Genre: Fantasy/Action

Directed By: Ryan Coogler

Written By: Ryan Coogler; Joe Robbert Cole

Starring: Chadwich Bosemen; Michael B Jordan; Lupita Nyong'o; Danai Gurira; Letitia Wright

Review by: Derek Griffiths

Going into the film, I was of a very mixed mind.

The main problem was, for me, Black Panther was never my favourite character. I followed Marvel heroes like Spider-Man, the Hulk, Fantastic Four, X-Men and Iron Man. Those were big stars for me, and watching them come to life on the small screen or in movies was always exciting. If the film or series turned out not to be that good, fine. It still didn't ruin my enjoyment of the character.

Even with the Guardians of the Galaxy, who I don't think I'd ever really heard of before the big MCU film, I was still excited to see how these space heroes would fit in with the rest of the films. I had heard that Thanos would be in it, who was a character I knew from comics. I heard it was a good film from others even before I had seen it.

With Black Panther… I didn't have that excitement. I'd seen Black Panther in comics and cartoons, but he'd never really been that exciting to me. His appearances alongside other heroes were usually one episode or one issue long. He'd appear, help Spidey or the Avengers take some villain down, then disappear. He never left a lasting impact on me and so, I never felt the need to look any further into him.

So, I was seriously considering missing Black Panther altogether. Maybe just catching it when it came out on DVD or showed up on TV, ad breaks and all. It would have been the first MCU film I deliberately missed (I didn’t watch a few others at the cinema, but mainly because at the time, I didn’t have the time/money/confidence).

But then the film received so many positive reviews. I saw one person mention that the film had gotten a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (at time of writing, it’s at 97%). And as much as I try not to pay attention to reviews, I couldn’t help but be curious. The

film had already been spoiled for me in certain regards, but… I think I went to see the film more out of a loyalty to Marvel than anything else. I went to see it just in case anything in the film would be important to Infinity War.

So I went and… do I think it’s worth 98%? No. Definitely not. I’d give it a 80%, personally. And Spoilers below.

Cast and Culture

The cast was very good, I'll agree with that much. It's perhaps a touchy subject for me to speak about, being a white male from a mainly white society. The film certainly appeals to a more ethnic audience - it was apparently hugely successful in Africa and with black people around the world.

I can certainly understand why. According to those audiences, African culture was portrayed excellently, and the cast being mainly composed of African or black actors means that they seem right at home.

The few scenes taking place outside of Wakanda, being set in Oakland, London and Busan, I believe, were well done, and contrasted with the Afrofuturism of the Wakandan capital and the rural Wakandan countryside. Actors in those locations were well utilised and diversified the cast.

Chadwick Boseman plays the title character, and while his expressions do feel flat and monotonous at times, this feels more like a limitation of the character than a criticism of him as an actor. Letitia Wright's Shuri was a surprisingly popular humorous foil for Chadwick's seriousness.

Michael B. Jordan's performance as the villain Killmonger was certainly well done, providing us with a few memorable lines and astounding scenes.

Andy Serkis's Ulysses Klaue, first introduced in Age of Ultron, was a great character in this film. His sense of humour was a welcome addition to the film, and his knowledge of things that were supposed to be secret was fascinating. I’m very disappointed the film killed him off, since I think it’d be amazing to see him use his iconic sound-based powers in future Marvel films.

Problems

Most of the problems I have with the film are, admittedly, somewhat petty gripes. But the big, glaring omission is the connecting thread this film needs to draw to the rest of the MCU.

The other three films that are isolated from the rest of the MCU are Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange and Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2. The difference is, these characters weren’t previously introduced. Black Panther, on the other hand, had a full starring role in Captain America: Civil War. We already knew that he was from Wakanda. At the end of the film, we knew that Captain America and Bucky were laying low in Wakanda. We expected the last, as yet unrevealed Soul Stone to feature in the film somehow…

Instead, the only connection we really got was a flashback of T’Chaka dying.

Please don’t misunderstand. I definitely didn’t want the film to be Captain America teaming up with Black Panther to take some villain down. I definitely wanted Captain America to just sit back, maybe make one brief appearance where he’s guarding Bucky’s cryogenic chamber. Something like that to remind us between Civil War (which we’ve had 4 films since, and more MCU content if you keep up with the TV series) and the highly anticipated Infinity War, that Cap and Bucky are now worldwide fugitives and hiding in Wakanda.

We didn’t even get to see the Soul Stone, which I can only guess is because Thanos is going to already have it? It really seems like they missed a chance here.

But, I did say most of my problems weren't very significant, so here they are:

So, the first gripe I have with the film is the scene where Black Panther is attacking the convoy. The convoy gets disabled and everybody is plunged into darkness. But when the bullets come flying, I definitely needed to shield my eyes. The film felt as though it was designed to blind the audience in certain parts. And this was one of them. I’ve never seen a gun in action (nor do I plan to) so I don’t know how realistic this scene was for the muzzle flashes, but even so, just when my eyes had adjusted to the dark night scene in a dark cinema, the film starts violently flashing at me.

The film felt slow at times. Recently, I binged all of the Marvel Netflix series (excluding The Punisher, which I haven’t started yet), and was amazed at the hallway and stairwell fight scenes in Daredevil, which mainly rely on one continuous cut. A similar single-cut fight scene takes place in the 2003 film Old Boy, which I’ve also watched recently. These types of scenes are amazing, and the casino scene in Black Panther does seem to have very few cuts, but the rest of the fights were quite choppy.

Another, even more minor gripe… why was “Oakland, California” specified? Why not “Oakland, USA” or “California, USA”? If you’re going to specify which state a city is in, but not the country, why do you specify the country but not the state for the other locations? What’s wrong with putting “City of London, London” or “Busan, Yeongnam”? Heck, why not just forgo telling us the locations altogether. Black Panther already said he was going to Korea (though I don’t think he specified South Korea) so why does the film hold the audience’s hand through this transition?

Conclusion

But, if you’ve gotten this far in my review, and are still undecided about whether to watch it, I’d say that if you’re only concern is watching it just because it’s a part of the MCU, I’d give it a miss. Maybe watch Infinity War first, then watch this as a “flashback”. It was a tasty side dish, but I'm still eagerly awaiting the main course.