Black Panther - Film Review

Finally got to see this.

Black Panther is directed by Ryan Coogler and stars Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Martin Freeman, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, and Daniel Kaluuya.

Plot
After the events of Captain America: Civil War, King T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) returns home to the reclusive, technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda to serve as his country's new leader. However, T'Challa soon finds that he is challenged for the throne from factions within his own country. When two foes conspire to destroy Wakanda, the hero known as Black Panther must team up with C.I.A. agent Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman) and members of the Dora Milaje, Wakandan special forces, to prevent Wakanda from being dragged into a world war.

Review
This actually was a really good MCU movie. It's not one of my absolute favorites like Captain America: Civil War, The Avengers, or the first Guardians of the Galaxy. It's a step above your average MCU film like the first two Thor movies. I actually think that this film is probably on the same level as Thor: Ragnarok, but I enjoyed that one a bit more.

Everyone is making a huge deal about this movie, saying that it's great and it's a cultural milestone in Hollywood. Yes, it is really nice to see more diversity in superhero movies now, with Wonder Woman in 2017 and Black Panther in 2018. This is a huge step for Hollywood. We actually have quite a bit of black superhero stuff out right now, we have CW's Black Lightning, Black Panther, and Mark Millar (huh, that's the second review in a row I've mentioned him) is rebooting his comic book series Kick-Ass with a black woman as the protagonist.

We have had some comic book movies with black protagonists, but not many have been as good as this, like in 1997 we had Steel, which wasn't very good, starting in 1998, we had the Blade trilogy, which I have not seen, and in 2004 we had Catwoman, which I have not seen. In 2016 we had Luke Cage on Netflix which I still haven't seen.

This film has a very surprising post credits scene cameo that I will not spoil in case you have not seen it. There was also something that's a bit of a spoiler about the villain Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) that I pretty much found out a few minutes before they announced it.

There was a villain named Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis, who also played the same character in Avengers: Age of Ultron) who was working with Killmonger, and I thought he was going to be the main villain, but he wasn't, it was Killmonger.

Some of the special effects could've been better. There are some scenes, especially in Wakanda, that made me think "oh yeah, that's definitely CGI" and they're not just the lab or the cargo carrying the Vibranium, but the mountains and scenery on Wakanda just looks kinda fake.

This film actually has a bit more political drama than I expected and it actually wasn't boring (looking at you Phantom Menace) like countries sharing their resources, what countries should do rather than what their interested in, stuff like that.

I want to talk about Wakanda. I love how they disguise Wakanda as a poor third world country that is actually very technically advanced, like even more than what Iron Man has. I love the look of Wakanda's technology and I'd like to see more of it if they ever do a sequel.

I also really liked Black Panther's suit in this movie, it's not just his Civil War suit with a few upgrades, it really is upgraded and it's amazing.

The South Korea car chase was really fun, but a bit generic, and the battle near the end was pretty amazing.

The opening action scene I didn't care for, it was a bit too dark and shaky.

Stan Lee has his obligatory cameo in this movie, but it's in the only place he'd fit, which is a casino.

One of the worst jokes in the movie was when T'Challa's sister looks at his sandals and says "what are those?" but I did think the sneakers joke was kinda funny.

Let's talk about the cast. Chadwick Boseman is just as great if not better as T'Challa than he was in Civil War. He is now King of Wakanda in this movie and he is great. He's actually off camera for a little bit of the movie, but I don't want to say why in case you haven't seen it.

Michael B. Jordan is great in here as Killmonger. He's intimidating, you can see where he's coming from, and you can sympathize with him after his backstory. Also don't want to give too much away if you haven't seen it.

Andy Serkis is in here too, talked about him already. He's weird but not in a bad way.

Martin Freeman is really good too. He's actually in it more than I thought he would be. He also reprises his role from Captain America: Civil War, I don't think I mentioned him in my review of that, but he is really good here.

And the rest of Wakanda is really good too, like Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, Daniel Kaluuya and Forrest Whitaker are also pretty great here.

Overall, Black Panther is pretty great in my opinion and a really good installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and a big step for Hollywood. I like Ragnarok a bit better, but I'm gonna give them the same grade. I think this is my favorite of the year so far, but that will most likely change over the year.

Black Panther gets a 9/10

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