Black Panther just shattered nearly all expected box office numbers and filled more seats than The Avengers from 2012. That is mighty impressive. And it certainly deserves its success based on the idea alone that a film with a non white lead as the titular hero and a cast consisting of nearly all African American actors and actresses deserves to be hyped up. But how about the quality of the movie itself? Well to say the least, the movie is just another Marvel movie. And an okay one at that. Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther looks nearly half asleep the whole time, the first act of the movie drags on way too long and for a movie about Wakanda’s King, the most interesting character in the entire film is the Villain, Erik Killmonger, played by a brilliant Michael B Jordan.
The visual effects look unfinished and sloppy, as do some of the combat scenes that are often too close with too many cuts. Many scenes filmed in the dark as well look too murky and it’s often hard to see what the hell is going on. The costume design is fantastic however and this film has the best soundtrack out of all of Marvel’s previous effort with performances from Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd, SZA, etc. I found myself constantly distracted from the unfinished visuals and some of the dialogue presented as well. It seems as though marvel has this tiring formula of taking scenes out of the moment by trying to add forced jokes to relieve the tension.
Even in films like this that stand alone from the shared universe of multi-cameos, there are still jokes representative of meme culture that is just so unnecessary and stupid and take away from the quality of the film. Overall, Coogler did a decent job directing this film, and he gets the best out of certain actors with their performances including Michael B Jordan and Lupita Nyong’o. The greatest strength of Black Panther was providing a diverse cast of talent and making a geo-political thriller towards the final two acts of the film, raising questions about sharing technology and opening borders to other worlds. It’s weakness lies in a protagonist who is often the least interesting character in the film, sometimes messy and unfinished looking visuals, and a great villain who should have been in the film much more. At the end of the day, Black Panther is just another marvel movie.