Warning: This is gonna be a long one!
Went to see the latest Marvel movie Black Panther. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? Like many Marvel movies, this movie is good. Somehow they continue to make good, but not great, films. It should be this easy for everyone not to make messes out of movies but apparently it’s not so easy… but for Marvel, they continue to knock it… well.. into the outfield at least.
Black Panther is more-or-less a stand-alone film in the Marvel series so its safe to see if you haven’t seen every previous film. It does follow the events of Captain America: Civil War in that that movie introduced T’Challa, prince of the fictional African nation of Wakanda. Wakanda is a nation secretly rich in the it-does-whatever-we-say-it-does mineral called vibranium. Wakanda, knowing the power of its wealth and technology, chose to close itself off to the world, ignoring all the horrors going on outside (including the slave trade, various world wars, alien invasions, etc.). Never having been conquered or colonized, they have used their vibranium to build a technologically advanced civilization under cover of a holographic shield, sending envoys and spies to keep in touch with what’s going on in the world.
T’Challa, the Black Panther, is crowned king at the start of the movie and has to contend with factions who want different things for the nation. This is the theme and central premise of the movie… what is the responsibility of a nation to its neighbors. Should it remain an isolationist nation (Wakanda First, in a weird disturbing sort of way), should it aide other nations, let in refugees, etc…. or should it conquer.
The first thing to know about this movie is that it’s not really a superhero film at all. It’s partly an espionage film, partly a political film, and partly a film about royalty and rules of ascension. In many ways, it’s a lot more like the first Marvel “Thor” film, which was more a Shakespearean drama about kings and princes (while also being a fish-out-of-water comedy). This isn’t a criticism, though it is a bit of a warning if you are just super-hyped about superheroes only. There’s actually not a lot of action set pieces in the flick. I think maybe just two and neither are amazing to look at and aren’t anything you haven’t seen before. They are competent, sometimes interesting, and sometimes fun.
So if it’s not a great superhero / action film, it had better be good at what it’s trying to be. And it IS a good and complex film about politics. These politics are born from both the story, the location, and the characters and are what the movie’s about without it feeling too much like A Great Big Message. Great Big Messages are the kind of things that a movie stops to lecture you about… usually something you already know. This movie can’t and doesn’t stop because these politics are central to itself. It couldn’t exists in it current form without them.
I say it’s complex because people can come away understanding the positions on issues everyone takes. In fact, there are some people who march in the streets at g8 summits in favor of bringing down the system who would totally side with the villain, making Black Panther the villain in his own movie. And there are others whose heads will explode at the movie’s politics and, you know, the fact its cast is both predominantly black and female. *gasp*
Yes, Black Panther is the hero of the movie but he’s surrounded by some bad-ass women of color. Lupita Nyong’o plays the master spy, Danai Gurira (Michonne in Walking Dead) plays the captain of the royal guard, and newcomer Letitia Wright is T’Challa’s wise-ass sister and very own Q, master of gadgets. Angela Basset plays their mom. All the talk of representation for black actors should not hide the fact black females are, combined, a bigger star then the lead. They do a good job, especially Letitia Wright who I need to see in more movies stat.
Chadwick Boseman returns as the Black Panther and he’s good as usual. He’s joined by Forest Whitaker, Daniel Kaluuya (from Get Out and recent Academy Award nominations), Sterling K. Brown, Andy Serkis as the evil and maniacal and totally having-all-the-fun Dr. Clau, and Martin Freeman as Everett Ross, the CIA agent he’s played in a few earlier Marvel films. Serkis and Freeman are the only white actors with speaking lines and it has been joked that, in this movie about Africa with a huge black cast, they are the Tolkien whites (because they were both in the Hobbit films… HAR!)
Michael B. Jordan brings his charisma and his A game as the villain of the flick… Erik Killmonger (thankfully, a nickname… what with all the people’s he’s killed fighting America’s wars). He’s one of the better Marvel villains, due in part to how good an actor he is and the swagger he brings to the roll. Michael B. Jordan (no relation) is a great actor as he has shown in films like Fruitville Station and Creed. It’s interesting seeing how he turns that charisma to a villainous roll. Unfortunately, he is missing from large swathes of the movie. He does get just enough to say to see why he wants what he wants… but I wanted more. More time with him in flashbacks to show just why he’s so angry at the world. Perhaps just knowing he grew up in Oakland, CA in the early 90s is meant to be shorthand. I dunno.
This is one big budget movie about Africa that barely blinks at your Europes or your Americas. It has given a lot of important, not token screen time to black actors who get to do interesting, smart, and exciting things that have nothing to do with street crime, gangs, or drugs. The number of times Hollywood gives us black characters with a troubled past is tiresome. The new season of 24, for example, gave us a black superspy character to replace Jack Bauer… and he immediately turned to his drug lord brother in LA for help, for example.
So, yes, I think this is a good, solid movie that plays better not being a superhero movie. It’s not a great movie in my book but I do appreciate its importance. Yes, I’m a little mixed in my feelings. I want to praise it for daring and representation… for making an estimated $200 million dollar movie about African heroes, princes, and warriors… and I do. I just wish it was a better overall movie. At no point was I bored or worried it was going to get worse somehow but, at the end, I also wished it had raised to the heights of its ambition. Its good for its ideas and its acting… but never goes that extra mile, it doesn’t have that extra oomph.
Still, a good, solid film.
Score: 83