Black Panther

2018 superhero movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Power struggles in the African nation of Wakanda as T'Challa inherits the throne after his father's passing. Meanwhile, Wakanda struggles with its isolationism.

My plans were to see a less-crowded Early Man, but the theater was having technical difficulties and canceled the last showing of that. Then, I bought a ticket for Fifty Shades Freed, but the movie had already started. So I ended up watching this instead. I had planned on seeing it a few days later.

During the previews, I was overcome with this feeling that somebody was going to come in with a gun and shoot up the movie theater. I was in the last row and felt better after realizing that if a gunman did come in, I could drop to the floor, scoot to the end of the row, and squeeze myself behind the seats to hide. Nobody ended up coming in to shoot everybody though. You probably would have heard about it on the news had that happened.

I realize the importance of this movie to the black community, and I liked the messages below the surface of this movie. The surface, unfortunately, was the same kind of tired Marvel superhero movie stuff that we've seen many many times before. Sketchy CGI fight scenes, flashy action sequences, uninspired storytelling. The black community deserves a better superhero movie than this just like women deserved a better superhero movie than Wonder Woman. Bizarre action set pieces distract from some pretty good performances, and pedestrian storytelling can't distract from a hero who just isn't all that engaging.

I really wanted to like this movie, and I did enjoy pieces of it. I liked the role women played in the story, and I liked that almost every important character was black. I liked the look on kids' faces when watching a cool spaceship. I liked a lot of the costumes and music.

I did not like seeing Stan Lee again. I'm really tired of these cameos. This one wasn't as dopey as others, but it was still pretty dopey.

I enjoyed how this is Marvel's Bond movie. These individual superhero stories all get their own sub-genres, and I kind of hoped this one wouldn't be blaxploitation. It's totally not! It's a Bond movie, and that's pretty cool.

The theater was packed. I haven't looked at weekend box office numbers for this, but I know it did very well. I'm thrilled about that, and I was happy to see how happy people were when leaving the theater. Their experiences, both in everyday life and with this movie, are different than mine.

I chuckled when looking for a poster image to steal for this blog entry and finding this one of Martin Freeman:

I thought for sure it was a fake poster, but apparently, it's real. 

Edit: I've let this one marinate a bit. Based on a few different things, I've decided that I liked this better than I thought I did.

First, is Michael B. Jordan's villain. A lot of what I didn't like about this was how Marvelized it was. And I didn't really think the villain was all that engaging. However, I now like that character because of how non-Marvel he was. Killmonger (cool name, too) is driven by things that are very real, and I think that adds real depth and emotion to the whole thing.

Another theme emerged as I was thinking about this, too. A lot of this has to do with things being hidden. Hidden powers, hidden technologies, entire hidden civilizations. And as the story progresses, the importance of storytelling and things not staying hidden becomes important.