Black Panther Review

It's time again to review yet another entry in the illustrious Marvel Cinematic Universe. The 18th entry. Can you believe it? This is the 18th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe! Talk about a successful franchise! And not only is this the 18th movie in this franchise, but this going to be the 18th successful movie in the franchise and might become one of Marvel's biggest hits yet. The previous 17 movies have combined for a whopping $5.3 billion at the domestic box office and $13.6 billion at the worldwide box office. These are franchise numbers that the world hasn't seen. Like, literally. It's the highest grossing franchise ever at the worldwide box office. Next up is Star Wars with $9.1 billion, Harry Potter with $7.7 billion, James Bond with $7.1 billion and Lord of the Rings (including The Hobbit movies) with $5.9 billion. And the crazy thing is that it doesn't appear that we're even close to slowing down. Last night "Black Panther" earned $25.2 million in Thursday night previews, the second highest ever for the MCU, and is looking for a four-day President's Day weekend around $200 million. And that's in the non-summer month of February that has only seen one other movie ("Deadpool" in 2016) even top $100 million for opening weekend.

Before I dive into my thoughts on the movie, I want to discuss this crazy phenomenon that "Black Panther" is about to become at the box office. Up to this point in the MCU, the solo introduction movies haven't exactly been the money makers. "The Incredible Hulk" opened to $55.4, "Ant-Man" opened to $57.2 million, "Captain America: The First Avenger" opened to $65.1 million, "Thor" opened to $65.7 million, Doctor Strange opened to $85.1 million, "Guardians of the Galaxy" opened to $94.3 million and "Iron Man" opened to $98.6 million. Those are all of our solo introduction movies in the MCU. "Spider-Man: Homecoming" is more of a unique situation because that was the sixth Spider-Man movie since 2002, but even that was only $117.0 million. All of the others that opened higher were sequels or Avengers movies. So it's rather incredible that "Black Panther" will essentially be doing Avengers numbers. There's only a handful of non-sequels that have even topped $100 million on opening weekend and "Black Panther" could be the highest grossing of them all if it can manage to top last year's "Beauty and the Beast" ($174.8 million). Next up is "The Hunger Games" ($152.5 million), "Suicide Squad" ($133.7 million) and "Deadpool" ($132.4 million).

So why is "Black Panther" opening that high? Well, you could definitely point to his very successful introduction in "Captain America: Civil War" as at least one factor. Without that, I'm not so sure the awareness for the character would be as high given that he's a slightly obscure comic book character, at least when compared to your Batman, Superman and Spider-Mans of the world. And of course, Disney and Marvel being confident enough to give it a worldwide premier at the end of January helped a lot with the enormously positive buzz over the last few weeks as it's received nearly unanimous praise since that release. A well-received Marvel movie will capture a lot of people's attention. But there's something more significant here that's helped this movie achieve the ultimate sweet spot with audiences and that is the cultural significance of this movie. This is a high-budgeted superhero movie led by a black superhero with a mostly black cast being released in black history month in 2018. I hesitate to call this revolutionary. He's not the first black superhero. He's not the first black superhero with his own movie. And this isn't the first movie with a mostly black cast and black director. But much like "Wonder Woman" last year, this is a defining movie for the genre.

I don't think that this is something that should be lost on us. Sure, characters like Falcon and War Machine exist in the MCU itself. But they are mainly side character and aren't popular enough characters to warrant their own movie. And yes, fans of the Blade trilogy will be quick to remind you that calling "Black Panther" the first black superhero movie is not accurate. But yet there's something special about "Black Panther." The size the production. The accessibility to mainstream audiences. The timing of the release in a very progressive modern era. The superhero genre for so many years has been dominated by these white, male superheroes that certain minorities, ethnic groups and genders have been left in the dust. That's why "Wonder Woman" was such a big hit last year. We finally got a female-led superhero movie that was actually worth watching. Girls around the world, young and old, but especially young, now have a superhero for them to look up to. The number of girls who went dressed as Wonder Woman at Halloween was astronomical compared to previous years because of how culturally significant the movie was, especially with the "Me Too" movement going strong. Women can be strong and powerful. They can make a difference in the world. That was a powerful notion.

Following on the heels of "Moonlight" and "Get Out," which were other culturally significant movies for the black community in their own ways, "Black Panther" now gives the black community their own superhero to look up to. And not just one fighting as a sidekick to Captain America and Iron Man. But one who is leading the charge. Even though I myself am a white, male American who has been spoiled for so many years and thus really don't know how it feels to be oppressed, I have all the respect in the world for "Black Panther" being the superhero movie that millions of people around the world can now connect with on a different level that I can't fully comprehend. Thus I want to tread lightly here with this review because I totally understand how culturally significant this movie is for many people. But I have to give you my personal opinion of this movie that I watched last night. You can choose to praise me for my honesty or stone me for being "insensitive," but as my own personal rule, a movie has to be more than just culturally significant for me to enjoy it. The movie itself has to be good. I praised "Wonder Woman" to the high heavens, not just because it was a female-led superhero movie, but because it also felt like classic DC. And I grew up loving DC.

If I'm being honest, "Black Panther" as a movie didn't quite hit the sweet spot for me like previous Marvel movies have. You can blame it on me being a white, male American if you'd like. And I'm not going to argue with you. But I like to blame on me being extra picky after watching 17 of these MCU movies before going in. And that's not to mention all of the other superhero movies from the other studios that are trying to replicate Marvel's success. The market has been oversaturated with superhero movies in the last 10 years. Even though it's not difficult for me to enjoy the genre, I've also come to the point where the novelty of seeing a superhero movie on screen has worn off and I've thus become a lot more picky. You can get mad at me for being super picky if you'd like. Tell me that I should stop being so critical and just enjoy the movie. But the advantages of being picky is that occasionally a movie will come around that will do everything I want it to do. Thus I feel I'm rewarded for being picky when movies like "Logan," "Wonder Woman" or even "Thor: Ragnarok" roll around because I enjoy those a lot more than I may have otherwise if I had just blindly enjoyed every superhero movie that graced my eyes as if they're all flawless masterpieces.

Carefully setting aside the color of Black Panther's skin, his arc in "Civil War" was phenomenal. That's what engaged me. That's what I was excited to see. His father, the king of Wakanda, was killed in an explosion and because of that, he spent the movie on a revenge plot, seeking out the killer. And in the end he could've had his revenge, but he realized that he was bigger than that. That was beautiful. I loved who he was and what he stood for. It was one of my favorite parts of "Civil War." Thus I was excited to see the next part in his story as he went back home to Wakanda and now had to take over as king. I immediately became immersed in this country of Wakanda. The development thanks to the vibranium was fascinating and the visuals were breathtaking. But for the first half of the movie, we didn't do a whole lot. We hung out in Wakanda. We officially made T'Challa the new king. We set up Ulysses Klaue and Erik Killmonger, the two main villains, as being up to no good. We set up a few other story arcs, teasing us that something was going to happen with them. Eventually. Then we went on a bit of a goose chase and through it all, I found myself not being quite as interested as I wanted to be. My brain was deciding that this super comfortable seat was worthy of taking a nap in.

Eventually the movie did find its groove for me, but it took its sweet time getting there and that was a bit disappointing for me, especially when most of the other Marvel movies hooked me right from the opening scene and kept me engaged throughout. Even when the movie finally did hook me, in pondering over what we ended up getting, I'm not so sure the final result was super revolutionary. I hate to use the word predictable, but we kinda wandered into that territory a bit. I walked out thinking that this was Marvel's version of "The Lion King" as a lot of the story elements connected rather well. Perhaps a more appropriate comparison than comparing this to an animated Disney movie would be to branch out further and say that "Black Panther" seems to gain a lot of inspiration from "Hamlet" as this is a movie centered around a conflict over the throne after the previous king has passed away. I don't want to dive too deep into the comparisons because I want to avoid spoilers, but we have implemented themes of self-discovery, our main character taking a bit of a side journey into the wilderness, visions from the former king, and a bit of an inner revolution as the people of Wakanda tried to figure out what was best for the country.

I will say the standout in all of this was Michael B. Jordan's villainous role of Erik Killmonger. I do kinda chuckle when people so daringly say that he's the best Marvel villain since Loki as if claiming that is some sort of bold statement. I mean, what competition is there for that runner up spot? I think a more bold statement coming from me is that he's NOT the best villain since Loki. But that sounds a bit more harsh than it actually is. I would just like us to not forget about Michael Keaton's Vulture from last year. Killmonger is third place for me. Good villains are something that Marvel has really struggled with and it makes me happy that they finally got it right. He's not just evil for the sake of being evil. There's things that happened in the past that make him legitimately have a grudge against Wakanda as a whole. The movie gets fascinatingly political when Killmonger points out major flaws with the current philosophy of Wakanda that make you stop and realize that he's actually kinda right in being upset with them. It made me wish that the movie had a bit more focus because outside being in a few opening scenes, he doesn't really show up until the second half of the movie. But when he did, he owns the screen and nearly overshadows Black Panther in his own movie.

There's a lot more that I could dive into, but this review is long enough as it is, plus diving in deeper would cause me to fall into spoiler territory. Just know that I do really have a high amount of respect for this movie for what it's accomplished culturally, even though the movie on a personal level didn't connect with me as much in terms of story and characters. I think we got a better Black Panther movie brilliantly weaved into "Civil War" than we got with this actual full-length movie. The movie is a lot more serious in nature, thus reminding me more of a DC movie than a Marvel movie. In fact, it felt like it was following the formula of a Batman movie more than anything Marvel's done. And I actually enjoyed that minor diversion from their formula. It means their more willing to take risks and let the directors have more creative freedom rather than having specific studio mandates. But I suppose when push comes to shove, I think the movie had a lot of pacing issues. It wasn't as sharp and focused as I would've liked it, especially in the first hour of the movie. But the second half of the movie gave us a lot of political intrigue and some good character development from T'Challa and Killmonger. Assigning a grade is hard in this instance, but I think for now I will settle with an 8/10.