Baby Huey’s Movie Review For Black Panther

Marvel Studios presents Black Panther which will be released on February 16th, 2018.

After the events of Captain America: Civil War, King T’Challa returns home to Wakanda but soon finds his sovereignty challenged by factions within his own country. When two enemies conspire to bring down the kingdom, T’Challa must team up, as the Black Panther, with C.I.A. agent Everett K. Ross and members of the Dora Milaje, Wakanda’s special forces, to prevent a world war.

Directed by Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station, Creed).

The cast includes:

Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa/Black Panther

Michael B. Jordan as Erik Killmonger

Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia

Martin Freeman as Everett K. Ross

Forest Whitaker as Zuri

Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klaue

Here we are, it’s 2018, ten years since the Marvel Cinematic Universe was created with the first Iron Man movie and now Marvel Studios is releasing their eighteenth movie Black Panther. Let that sink in for a minute, Marvel Studios has done an amazing job establishing their superheroes in solo movies and team up Avengers movies that now they are expanding their universe by giving more and more diverse characters their own movies.

Going into this movie, I didn’t know much about Black Panther from the comics. To the writers credit this Marvel movie is very much self contained, you don’t need to have seen every previous Marvel movie to understand what is going on. We first met T’Challa aka Black Panther in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War. He was one of the big standouts from that movie and was a great introduction of his character into the MCU. From that point on fans have been anxiously waiting for his own solo movie. With that being said fans will not be disappointed with this movie. Keep in mind this is not an origin story, T’Challa has been Black Panther for a while, it’s more of his rise to becoming King of his homeland.

Director Ryan Coogler delivered a fresh and diverse movie that we have not seen yet in previous Marvel movies. The beginning of the movie does an amazing job visually explaining the history of Black Panther’s home country of Wakanda (the fictional East African nation) and what makes them so unique compared to the rest of the world. This history lesson will play a huge role as far as defining everyone’s motivation in this movie and how Black Panther’s role will change the MCU for future movies to come.

The movie was perfectly cast from the lead roles to the supporting characters. It was an ensemble cast. The storytelling overcame the tough task of giving everyone a moment to shine and by doing so this gave all the characters some depth, giving us the viewers a reason to care about these characters.

Chadwick Boseman was perfectly chosen to play T’Challa/Black Panther. He was able to capture the look and feel of a King but also reacted very well to the other characters, from members of his family, other tribes and villains. Plus, he nailed all the fight choreography and showed off how badass the Black Panther is compared to other superheroes.

Michael B. Jordan as Erik Killmonger was another outstanding casting decision. I bet many people, including myself will consider him the next best villain since Vulture and Loki. Which says a lot since many fans will criticized the MCU for the lack of memorable villains. Between the writing for this character and Jordan’s execution of the role. The best villains are the ones who feel what they are doing is the right way. Killmonger’s reasons for fighting are perfectly explained and at the same time we develop a strong emotional attachment to him, you will develop some sympathy to him and understand his motivation but of course how he goes about his actions are ultimately what separates him from T’Challa. However, not to get into spolier talk, I did feel they over sympathize him. The events that led to Killmonger down the path he chose were justified but I think the writers portrayed in a way to make you feel it was okay. Sorry, I know that sounds very vague, but after you see the movie come find me and we can break it down some more.

Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia portrayed a fun yet strong love interest for T’Challa. She is very independent and at the same time can dish it right back to T’Challa and put him in his place.

Also, Letitia Wright as Shuri, T’Challa’s younger sister was very funny and loved her interactions with her older brother. I also loved seeing her develop and show off new tech, weapons and suits and the sciene behind it all through out the movie. I expect her to be a key character in future Marvel movies.

Danai Gurira as Okoye was another strong and engaging character to watch. She is the badass head of the Dora Milaje, the all-female special forces of Wakanda. Her chemistry with Black Panther was awesome and want to see more missions fighting side by side with Black Panther.

The movie’s soundtrack also played a big role in this movie. The music helped shape each scene and added to pacing of the movie. On that note, the movie had a solid pacing, despite being two hours and twenty minutes long, it moves along very fast, there were a couple scenes that felt slow but luckily things turned around quickly and picked up again.

I loved seeing all the settings in Wakanda. The use of bright colors made for a beautiful adventure going from scene to scene, tribe to tribe. Some action scenes that took place at night time did come off too fast and had too many quick cuts which for my eyes felt a little blurry and hard to see.

Overall, the movie was very fun, it was everything I was hoping for. The film told a great story with a lot of fun layers involving a lot of memorable scenes and I can’t wait to see what comes next from Black Panther in Avengers: Infinity War and future sequel movies. At the same time I hope with the success of this movie Marvel Studios will continue to explore and introduce more diverse characters in future movies and/or give them their own solo movies.

I would rate the film: 8.75/10

Go see Black Panther when the movie hits theaters on Friday, February 16th.

Watch the trailer below.