Black Panther Movie Critic Review

Black Panther: Cinematic Review
Black Panther, directed by Ryan Coogler, is a lightening rod of a film, and one that successfully creates and maintains stunning visuals, heroic characters, and a timely message, which challenges the superhero genre as a whole. Black Panther, however, is not a perfect film, and it often struggles in terms of story-telling and character development. However, the visuals and imagination of the film, along with its social significance, mean that the film can be forgiven for its weaknesses in plot and script.
Black Panther immediately distinguishes itself from all other superhero movies in that it discards all the tired clichés and derivative concepts that so closely define most superhero films. Most superhero films created by major studios force you to watch through unoriginal storylines and predictable endings. Black Panther creates an intricate mythology around its characters and builds an entirely new imagined nation called Wakanda, an African paradise. The development of Wakanda is one of the major strengths of the film as it has detailed historical and aesthetic significance connected to real African tribes and cultures, in a manner that is thoughtful, rather than one which just goes for predictable branding, like so many other studio-driven comic book movies.
The mythology at the heart of Black Panther is key to its successful storytelling: the nation is an independent paradise because a meteor full of a substance called vibranium, crashing into the nation centuries ago, making the nation so rich in natural resources that it was spared the horrors of colonialism and slavery. Advanced beyond its time, the nation harnesses the power of technology to hide its many blessings, playing the role of a starved, underprivileged nation, when in reality it is flourishing and prospering. This secrecy helps to protect it from the global racism that still exists today. This mythology is so important because it is healing to the individual and the collective. Slavery and anti-black racism have a lengthy history in America, and their repercussions are still being felt today. Black Panther gives the viewer the freedom to imagine a nation in Africa that might have been spared the evils of slavery, and the generational pain that slavery caused. This film creates a very powerful what if, imagining a group of Africans that were protected from these horrors, and allowed to thrive in their own manner. The notion, and its brilliant, memorable and stunning portrayal onscreen, has a downright healing and transformative feeling that accompanies it.
The film does however, have a lot of moving parts to the overall plot, and this can be one of the issues with the storytelling. Some of the plot-points and B-storylines don’t feel as comprehensively tied together and connected to the overall action and main storyline. One of the villains of the film, Ulysses Klaue, played by Andy Serkis, is portrayed in a manner that is too over the top that it just doesn’t seem terribly believable, and doesn’t match the other characters of the film. The storyline also jumps around quite a bit, moving from Wakanda to Korea, and even ends up in a casino at one point, and later throws in a car chase, for apparent good measure. Moments like these seem random and are some of the weaknesses of the overall script. However, the acting of the almost all-black cast is fantastic, with standout performances by Chadwick Boseman (T’Challa), Michael B. Jordan (Erik Killmonger), Lupita Nyong’o (Nakia) and Angela Bassett (Ramonda). Coogler directs the film very well, and he brings an extreme amount of thoughtfulness and sensitivity to many of the scenes, forging a sense of trust between the viewer and the film. Coogler deftly directs the story in the appropriate direction it needs to go, until the very end, when it triumphs.