It's been a while... I've recently moved house and been without internet for some time (thanks BT for your terrible service!). Anyway, there's been a pretty big release from Marvel...
Black Panther is
the breath of fresh air I needed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Although I
still very much enjoy most of the films that are produced by the studio, I have
started to waver a little with some of the basic premise recycling. Now don’t
get me wrong this film has some Marvel ‘similarities’ but ultimately is its own
new fresh thing. Read on to find out my SPOILER FREE thoughts.
For the most part Marvel has suffered a little when it comes
to diversity, people of colour usually take a backseat to main characters and
there isn’t a really any excuse for it to have taken this long for a black
superhero to have their own standalone film within the universe. Marvel aren’t
the only problem though, Hollywood in general has been slow to this game for a
while and although we have had black superheroes, we’ve never really had
anything like Black Panther before; a
film with a predominantly black cast representing Africa in a way that’s never
been seen in a big mainstream blockbuster and that means something. I’m a white
dude, I’ve seen a lot of them on the big screen, I’ve been represented, it’s
time to get our films as diverse as the world around us. The cast in speaking
is one of the best Marvel has assembled, the main players being: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright, Angela Basset, Daniel Kaluuya, Forest Whitaker Andy Serkis and Martin Freeman. The story follows T’Challa, the newly appointed King
of Wakanda, after the events of Civil War
he struggles with his new mantle as the country decides if/how it will change under
new leadership.
The first thing that Black
Panther does excellently is give you a real sense of Wakanda, the secretive
and extremely modern city of Africa, powered by a massive source of vibranium.
Throughout the whole film you get to see a lot of the country and the people
that live there. |The film is never afraid to embrace the weirder side of the
mythology and it made me realise that Thor
really missed an opportunity to establish Asgard in the same way. Wakanda feels lived in, it feels like it has a
history and it’s definitely a place I would like to see more of in the future.
If it wasn’t connected to the MCU, Wakanda could have a whole franchise to
itself, that’s the kind of scope director Ryan Coogler has been able to create
around the character’s first solo outing.
One of the reasons this feels like a fresh film in the MCU
is the fact that superhero business is secondary to the main story; a story of
monarchy, politics and change. The action set pieces are cool but they don’t
stand up to the spectacle we’ve had so far in the franchise, not that this is
bad thing - it feels right within the context. The jokes are not as full on and
if I was to criticise the film for anything it would be that the small amount
of humour mainly lands flat. But this is a more serious affair; bringing in
themes that are very relevant in the world right now. This may not be the first
time Marvel has woven mature themes into its narrative but it does feel like
the first time that they have felt this important.
On top of great characters and an interesting and satisfying
story, the film is also one of the best looking and most colourful of Marvel’s
so far. There’s the odd bit of dodgy CGI every now and then but it doesn’t take
away from breath-taking scenery as you swoop into Wakanda for the first time.
Accompanied by a unique music that excellently blends a traditional score with
African instruments and hip-hop.
As you can probably tell from the amount of praise of
already heaped on the film - I very much enjoyed it. It’s personally one of my
favourite MCU films and has calmed some of my fears that the studio isn’t
afraid to take so-called “risks”, mix it up and embrace the fun mythology of
the comic book source material. The only way stop superhero fatigue is to tell
great stories that just so happen to have a superhero in the them and Black Panther is an excellent example of
this. Onward and upwards. I’m giving Black
Panther a rating of 5/5.
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