The Black Panther Movie – A Kinda Late Review

So I saw the Black Panther movie. There was none of that nonsense about going to ‘x-only’ screenings or anything like that (same with literally any other movie here) because I live on a tiny little island and the demographic who want to see this film simply don’t care and just want to watch a movie. But it’s a Marvel movie and my brother was desperate to see it, so we went on cheap Tuesday to watch it.

Basically? It’s a good movie. Not groundbreaking. Not mind-blowing. Not racist or in your face or insensitive or anything like that. It’s a good super hero movie where we learn something at the end and we all live happily ever after. Mostly.

The plot’s probably a bit basic. The best way to describe it is the EXACT story from the Marvel TV show Inhumans, but actually done in such a way so you can relate the character, with enough world building for everything to actually flow and make sense. T’Challa hasn’t been crowned king yet and there’s still enemies out there who threaten Wakanda, and on top of that there’s someone who wants to challenge the throne with their own ideals.

The main battle is isolationism and globalism, with a hint of fight or flight and a large dash of traditionalism versus modernism. Should Wakanda be an isolationist state and ignore all the problems they can fix because they fear the world turning on them, or should they help the world and take the risk of the rest of the world wanting to steal their stuff?

Really, the whole story could have been avoided completely if they’d just sat down and talked to one another.

Aside from story, there’s a lot of great things going on. The casting was excellent, the costume designs were all amazing and the world building was absolutely excellent. Sure, at times things are going to look a bit CGI-y but we don’t have any city-sized cave systems with glowing lights and future-tech trains running through them.

The state of Wakanda fitted in perfectly with the rest of the Marvel universe. It probably isn’t the sort of thing that would happen in our universe, had an African nation ended up with a rare and powerful resource, but in the crazy world of Marvel, it fits in fine. You might find yourself asking just how powerful this Vibranium stuff is and you’ll do need to let go of reality a lot, but the movie’s about a person in a high tech cat suit, suspending your disbelief is required here.

Martin Freeman was good too. Frankly he’s good in almost anything. He did seem rather random but really, I think he was a well-needed character, someone who doesn’t understand all this amazing tech. He’s someone that everyone can relate to because he’s just as blown away and confused as we all are. Could have been played by anyone, but it’s good to have recurring background characters and you can never have too much Arthur Dent.

Any claims of racism and ‘reverse racism’ though are just dumb. Sure, Black Panther does touch on some racial issues (like black people helping or ignoring other black people), but none of that is the actual theme of the movie. Just like Wonder Woman, it’s a fucking superhero movie set in an alternate universe with magicians, aliens, Asgardians and Hulks, people need to get off their high horses and just have some fun.

Honestly I don’t really have that many problems with the movie. Just minor to medium-sized issues that could probably be ignored by someone who’s not bothered by these things.

I think my biggest problem is the lack of a resolution for Killmonger. The thing is, he was right in a way, Wakanda should have tried to help the rest of the planet. The problem was that he was so jaded and broken that he decided to just kill everyone to help ‘his people’ instead. I feel like T’Challa should have sat there and said to him “yes, we haven’t done enough, but we are going to change that and help the rest of the world.” The whole character though was inconsistent, going from “we all came from Africa we’re all your people” to “the world needs to learn about our peaceful ways by force!” to “let’s topple governments!” and it’s… kinda weird. Makes it much harder to relate to him.

That and the fact that the last fight was basically black and purple panther guy versus black and gold panther guy. His suit could have been a little more… imaginative, or at the very least called back to the original suit of armour Killmonger wears at the beginning.

Could have done with WAY more Andy Serkis though. His character was awesome and it’s a shame that he didn’t really get to go anywhere in the movie, with no more development as to who he is or where he came from or anything like that.

Anyway, Black Panther’s a good movie. Overall, the plot is incredibly basic, but the visuals and action are all plenty good. Over-hyped though is a poor way to describe it though, Black Panther is just as good as any other Marvel movie, it tells a decent story, has good acting, has good action scenes, has good CGI and looks amazing to watch.

At the end of the day, you can’t expect every single super hero movie to be like Thor: Ragnarok or Guardians of the Galaxy.