Black Panther is a 2018 action/adventure film directed by Ryan Coogler, and is the eighteenth film in the ever expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film stars Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, and Andy Serkis. Following shortly after the events of Captain America: Civil War, T’Challa returns home as king of Wakanda but finds his sovereignty challenged by a new adversary, in a conflict with global consequences which challenges his perspective as the Black Panther and as the king of Wakanda.
I’m just gonna start things off by saying that this isn’t the best Marvel film to date. To be honest it’s not even in the top five Marvel films for me either. Now with that being said and done, this wasn’t a horrible movie as I actually enjoyed it. But all the hype and over exaggeration about this film is beyond me, and I’m gonna give you all a legitimate review of this film, not some politically correct BS.
So to start things off, the cast in Black Panther is fantastic. There’s no other way to put it. Michael B. Jordan was the stand out for me, while Chadwick Boseman was just amazing as the man in the cat suit. The most surprising roles came from both Letitia Wright and Danai Gurira. Like, just wow. These women kill it on the big screen and I can’t wait to see them continue their roles in further MCU films. With that being said I did find some minor issues with Lupita Nyong’o’s character as I felt she was too much of a damsel in distress. The sad part is that I love Lupita in almost every other role I’ve seen her in, yet not so much with this one. I also found Daniel Kaluuya’s role to be pretty pointless, and I was surprisingly disappointed by his character and performance.
I guess the biggest issue I had with this film was its story. Although specifics of the story seem fresh and new in some instances, the general outline is unmistakably one that we’ve seen time after time. In fact, I found that Black Panther shared a lot of similarities with that of The Lion King and because of that I had a really hard time falling in love with this film. Although it’s not a word for word recreation of the animated classic, it does capture a lot of the same elements of that film. While watching this movie I also had a hard time with the weight it had in the overarching MCU story. This has been a common criticism from me for almost every Marvel movie since Civil War, but this film’s plot never really progresses the overall story of the MCU. Homecoming kind of touches on the subject with some awesome references that date back to prior MCU films, but that’s not the case for Black Panther. That being said, it just doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of weight to the movie’s story or its characters.
As for its visual elements? I was decently surprised. Sure no Marvel film has been able to beat my love for Doctor Strange‘s visual effects, but the design of the world of Wakanda felt incredibly realistic, original, and true to its African culture. Probably one of the more practical uses of sci-fi tech I’ve seen on screen, and I truly loved the concept of each piece of tech in the film.. minus the Black Panther suit. Yes, it follows the comics, and yes Iron Man will probably sport the same type of design for his suit in Infinity War, but I just don’t like that idea that a bulletproof suit can form from basically nothing and then protect them from something like a missile or 100 foot drop. Just doesn’t make sense to me. But minus all that, Black Panther‘s visuals helped build the beautiful world of Wakanda into something that I can’t wait to explore in the new Avengers film and the direct sequel to this movie.
The sound design also seemed to surprise me. Although Marvel films tend to have pretty bland soundtracks (minus Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: Ragnarok), I can say that I found myself thoroughly enjoying both this film’s soundtrack and score. Speaking more along the lines of the score, the film makers tied in as much Africa culture as they could, and because of that I felt incredibly immersed throughout the film’s score. The tribal drums, the chanting, everything just helped build the world of Wakanda into a real place. The sound design was also exceptional as I was never taken out of the film due to the film’s mixing. I have to say, these Marvel movies are getting really good when it comes to sound and visual design. Marvel, you never cease to amaze me.
So why didn’t I like this film? Seems like I’ve been only praise. Well it wasn’t so much the fact that I didn’t like the movie, but more of the idea that it never really felt original or meaningful. I mentioned this above while talking about story, but Black Panther didn’t really seem to stand out within the overall story of the MCU. Although I loved Michael B. Jordan’s performance, his character never really had enough emotion to him, nor did his villain really change the way the MCU works like Zemo did in Civil War. I guess that’s what Black Panther really came down to for me. A good film, but just a decent Marvel movie.
With all that being said, I found this to be another enjoyable film. Did I overhype it? No. Was I excited for it? Yes. Was I let down? Well, yeah. Does that mean I can just forget about the film’s mistakes just because everyone else liked it? Hell no! Just look at my Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 review. I was not impressed by that movie in the slightest, yet it did exceptionally well. So what does that mean exactly? Well to be honest with you all I guess you could say I’m getting a bit of that Marvel fatigue that everyone has been talking about. I’m tired of the same old story with different characters. These films have an entire self created universe of characters and stories to tell, so use them! Although this film had some great pieces to it, I will say it was a bit of a let down, which is why I decided to give this film a “Good” on theVade Review Bar. This film just didn’t seem to entertain me like Thor: Ragnarok, and thankfully didn’t bore me like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. With Infinity War on the horizon, lets just hope Avengers does what these past MCU films have consistently failed to do.. blow me away.
