+ Most Overrated Movie of the Year
 |
| Ensconced in dark-blue metallic, futuristic designs, this poster for Ryan Coogler's Black Panther highlights the film's main characters |
The African nation of Wakanda, who enjoy a secluded life in technological bliss due to their natural resource, vibranium, has a new, kind monarch in T'Challa. But the kingdom is shaken, when a stranger emerges to claim the throne.
Black Panther is the 18th Marvel Cinematic Universe film and the first in what is destined to become its own franchise within the franchise. It is written by Joe Robert Cole (Amber Lake (2011)) and great Californian co-writer-director Ryan Coogler (Creed (2015)), whose third picture this is, based on the Marvel comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
Chadwick Boseman (Persons Unknown (2010), TV-series) has the timbre and soft, sensitive eyes that make him ideal for the title character. Martin Freeman (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016)) as a CIA operative and especially Andy Serkis (King Kong (2005)) as a wild-man villain are good, the film's only Caucasian characters. Everyone else is African-American, making this tentpole stand out and feel a bit like an inverted huge movie, since it is most often the ethnic minorities who find themselves with just two smaller roles.
SPOILER Serkis is killed off, which is a bit of a shame since he's so damn electric and enjoyable to watch; but he is, and it is to open up for Black Panther's main villain, played by Michael B. Jordan (Fantastic Four (2015)), who is certainly the sexiest villain in recent memory here. The two lead opponents naturally fight, but the film's more thrilling fight scenes are the ones with its female characters: Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave (2013)), Danai Gurira (Restless City (2011)) and especially Letitia Wright (Cucumber (2015), TV-series) (who is actually from Guyana) make the younger women characters come to vivid and enjoyable life here.
The film benefits from a cool score by Ludwig Göransson (Central Intelligence (2016)) who traveled to Senegal and South Africa and recorded musicians for it.
There's an it-vibe and enormous hype surrounding Black Panther at the moment, especially in North America, where it may almost seem like the film is going to cure cancer and end all wars. So groundbreaking is its reversal of the ethnic representations over there, and some of this hyperbole is not just bordering on ridiculous but just plain ridiculous.
The excitement for Black Panther is palpable, but the film talks especially to the African-American audience and their feelings and frustrations, not least in the Jordan character's motivations for his plan of an essentially militaristic revenge campaign on the Western world for its past misdeeds in Africa. - The film's connection to the actual African peoples and their plights now and in the past are far more elusive:
- In the film's first act, some of the young women around T'Challa want Wakanda to start helping refugees in their region. - Despite Wakanda's overwhelmingly developed situation, helping their neighboring African nations with issues of refugees and devastating famine, as has killed millions for the past century, apparently hasn't been on the radar until now that we meet them today.
- Issues of Africa's unique wildlife and its extinction from poaching, pollution and overpopulation is also non-existing in Black Panther, SPOILER in which the only wildlife we meet are rhinos that help one of Wakanda's tribes in battle and well-behaved obey the sound of their whistles.
In this way Black Panther is still a standard action-adventure film for the urbanized Western ex-African (and everyone else) more so than the actual peoples of Africa, whose problems it largely neglects, (and who are also not likely to beat up the film's gross, a pivotal point for a film as expensive as this.) So Black Panther is best enjoyed without thinking too much about the actual realities of Africa, which, however, is a relevant criticism of this particular film. - We can always hope the sequel dares a bolder relevance.
The film is also overlong. But it undeniably has thrilling sequences, a good story and a tempting freshness and sense of idealism about it: SPOILER For instance; what other superhero tentpole ends with the enthusiastic planning of opening an outreach center?
Related posts:
Ryan Coogler: 2018 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2018 in films - according to Film Excess
Fruitvale Station (2013) - Well-meaning issue drama heightened by stars Michael B. Jordan and Octavia Spencer
Watch an IMAX trailer for the film here
Cost: 200 mil. $
Box office: 520 mil. $ and counting
= Too early to say (but already a box office success)
[Black Panther premiered 29 January (Los Angeles) and runs 134 minutes. Wesley Snipes was aiming to star in a Black Panther film from 1992 on, but the project never materialized. Marvel approached Ava DuVernay to direct the film, but she exited as she found they did not "see eye to eye" about the film. Shooting took place in Argentina, South Korea, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Georgia, including Atlanta, from January - April 2017. The film is released in 3D, IMAX and 2D formats and opened #1 with a 202 mil. $ first weekend and a record-breaking 242.1 mil. $ over the full 4-day Presidents' Day weekend, the 2nd best 4-day opening ever, trailing Star Wars: The Force Awakens' (2015) 288 mil. $. Black Panther is likely to end up as one of the top-grossing films of the year. It opens in Russia 26 Feb., Japan 1 Mar. and China 9 Mar., its last announced market. Boseman returns in Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Marvel's next blockbuster. Coogler returns with Wrong Answer, again starring Jordan, and is also in talks for a Black Panther sequel. Black Panther is certified fresh at 97 % with an 8.2 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Black Panther?
