Black Panther – Film Review

Black Panther is not only a Marvel MCU film but a political movement that showcases the need to show this perspective on African culture in a positive life in a “what could be” scenario. This world of Wakanda is so well realized from the visuals, the characters that are introduced, to the costumes and overall world building the film does to improve the overall MCU. The characters that stand outs of the film are Shuri (Letitia Wright), Okoye (Danai Gurira) and T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman). Letitia brings out such charasma on screen while the character of Okoye is shown to be a great fighter and a well rounded female character. Chadwick Boseman shows off his talents here as not only the lead but making this new character of T’Challa of his own with so much depth and conflict.

Ryan Coogler does a fantastic job on directing this film to slowly bring the audience on understand what the world of Wakanda is and how it came to be, what the culture is like and the social & political status’ residents live under. One of the highlights of the film is how isolated it is in comparison to other MCU films. It didn’t rely on an audience member having to do homework in order to watch it and it was a breath of fresh air into the universe to bring some new light in an ever growing universe. The cameos and references to other things in the MCU were just enough. Martin Freeman was the fair low level MCU character than can still connect the universe without being an annoying obligatory presence.

Wakanda forever!

This was one of Marvel’s most thought provoking films about political and social culture when it comes to learning from the past and moving forward. I liked what they put as a dynamic between T’Challa and Killmonger on their political ideologies and showing that balance line of future and past. Killmonger is one of the best villains looking back on all the others in comparison with his strong beliefs and reasonings that can’t be dismissed. Though he is a little one dimensional and is truly evil he doesn’t have much of a conflict to do what he has to be done.

My only negatives of the film were mainly were with the beginning pacing of the story. It took awhile for me to get into the film until it got into its “James Bond”-esque approach where it started to become its own. Sometimes the action at the end can be a bit video game like to where you may lose interest because the discussions between Killmonger and T’Challa are more interesting. Overall this is a must watch cultural event that is timely and helpful in bringing the conversation forward when it comes to race relations, movies with people of color in the for front and creating new original fresh stories with new talent.

9.5/10