Great Villains! Compelling Story! Old Memes! WAKANDA FOREVER!

As a massive comic book fanboy nerd loser, I am absolutely stoked that I’m growing up during the age of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and that I got to see the first ever Black Panther movie in cinemas. I say this so that anyone who doesn’t love comic book characters as much as I do understands my bias when reading this review. There are most probably more problems in this film than I have found purely due to how excited I am that this film even exists. That being said, let’s review it. Surprise! I really enjoyed this film. However, this wasn’t just on the level of most other Marvel movies as it was more than just a superhero flick, it was a movie about the political imbalance of an African nation, which also managed to comment on important issues and build a believable and fun world. It does so many things differently yet manages to balance it so well with the Marvel Universe tropes and necessities that nothing seems glaringly out of place as some things did in say Thor: Ragnarok. The cast of Black Panther is stacked with talent. Chadwick Boseman embodies T’Challa, a character I’ve always adored, and gives him such regality but also vulnerability. Letitia Wright as his genius sister is amazing and I hope she will step into Mr. Stark’s shoes as the Avengers’ tech expert when Robert Downey Jr. Inevitably leaves Marvel. M’Baku is a surprise stand out character too, with a compelling performance from the tallest man you’ve ever seen, Winston Duke. But what makes this movie stand above the rest in terms of characters are the villains. Now we all know Marvel has trouble making baddies that don’t

completely suck but Michael B. Jordan as comic classic Erik Killmonger absolutely smashes it. He’s the kind of villain that you love because he’s kind of right but hate because he goes way overboard in the execution of his idea. Not only do we have Killmonger though, we have the return of Ulysses Klau from 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, played by the hilarious Andy Serkis, who has the best joke in the whole film. Speaking of jokes, we know that as a Marvel film it’s going to have some jokes, the problem is whether or not they fit the film and if they are good jokes. Unfortunately, the jokes in Black Panther are a bit sub par (apart from Klau’s SoundCloud joke, which is great). There’s one moment where Shirai, Letitia Wright’s character, quotes an ancient, decrepit old meme by shouting “what are those!” at a pair of shoes T’Challa wears. That’s the standard of comedy in this film. Luckily though, the jokes are kept to a minimum for this film and so I can endure the one or two bad ones that slipped in.

I kind of wish that they hadn’t shown us any Wakanda tech or given us any hint to the magnificence of Wakanda until we arrived their, I think that would have had a bigger impact because the design for Wakanda is so brilliant it would have been cool to have been a little more blown away by it than we were. The film really hammered it into us what Wakanda was before we even saw it, which is a bit of a shame. The only other problem was some wonky CGI moments but they didn’t really hurt the film for me. Everything but these issues was fantastic. Even the music, which I didn’t particularly enjoy as an album on its own, was awesome as it gave audiences a well needed break from the same old orchestral score that sounds the same to every other big adventure film in existence. I had a blast with this film, a great cast, great story, action and music with a huge splash of cultural significance to wash it all down with. This panther has some beautifully pointy teeth and I can’t wait to see them shine some more in Avenger’s: Infinity War next month.