Black Panther review

I don’t remember where I first heard or read it — and I probably have more than once — but what makes the good Marvel movies good is that they weren’t superhero movies; the were movies with a distinct genre that happened to have superheroes in them.

Incidentally, that theory also accounts for Wonder Woman being the only good DC film: it’s a war movie with a superhero, not a superhero movie with a war.

So here we come to Black Panther, which went straight-up Shakespearean tragedy. It’s so “Hamlet,” Disney kept giving itself whiplash trying to make winking references to The Lion King at the audience.

In an interview with CNET last November, actor Chadwick Boseman discussed the philosophy behind T’Challa’s accent as first heard in Captain America: Civil War, that as Wakanda a resource-rich isolationist country that never suffered Imperialism or the slave trade, the people from there wouldn’t have any European influence in their accents. So I saw the primary challenge in bringing Wakanda to life in Black Panther was to take the care and thoughtfulness that went into forming a dialect in Civil War and expanding it to literally everything in Black Panther.

And I think it pulled it off. Black Panther does indeed show a place that is a technological utopia inhabited by a people basking in their long history. The concept also provided fertile ground for art direction with is vivid and eye-catching while mostly avoiding being too distracting.

We saw in the previous movie that Black Panther was just about the only Avenger capable of seeing through his own anger and look for the truth (…not to mention offering forgiveness as well).

For most heros, super strength and limited invulnerability are plenty to go solo. But the Black Panther is a team operation. T’challa fully and openly utilizes the best technology and people Wakanda has to offer when he’s on a mission. Whenever he’s reluctant to do so, it’s not out of a King-size ego, but rather a desire to keep others out of harm’s way.

So T’challa is teetering on the edge of being TOO good to be believable. I mean, they found a way to write him as more noble than Boy Scout-extraordinaire Steve Rodgers. Fortunately, nobody is too great to be grounded by unyielding savagery of that monster, Shakespeare.

Still, if this movie set out to make an example to follow out of its characters, to play the moralities of virtues and vices, then it certainly succeeded. And it found a way to be meaningful at that when it could have just painted by the numbers and still cashed in from the Marvel movie pedigree. Instead, it’s setting the pace for the franchise, probably hitting $1 billion is box office take globally before next week.

And while terrible movies have made bank before, this ain’t no Transformers. Black Panther is the real deal, making some old tropes resonate like they were new again. You can trust the audience… this time.

Verdict: Must see (5/5). Despite the obvious plot motivations tying it to Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther can be a complete movie all on its own. For all that talk about the Man of Steel’s family crest meaning hope, it’s the Man of Vibranium who delivers.