and idling. And these are things that I might not have needed to think about if, at least in my eyes, the expectations of a comic book blockbuster had been met and there hadn't been only two and a half action scenes (of which only one is actually any fun anyway) for 134 minutes of running time. But the five white swans always fly reliably between the buildings in the panoramic scenes. So my advice: watch the first two installments of Blade and instead of the third, which sucks, watch Django Unchained, and then you'll understand what a properly fearless African-American should look like. And I'm advising you from the proven position of a European white guy with mixed Jewish blood and a not-so-bad salary, so you can't go wrong. If you have a problem with that, I can hire a black man to say it for me. Nudge nudge wink wink wink.
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You know the rhetoric. A Marvel fanboy yells at a DC fanboy for his heroes being anchored in reality. It is impossible to root for someone who is as rich as Bruce Wayne or as divine as Diana of Themyscira. Then, all of a sudden, the Marvel fanboy now has an African Atlantis starring the royal prince. Hmm.
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Black Panther surprised me. I was worried it would be a scruffy hybrid of the Avenger's colourfulness and mandatory ethnic lecturing to a wider (two billion-strong) audience, but it ended up being one of the MCU's most accomplished entries. The story has a brisk pace, the viewer is thoughtfully introduced to the new world and its possibilities, the balance between serious approach and momentary lightness works perfectly, and above all there is a great and reasonably motivated villain, whose gradual involvement in the game, when he gets to speak at the expense of the previous numero ono villain, is flawless and unparalleled in the Marvel universe. Two hours flowed like water and if there's anything I didn't like (and I did), it's rather small things – namely a few plot holes (the heavy simplification of the capture of Ulysses, who had been on the run for about 30 years; the implausible psychological transformation of W'Kabi; the transparency of the plot despite a narrative based on explanatory flashbacks). Otherwise, though, high blockbuster quality with a couple of witty James Bond references, good actors (especially Serkis, Jordan and, again, the entertaining Freeman), clear action often in long takes and a likeable script that presents Wakanda not as a sexy bimbo introduced for a brief appearance in Infinity War, but as an immersive backdrop to a self-contained plot whose rules the viewer willingly accepts and is swept along by (the duel for the throne is the most emotionally powerful in a long time). Bring in the sequel. 80%
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Direction-wise a solidly crafted Marvel movie with literally amazing action scenes, but with an average main character. The existence of the comic book character doesn’t help him and neither does the fact that Marvel is attempting to balance the representation of genders of the human race. Maybe it wasn’t intended in that way, but it definitely looks like it; Wakanda is so boring and unfunny that it’s hard to find anything positive about it. But yeah, I realize that Black Panther has a place in the universe. He for sure won’t be my favorite hero, though.
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