SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for Black Panther follows.
The last Marvel Cinematic Universe movie before the looming Infinity War is out, so how does it stack up? Read on to hear my thoughts on King T’Challa’s first solo movie.
Black Panther is an interesting movie in that it isn’t quite an origin story like other MCU movies. T’Challa had already appeared in Captain America: Civil War as a fully developed superhero. In that sense, his first solo movie has more in common with Spider-Man: Homecoming than other MCU origin stories. Still, Homecoming largely took place in New York and dealt with a character who most audiences were already familiar with (radioactive spider, Mary Jane Watson, Uncle Ben and Aunt May, etc). Black Panther had a much more difficult job in that it needed to introduce audiences to Wakanda (a country never before portrayed on the big screen) and the entire mythology surrounding it (the heart shaped herb, ancestral plane, etc).
It’s a tremendous accomplishment that the movie doesn’t collapse under the weight of all of it’s responsibilities. It’s a minor miracle that not only does it not collapse, but it ends up being not just a great MCU movie, but a great movie on its own. Ryan Coogler does a masterful job of not only creating a fascinating new world in Wakanda, but also introducing a incredible number of interesting new characters. In fact, if there can be said to be one major problem with the movie, it’s that there is too much going on.
Black Panther is already a pretty long movie, and yet by the end, I found myself wanting nearly more of everything. I wanted to see more of M’Baku, the vegetarian who wears fur. I wanted more romance between Nakia and T’Challa. I wanted to see more awe from the fish out of water, Everett Ross. I wanted to see more of Shuri ribbing her sibling. Frankly, I wanted to see a little more development from T’Challa, who seems to have gotten lost a little bit among all the other great characters.
MCU movies have a reputation for weak villains. It’s a reputation that I think is sometimes overstated, but there’s no doubt that the villains often take a back seat to the heroes. Killmonger was a great, complex, sympathetic villain who frankly felt like he overshadowed T’Challa at times. He wasn’t evil for evil’s sake or power hungry and out to rule the world. He had legitimate and understandable grievances against both Wakanda specifically and the world in general. And while I didn’t agree with his political views, I could certainly see where he was coming from. He’s right up there with Adrian Toomes and Helmut Zemo in terms of a villain than audiences could actually relate to. It’s an incredible shame we didn’t see more of him.
In fact, if I had one criticism of Killmonger (outside of not getting enough of him), it’s that I wished he could’ve been more sympathetic. How can I say that considering I just extolled how sympathetic he was? Because as sympathetic as he was, he was still clearly a villain from the moment he was introduced. His first action was to murder a museum curator who was by all signs completely innocent of any wrongdoing. Shortly afterwards, he kills his girlfriend without a moment’s hesitation even though she was likely on his side. These are pretty indefensible acts no matter what your political leanings. However, remove these two scenes and you get a character who largely acts honorably and within the rules. He doesn’t plan to usurp power by assassination or Machiavellian political machinations. He plays by Wakandan rules and challenges T’Challa. He doesn’t cheat during the fight (in fact, Zuri saved T’Challa with his interference) and wins fair and square, which should be enough for the Wakandans to rethink their electoral system (we think we have it bad with the electoral college). Okoye even admits that by law, Killmonger was the rightful new king. With just a few small tweaks that wouldn’t have meaningfully impacted the story, Killmonger could’ve simply been an antagonist and not a villain.
It’s also worth noting that in the end, Killmonger was right about a lot of his criticisms of Wakanda and their isolation. His actions, and the way his presence opened T’Challa’s eyes to the problems with Wakandan isolation, seemed to play a pretty direct role in the decision to reveal themselves to the world and begin outreach programs. In the end, I wish Killmonger was able to do more persuading with his words rather than the sword.
So what didn’t work as well for me? As I mentioned before, with all of the great new characters introduced, it sometimes felt as if the main character, T’Challa, was a little overshadowed. Also, I was fairly lukewarm on the fight scenes and could’ve done with one less waterfall fight and a smaller climatic battle at the end. In a cerebral movie like this that deals with such serious political issues, the ending battle royale almost felt out of place and unnecessary. Maybe in the place of rhino fights, there could’ve been an intellectual debate between N’Jobu and T’Chaka or Killmonger and T’Challa about the morality of Wakanda remaining isolated and keeping their technological advances from the world. Additionally, I had a hard time buying the friendship-turned-betrayal between W’Kabi and T’Challa or the romance between W’Kabi and Okoye. In fact, I had forgotten all about it until late in the movie when Okoye made her dramatic statement about choosing Wakanda over W’Kabi. Speaking of intellectual debates, the movie seemed to be screaming for one between Okoye and W’Kabi over which side to support at the end. There was an interesting contrast between Okoye’s loyalty to the throne but personal distaste for Killmonger versus W’Kabi supporting Killmonger personally.
Lastly, I found Wakanda to be a bit of a confusing contradiction between primitive and modern. We’re both shown and told about the amazing technological wonders that Wakanda has available, and yet their system of government seems to be based on bestowing absolute power upon whoever is the best physical fighter (one wonders how T’Chaka had managed to remain King for so long). They have hover bikes, but use rhinoceroses in battle. Their elite guard uses spears, the climatic battle was a clash of swords and shields, and only Shuri seemed to be wise enough to think energy blasters would make for a superior weapon.
Verdict
Black Panther isn’t the best Marvel movie, nor is it a perfect one, but it is pretty good and takes the MCU in surprising new directions while introducing audiences to a fascinating new world. It left me wanting more. A lot more. What better praise is there for a movie?
