Just the ramp up to the opening garnered 5 million tweets! This newest Marvel Cinematic superhero is getting a lot of attention and for good reasons. Black Panther is among the best, most exciting yet in that universe. Universal themes running throughout, including justice, respect, family, responsibility, identity, technology, immigration, spirituality, humanity, and more. The film is smart, fast paced and action-packed, with incredible production design, costuming, and special effects. More important, it showcases a superhero who is different than any before him.
Chadwick Boseman (Marshall, 42) fits the Black Panther suit well. In fact, he says it was even more like a second skin than the one he wore in his debut as Black Panther in Captain America: Civil War. This picks up from the end of that film. Boseman plays T’challa, the son of the King of Wakanda who was murdered in Civil War. Now, T’challa is called home to assume the throne. Don’t come late, because the prologue preceding the opening credits explains how this comes to be.
Another reason the film is getting so much attention is that Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station, Creed) is the first African-American to direct a Marvel movie. He also wrote it staying true to the source material of the original comics dating back to 1966. And Director of Cinematography, Rachel Morrison, is the first woman nominated for an Academy Award for her work on Mudbound. Wesley Snipes reportedly tried to get this to the big screen in 1992, but it took this long for others to make it happen.
Another reason this film deserves a lot of attention is because the cast is almost completely African-American. Martin Freeman and Andy Serkis are the only two white faces with any sizable roles. Even though this movie is told from a Black perspective, it definitely doesn’t feel like a movie that excludes everyone else.
Wakanda is a self-sustaining African nation with its extremely technologically advanced capital kept hidden from the rest of the world. Their source of power is the mineral Vibranium, largely unknown to the world. But those in the know want to have the power it possess. T’challa is a reluctant king with a built in enemy, his father’s murderer, Ulysses Klaue. (Andy Serkis), one of the villains in this $200 million epic.
T’Challa goes home to take his place as King to help his family. His mother, Ramonda, is played with great strength, love and dignity by Angela Bassett. His sister, Shuri, is the technological genius of the royal family. Letitia Wright went into it thinking her role should be serious, but Coogler persuaded her to be the funny genius of the family. She provides light and comic entertainment in her own way that breaks the tension. She’s a real scene stealer. The sequence where she goes through her lab giggling as she is showing off her latest inventions reminded us of Q from the James Bond series explaining the creative spy gadgets. But she’s funnier.
Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave) is strong as Nakia, an ex of T’Challa he would prefer to have by his side. She is there for him, but not in a romantic way. Nakia is on a mission roaming the world as a spy for Wakanda. Coogler had Nyong’o, as well the others, took intense martial arts training and it shows. She says she got her ass kicked but that it brought her more into character and we think more believable as a warrior.
Danai Gurira is Okoye, head of the King’s Royal Guard to protect T’Challa and the royal family. They’re called Dora Milaje and represent equality in the film showing “the beautiful power of women.” Okoye is an imposing figure who takes her job seriously. She’s loyal, dedicated and tough. We’d never mess with her. Boseman respects both Danai and Lupita as great actresses who were both very, very, very strong, and opinionated on the set, but who made him very secure working with him side by side.
Michael B. Jordan as Erik Killmonger has history with Coogler having starred in both Fruitvale Station and Creed. This is his first turn as a villain but you come to realize that he’s almost doing these heinous things for understandable reasons. His motivation is based on revenge. Killmonger jumps at the chance to right the wrongs of the past by waging a war using superior weapons and technology White conquerors traditionally used against Africans over the centuries.
There are pivotal roles played well by Sterling K. Brown as N’Jobu, Forest Whitaker as Zuri, the tribal elder and conscience, and Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out!) as W’Kabi, T’Challa’s best friend who questions Wakanda’s place in the world. Andy Serkis (The Hobbit) is the most cookie cutter style of villain, but we get to see him as a bad ass arms dealer in the flesh rather than in motion capture. Martin Freeman (The Hobbit) plays an American who gets involved with T’Challa in a big way. Freeman liked how Coogler layered the characters and their motivations to further the complexity of the story.
Shot in Atlanta, Georgia, Argentina and South Korea, the sets are often massive, including grand landscapes for battles and dramatic waterfalls. Hannah Beecher is responsible for the remarkable production design including glowing details and credit goes to Ruth E. Carter and the makeup and hair department for their incredibly creative and intricate detail in what you see on screen.
This is a transformational moment not only for superhero movies, but in the film business itself, where an African themed movie, both helmed by and acted by predominately people of color is about to turn the entertainment business on its head. Black audiences around the world should feel pride and young people will finally have heroes on the screen that look like them.
This is a helluva great movie and a step in the right direction.
Marvel Studios/ Walt Disney Motion Pictures 134 minutes PG-13
