New Release! Black Panther (2018)

Spoiler-Free Section! Don't Panic.

Director: Ryan Coogler

It may not be among the very best fantasy/action movies ever, but Black Panther is easily the most wonderfully unique superhero movie yet put on screen.

Part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and introduced in 2016's Captain America: Civil War, the title character's real name is T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman), crown prince in the tiny, fictitious African country of Wakanda. To the rest of the world, Wakanda is a poor nation which has virtually no dealings with the international community. However, the truth is that Wakanda possesses technology so incredibly advanced that it puts the rest of the planet to shame. To avoid undue attention due to their otherworldly rescources, Wakanda has hidden itself for centuries behind a large cloaking shield, appearing from the outside like an undeveloped rainforest. Not long before the events of this movie, Wakanda's previous king was murdered, leaving T'Challa to claim the throne and continue his ancestors' rule over their country. A great aid to Wakanda's kings is the ubiquitous presence of the ultra-rare metal vibranium, which also leads to the growth of a special herb which can grant its consumer amazingly enhanced strength, speed, and senses, thus creating the protector persona of "The Black Panther." A serious threat emerges, however, when T'Challa pursues Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis), an arms dealer who has escaped Wakandan justice for decades. Working with Klaue is the mysterious mercenary Erik "Killmonger" Stevens, who has eyes on the Wakandan throne, a plan to take it, and a dark vision for how to use Wakanda's vastly superior technology.

Right off, I'll point out the two things that could have been a bit better with the film, though there aren't many. As an action/adventure story, the fight and action sequences were solid but nothing terribly special. This is in keeping with other MCU movies, which often don't standout with their action or fight choreography, with only a few exceptions such as several sequences in The Avengers and nearly any of the brilliant fight scenes in the second and third Captain America films: The Winter Soldier and Civil War. They're decent, but don't capture my attention as much as they probably could. One exception is a thrilling bar fight followed by a pursuit sequence along the streets of Busan, South Korea, where T'Challa's chief general and bodyguard Okoye (Dania Gurira) completely owns the screen with her tough and willful demeanor and physicality. Aside from this, the action was simply adequate, perhaps partially due to a slight overuse of CGI.

The second is that I felt that not enough time is given over to exploring the main villain, Erik Killmonger. In some ways, which I'll get into in the spoiler section below, he is impressively unique in the MCU. However, a little more time in his background, and perhaps even a little more nuance to his character, might have gone a longer way towards building the sense of the threat which he poses throughout the movie. The film is not short, clocking in at 134 minutes, but I wouldn't have minded another ten or so minutes following Killmonger's past or even his current path to dominate Wakanda. As it is, I felt that his scheme and its ramifications unfold a bit too quickly to be have maximum impact for the story. And while he is a villain who represents something deeper than any past MCU villain, who tend to be rather dull, he is presented in a mostly one-note way that becomes stale not long after the character truly emerges.

T'Challa, flanked by spy master Nakia (left) and his fiercest
general and bodyguard Okoye) right. The CGI is a bit too
heavy for my tastes, but the diversity of intriguing characters
far outweighs any aesthetic shortcomings of the film.

Those two area aside, Black Panther is an amazing entry into the MCU for several reasons. The most obvious, and the one which is rightfully getting so much attention, is that this movie is the very first big-budget action/adventure movie, superhero or not, to be completely dominated by African-descended artists. From the director right on down through the writers and cast, we see black people in charge of everything. And the story bears the same long-overdue characteristic. Yes, there have been plenty of movies that focused on Africans and African-descended peoples before, but any large-scale production of them has always had them in the role of victim and the oppressed. And while such stories have certainly needed to be told, Black Panther represents a great acheivement in providing a great adventure tale in which Africans are in positions of great power, and the story is not about dealing with subordination at the hands of others. Rather, it is almost Shakespearian in its themes of responsibility of leadership, and the consequences of turning one's back on those less fortunate. At every turn of this movie, it is black people who are in control, and they all make it thoroughly clear that they have long had their own stories to tell.

Not stopping at moving the MCU a quantum leap forward in terms of black representation, another inspiring aspect is the movie's inclusion of many strong female characters. According to the mythology of the fictional Wakanda, the royal bodyguards are all women warriors who also serve as Wakanda's special forces units. Their general, Okoye, is as bad-ass a character as you're going to find in the MCU. Though she doesn't possess any superpowers, seeing her fighting skills and vibranium-strength determination are worth the price of admission. And lest that not be enough, T'Challa's younger sister Shuri (Letitia Wright), is a scientific genius who oversees Wakanda's unparalleled science corps. A witty and playful presence, she is just as important to T'Challa's success as any powers or political position he possesses.

This brings me to perhaps a less obvious but more profound characteristic of the movie: it's always about far more than its title character. This might seem obvious until one thinks about it a bit more. All superhero movies thus far have been about a single person or an ensemble "team." All of the MCU movies and most other superhero films are about a lone person - a Tony Stark, Bruce Wayne, Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner, and on and on - who undergoes some physical, emotional, or mental change and sets out to help or change the world. Black Panther, however, is different. It is not about some lone vigilante doing what he thinks it right - it is about a very capable young leader who is constantly, from the very first scenes of the movie, thinking about his country and its people. His fate is not separate from theirs - they are all tightly interwoven, so that as he goes, so goes his beloved Wakanda, and vice-versa. This is illustrated throughout the movie's tale, as evidenced by just how important the secondary characters are. His general Okoye, Wakandan spy and former love Nadia, his sister Shuri, his brother W'Kabi, and so many others are all more invested in T'Challa's success than any group of secondary characters in any superhero movie that I can think of. And this is to say nothing of the even larger theme of isolationism, which is a subject with a real-world relevence only matched in the MCU by The Winter Soldier and its themes of geopolitics and global surveillance.

The icing on this rather rich cake of superhero movie novelties is that the movie is mostly a joy to look at. Though it is disconcertingly dark and shadow-laden in its first few sequences, the film soon burst to vibrant life, featuring dazzling colors and landscapes. The costumes, blends of traditional African clothing from various tribes and ethnic groups with creative modern wear, are enjoyable to take in. The Panther's costume is one of the best in the MCU, relatively simple as it is. The set designers also did some fascinating things to create the Wakandan capital city, creating a sort of Blade Runner type blend of futuristic and worn-in traditional city features, only in the far sunnier and pleasant setting of the gorgeous plains, hills, and mountains of Africa. To go along with the lush visuals is the most novel soundtrack yet offered in a major superhero movie. Along with musical genius Mark Mothersbaugh's quirky, techno-sci-fi score for Thor: Ragnarok last November, the soundtrack and score for Black Panther is a unique mix of traditional African sounds and modern hip-hop, much of it crafted by current "it guy" rapper Kendrick Lamar.

Black Panther really is worthy of the hype. Even if it does not do the action/adventure elements of superhero movies to the highest quality, it breaks so much new ground in skilled ways that it will forever stand as a touchstone for fantasy and action/adventure movies to come, showing that these are not landscapes only for white Westerners. Not by a longshot.

I would have preferred a few more scenes such as this one,
although where tempers are running just a tad cooler. It would
have allowed Killmonger's purpose to take on a bit more
weight than his always-seething rage ever allows. 

Spoiler-Laden Section. You've Been Warned

A few additional thoughts on specifics:

To continue my thoughts on the Erik "Killmonger" character - his arc was simultaneously thrilling in its depth but frustrating in its lack of detailed development. As the narrative unfolds and we learn that Killmonger is the son of the former king's brother, who was slain for arguably well-intentioned treason, we understand why he is so enraged and on his mission to wrest the throne away from T'Challa. And actor Michael B. Jordan plays the righteous anger part exceptionally well. He is, with every word and step, all menacing swagger and frightening visionary. However, I felt that an opportunity was missed to completely humanize him. We learn that he grew up an orphan on the rough streets of 1990s Oakland, and the poverty and depravation that he lived and saw fueled his desire to rise through the ranks of the U.S. military and become a highly effective black ops assassin. But the scenes with him never slow down enough to show him as anything more than a seething ball of rage. This is a character who has obviously thought his plan through and been working through it for literally decades. We must infer that he is smart and calculating, but also that he feels immense pain at a sense of abandonment by his ancenstral country. The anger is all there on the screen, but the deep pain that must reside in his heart never is. I think that this is where I would like to have seen just a little more time, even just a scene or two, where Killmonger is not just raging at all of the Wakandans whom he confronts, but rather lays out clear, well-reasoned grievances at their feet. There is a bit of this, but I feel more would have served the character and story a bit better.

I was quite impressed with the use of the lone "connector" character to the broader MCU, American C.I.A. agent Everett Ross (Martin Freeman). Ross was introduced, along with T'Challa, in Civil War, and then was presented mostly as a somewhat arrogant figure. In Black Panther, he is used to nice effect, only becoming the "outsider" to Wakanda later in the film, and never becoming any sort of lens through which white viewers like myself are supposed to see and understand the world of Wakandan's people and rich culture. And Ross, while providing more than a few laughs, never devolves into mere comic relief. We learn that, before becoming a C.I.A. agent, he had been an air force pilot - a background which eventually allows him to lend a hand to T'Challa's people in their grand fight against Killmonger.

I'll admit that I was hoping for the post-credits scene to include Steve Rogers, as we've neither seen nor heard of his whereabouts since Civil War. While that didn't happen, we got almost the next best thing, and it was great to see Bucky Barnes brought out of his voluntary coma and presumably nursed back to health by Shuri. It's not as strong a teaser for Infinity War as the end of Thor: Ragnarok, but a decent one all the same.