OVP: Black Panther (2018)

Film: Black Panther (2018)
Stars: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurina, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, Andy Serkis
Director: Ryan Coogler
Oscar History: 7 Nominations/3 wins (Picture, Production Design*, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Score*, Song-"All the Stars," Costume Design*)
(Not So) Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Believe it or not, one of the movies that I have not reviewed yet from 2018 is the year's biggest film.  When I was sitting down to write this review, I realized too much of it was forgotten from the first time I caught it, and since I'm on vacation & in a serious "let's just watch another movie" fix right now, I felt the need to rewatch the picture before I got to reviewing it, particularly considering this is a review I will link quite often when we get to the 2018 OVP as it appears destined to be nominated (a lot).  Hence the "Not So" from above, though I will state that my opinions of the film haven't changed much since I caught the film initially.  Black Panther, while not breaking any new plot ground (this is in many ways similar to say an Iron Man or Captain America movie) makes up for its lack of originality with the script by having a compelling lead, a strong villain, and crafting a world unique onto its own in a way few other Marvel universe films have been able to achieve.

(Spoilers Ahead...though really, you read this blog and haven't seen Black Panther yet?) The movie picks up where Captain America 3 picks up (I'll be reviewing the two Ant-Man movies in the next week or so and will be addressing the odd "Chapter XX" aspects of the Marvel franchise then, but it's worth recalling that seeing these movies out-of-sequence has pretty severe drawbacks that I normally debit movies for not standing on their own, but perhaps I should stop as that's the way the world is now).  We have T'Challa (Boseman), the Black Panther, returning home to Wakanda after the death of his father to assume his mantle as the king.  We get an introduction relatively quickly to his life in this futuristic country, including his romance with longtime friend/ex-girlfriend Nakia (Nyong'o) and his brainy sister Shuri (Wright), who runs most of the technological advances in Wakanda.  The film quickly shows the parallels between T'Challa, who grew up in great wealth-and-prilege to his cousin N'Jadaka, who eventually goes by Killmonger (Jordan), who thanks to his exiled & dead father, grew up in the projects on Los Angeles, and wants revenge for the death of his father, as well as to arm black people around the world using Wakanda's technology as a weapon.  He challenges T'Challa to a fight to take the throne, a fight that he loses and nearly dies, but as this is a Marvel movie eventually recovers from, and fights Killmonger, killing him in combat but eventually conceding that Wakanda has to move out of the shadows and become a world leader, rather than remaining isolated.

The film tackles some heartier stuff than you usually see from a Marvel movie.  While occasionally the films go into ethical issues of privacy and terrorism, racism hasn't been central to past Marvel films because, well, there hasn't been a person-of-color lead in any of their pictures.  As a result, this film feels instantly fresher than some of the staler recent installments whose only outlets appear to make their characters more ridiculous (Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Thor Ragnarok).  Disney usually paints these sorts of arguments in broad strokes so as not to risk alienating audiences, but Coogler keeps in enough truth to his racial critiques (he's not throwing out ideas that aren't based in our own reality, rather than just Marvel's), to make the film feel modern and one of the more essential Marvel Universe pictures.

Boseman's lead character doesn't have enough differentiating qualities in my opinion, other than being proud, handsome, and noble; there's a risk with a superhero like this that they become Superman-impenetrable and too reliant on comic book cliche to be relatable to the audience.  However, the side characters are fresher & stronger than most Marvel movies of late, which helps elevate Black Panther.  Shuri is hilarious, and Wright plays her with a sense of actual teenage personality (she's the smartest girl in the room & she knows it), while Winston Duke's M'Baku is one of the more interesting non-main heroes/villains I've seen in a Marvel movie in a while.  His M'Baku is very similar to Killmonger (clearly worthy, but neglected thanks to his birth, and comes to the aid of T'Challa when he could so easily stay silent), and he has a wryness in his work ('we're vegetarians") that I'm excited to see come forward in a future picture.  And then there's Jordan, Coogler's most frequent muse whom he has gotten his strongest performances out of in the past (Fruitvale Station, Creed), and creates arguably Marvel's best villain to-date.  Think of that first scene with Jordan, where he takes a seemingly innocuous conversation with a white museum curator and turns it into both a moment to show his motives, but also to show the racial dynamic at play here.  While the focus in this scene is on an imaginary artifact from an imaginary country (Killmonger is trying to steal a vibranium weapon from this museum), he's name-checking actual African countries who were pillaged of this art by white colonialists, much like in real-life.  Jordan's performance is informed by important social issues involving race, and it's here that Coogler gets true depth added to his picture.  While the effects aren't always as bright as Ant-Man and the Wasp and the gravitas (or casting budget) doesn't approach that of Avengers 3, Black Panther stands apart because Coogler has a world-building vision in mind with crafting his picture, and it works because he roots it in some of the ugliness of our own existence.