[8.1/10] Black Panther doesn’t have the aura of a Marvel Cinematic Universe film. Yes, it has the allies and enemies we’ve met in prior movies like Age of Ultron and Civil War. It has the jovial vibe among its main cast. And it has the mandatory, climactic third act battle, draped in CGI and the usual fanfare.
But it also stands apart from the rest of the MCU’s offerings. It is unabashedly Afrocentric in its focus and its approach. It is a plainly political film, meditating on the legacy of colonialism, the oppression of people of color around the world, and the push and pull of isolationism vs. global activism. Though squeezed into the standard, three act superhero structure, Black Panther takes its audience to a different space, one untouched by the rest of the world and, in some ways, untouched by the broader cinematic universe the film acts in concert with.
It is a uniquely, profoundly black take on the modern superhero film, one long overdue, if for no other reason than how it breathes new life into the familiar formula. There’s nothing wrong with comic book movies hitting certain standard notes of uncertainty, challenge, and self-realization. But Black Panther is a cinematic argument for broadening the franchise, showing the renewed, distinctive character these common stories take on, when they’re told from a fully-formed, confident, and different perspective.
That distinct atmosphere is the best thing about the film, alongside the clear camaraderie among its cast and characters. No hero is an island these days, and while the title character has a notable arc that’s done well, the most enjoyable portions of the movie emerge when the plot mechanics of that arc are set aside for Black Panther to chat, spark, and laugh with his tech-wiz sister Shuri (Letitia Wright), his altruistic ex Nakia (Lupita Nyong'o), and his fierce, principled guard Okoye (Danai Gurira). So much of these films depends on the chemistry and connection between the people the audience is asked to spend two hours with, and Black Panther soars on that front, building a rapport among those core characters that carries the day.
At the same time, Chadwick Boseman gives one of the best dramatic performances to grace a Marvel film. Thematically, the film centers on the notion of whether someone with a kind heart but also uncertainty about how and where to guide his people can be a good leader, and Boseman brings the inherent decency and heft to make these ideas land.
Black Panther constantly puts its title character between conflicting choices and impulses. T’Challa has to balance his inherent sense of mercy, shown to the leader of a challenging tribe, with his desire to deliver swift justice, shown when he threatens enemy of the state Ulysses Klaue in public. He has to reconcile his deep love for his father and his deep respect for his people’s traditions with his growing realizations that his forebears were men, not gods, who made mistakes, and that his homeland may need to change and evolve. He must square his country’s tradition of isolation, with the competing calls to share the nation’s wealth and knowledge in order to help those in need, or to use those resources to bring down the oppressors around the world who keep them in that state.
If there’s one area where Black Panther excels, it’s in creating a central character who’s pulled in multiple directions, on multiple dimensions, leaving him unsure what path to take and what sort of man to be, until the right direction is forged in fires of challenge and hardship. The film is a political story, a cultural story, a family story, and a personal story.
It’s just that Coogler and co-writer Joe Robert Cole seem not particularly interested in it being a superhero story. That’s not necessarily a problem. Films as tonally diverse as Logan and Deadpool have shown you can use the superhero framework to craft a multitude of different films with different approaches within the superhero framework. But there’s a sense in Black Panther that the comic book-y elements are perfunctory, that Coogler and Cole had a compelling story to tell about legacy, power, and obligation, couldn’t tell it without including the de jure superhero fireworks.
Black Panther is at its best when it shows its title character confronting his responsibilities as a citizen, son, and leader, or finding strength, challenge, and affection among his friends and family. And it’s at its weakest when it shows him punching and kicking those things in comic book movies that inevitably must be punched and kicked.
At times, Coogler and director of photography Rachel Morrison capture the same sort of raw intensity of combat that hews close to a boxing match from Creed. The close quarters combat of the challenges for leadership are tight and visceral, giving an immediate sense of the personalities clashing at the same time bodies are, and a digitally-stitched but nominally unbroken action sequence early in the film has the energy and fluidity of a splash page. But too often, the film’s fight sequences are a big jumble, edited to bits and nigh-impossible to follow from one blow to the next. Worse yet, the CGI is especially in these sequence -- digital characters move without weight, animated creatures and vehicles disrupt the immersion of a scene, and climactic fights between fully computer-generated figures in a computer-generated world feel like gameplay clips pulled from Mortal Kombat.
Despite the strength of the story that ends in that skirmish, the film ostensibly breaks little new ground in terms of its narrative. Notably, Marvel’s own Thor trilogy covers much of the same territory, from the prince questioning his place as king, to far off lands debating the appropriate level of engagement with the outside world, to unruly yet sympathetic relatives with an appetite to conquer angling for the throne.
But what makes Black Panther so refreshing is the perspective from which it approaches this material. There is a richness to the cultural wellspring that Coogler and his team draw from, one underutilized in big budget filmmaking. The film is rife with different hues, different pleasures and sore sports, that inform the movie’s sensibilities even as it applies them to the smash-and-then-find-yourself routine that the Marvel origin movies have nigh-perfected at this point.
It’s the critic’s crutch to see a film’s story as a metaphor for the film itself. And yet it’s hard not to see parallels between the story of T’Challa deciding to bring Wakanda into the rest of the world, and Coogler deciding to bring his Black Panther into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. One of the wonderful things about the MCU is the way that it can create a cohesive sense of place among different films, and foster the sense, through minor easter eggs and the occasional team-up, that all of these events are taking place in the same world.
But despite having a few of those continuity nods and connections, Black Panther feels like it occupies a world all its own, one full of its own color, character, and vibrancy. At the end of the movie, T’Challa opts for outreach, he decides to open Wakanda’s borders, and share his nation’s knowledge and culture with the world. With this film, Ryan Coogler & Co. do the same for Marvel, telling their own story in their own, but also bringing such a distinctiveness and a specificity to it that makes the world of these films a deeper, richer, better place for Black Panther’s presence within it.
I've been quite tentative on recent Spike Lee outings, maybe he doesn't have it any more I said.
I watched the trailer for this and knew I had already been proving wrong.
The story of 4 black soldiers who served in Vietnam going back to reclaim many things they lost, love, gold and much more.
While the cast was all excellent, Delroy Lindo as Paul STOLE the show in what is probably his greatest performance.
From the very start you can tell he's a PTSD powder keg ready to explode and boy does he ever.
The hurt, the anger, the bitterness, even the psychosis is on full display as he presents to the audience a truly broken man, if he's not atleast up for an oscar it will be highway robbery.
Chadwick Boseman shines in what is slightly more than a cameo as Stormin Norman.
I'm assuming they shot on location in Vietnam, if not they did a heck of a job recreating vietnam because everything looks very authentic, especially the jungles.
Lastly even though there's not a whole lot of it, the gore effects are SUPERB, there's one scene and you'll know when you see it where someone dies and it's just disgusting yet beautiful at the same time.
The acapella Marvin Gaye soundtrack interwoven with real life solders who wouldn't otherwise get mention was the cherry on top.
Bravo to all involved, Spike Lee is back.
Saw Black Panther last night and I definitely enjoyed it. It wasn't earth shatteringly good, but it was a very nice change-of-pace from the usual superhero movies, especially those coming from Marvel. The entire setting of Wakanda was just amazingly done and is honestly the real star of the film. Black Panther has got its whole own mythos, culture, and set of vibes/themes that really sets it apart from the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I really dug the entire look and feel of the movie.
The story was pretty solid as well. Very-Shakespearean as others have described with family, betrayal, royalty, etc. I liked what they did in terms of the villain with Michael B. Jordan and how things progressed, but I feel like just a little something was missing in the last third of the movie or so. Perhaps the conflict could have allowed to develop a bit more intensely, and then we could have gotten a story that was truly special. Instead, we get a solid redemption story type thing at the end. I don't really know what could have been added or changed to the story (that's why I'm not directing a multimillion dollar movie), but I feel like something truly epic could have materialized (albeit time restraints are a real thing as well).
Anyway, Black Panther was still a great movie, and very much part of its own universe. I actually liked this path that Marvel took for Black Panther by limiting the Marvel cameos and trailers/lead-ins to other movies as much as possible, and rather focusing on the characters and people of THIS movie. It's kind of like the opposite of what happened with Spider-man: Homecoming. Definitely go and try to check this movie out. if you can get a ticket... :P
I have a feeling this movie, when all is said and done, will be underrated. It would be easy to consider this movie less than it is: a good action sci-fi film, as good as anything from the Marvel Cinematic Universe with performances on the strong side and deliberate, cool filmmaking on the part of directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman.
Project Power (2020) is a worthy follow-up to 2016's Nerve, another high-concept thriller that seemed like it was adapted from a young adult novel. Joost and Schulman have certain tics. They like for their protagonists to ride motorcycles. They distinguish their films through blinding neons and high color saturation. And above all, they have a penchant for that saccharine sentimentality some might call “heart.” Without question, Project Power has that in spades.
Both Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are underutilized as leading men in these kinds of lightweight action thrillers. Gordon-Levitt seems to be doing his best imitation of his character from Premium Rush (2012) and Foxx finds his groove somewhere between Django Unchained (2012) and Baby Driver (2017). Clearly these gentlemen are having a blast. But Dominique Fishback also delivers a compelling performance, showing the chops to break out from the unquestionably young adult trappings of this film into something that will put her substantial acting prowess to good use.
Joost and Schulman have a phenomenal talent for stylish, kinetic action. Each of the film's fight scenes is creative, not just in how they are choreographed but also how they are filmed. This is every bit a step up from their prior work, but still comfortably in their lane.
Overall, I find Project Power to be an impressive film that is a cut above most Netflix exclusive offerings. It is a fine work of genre filmmaking and might have a little under the hood. I'd happily watch a Fishback, Foxx, and Gordon-Levitt led franchise, but it doesn't look like that's a certain outcome here. Nonetheless, this is a better class of modern B movie, the kind of pulp we deserve.
