You are a good man, with a good heart. And it's hard for a good man to be a king.

Black Panther (2018)

7.9/10 on IMDb
97% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: A must see;
Watch it in cinemas;
I'm buying the DVD;
Low-energy entertainment

Watch it if you: Are a fan of Marvel movies;
Aren't really a fan of Marvel movies but want a cool action movie (since it works well as a standalone film);
Are a fan of sci-fi action with unique African mythos mixed in;
Want to see a Marvel movie with a really cool villain;
Want an action movie that's different (in a good way)

This was the first time ever that I saw an ad play before the movie to tell us what brand of cars were in the movie, because apparently pure product placement isn't enough.
But hey, it worked.
The cars were Lexus cars.
The city of Wakanda is nothing like anything we've seen in a Marvel movie, or even just in any movie.

It lies in the heart of Africa, secluded from the rest of the world. Its culture is deeply rooted in traditional African lore, yet it wields the most powerful technology unknown to mankind. As a result, Wakanda is a beautiful mix of longstanding cultural traditions and lore, mixed with new, modern, and even futuristic technology. It's vibrant, a lot of fun, and is stunning to look at. When you see it, it kind of makes you sad to think of what Africa could be with better technology and foreign aid, which is a theme that's also explored a lot in this film.

This was my favourite thing about watching the movie. Yes, it's a story centered around Black Panther, but Black Panther isn't the focus here. The focus is on the characters, and their intentions, and the deeper consequences of what this has on the city of Wakanda.

I loved the lore and mythos behind this city; it's got such a rich history, and there are so many things to explore in Wakanda. I get the feeling that what we see in the film is just scratching the surface of what Wakanda has to offer.

And the music and score in this film is so good here! It adds to this deep lore and tradition. It does so well in setting the tone, with its African-inspired, tribal drums beating away, making you all giddy looking at everything on the screen.

And in exploring this fictional African city and its peoples, we get to see a little bit into the minds of how Africans view both African Americans and Westerners in general, calling them "colonizers" and looking at them warily. Killmonger is technically one of them, but they constantly refer to him as an outsider because of his Western upbringing. He truly is someone who doesn't belong, either in Wakanda, or in America. After all, he was "a kid from Oakland walking around and believing in fairytales." The social commentary in this film isn't subtle, but it doesn't feel preachy either. It feels natural, and it feels like it genuinely comes from the characters' hearts.

But Michael B. Jordan does a great job at being a villain here. Usually, DC's villains and characterisations are way better than Marvel's, as Marvel villains always get a bad rep. But here, you really feel sorry for Killmonger, and you even completely understand his reasons for doing the things he did. More on him in my spoilers section, but you could tell the writers really thought this through, and they didn't rely on Marvel's fan base to write a cheap cop-out of a villain.

Another fun villain was Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klaue. I'd love to see him in more crazy real-life characters. I mean, he's a great motion capture actor but damn he needs to step out and do more things where we can see him! He's also surprisingly very tall and very built!

Speaking of, I loved the Bilbo x Gollum reunion and I really really really wanted Martin Freeman's character to ask Andy Serkis' character, "What's in my pockets?"

I saw this funny post somewhere about how the only two white guys in the movie were Bilbo and Gollum, but I loved how they got such a great African American/British cast! It just felt really different, and it's such a good change to all the downbeat African movies out there about slavery. Just again makes you really think about what it could be like if Africa had better technology.

Riddle me this: Where do you get your Vibranium from?
So here comes the part where I talk about the rest of the extensive cast of amazing actors in this film.

The cast truly is amazing, with Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong'o, Forest Whitaker and Angela Bassett doing a great job here. Also, Angela Bassett rocking an amazing hairdo.

I was also really happy to see Daniel Kaluuya here as well. He's had a great year with Get Out (2017) and I love seeing new actors from Black Mirror appear in mainstream movies. It's also a Black Mirror reunion with Letitia Wright, the chick from the season 4 finale, playing Black Panther's younger sister.

She was the standout in this film, she was so funny and cute in this and she stole every scene she was in. The scene where she was showing T'Challa all the new gadgets she made was very James Bond-esque, and it was pretty cool even if some of the new tech wasn't utilised in the film.

Which also makes me super happy at how badass the women in this movie are. There's a lot of talk about how women are misrepresented in film, especially right now with the MeToo movement in the wake of the sexual assault allegations, but I think we're really starting to get on track these days. Mad Max Fury Road (2015) had an amazing cast of strong women, Wonder Woman (2017) showed a really strong superhero woman, and then this film depicts women as powerful warriors, strong characters, and there's even a badass teen female genius scientist.

It's cool because I think a lot of young girls will grow up looking up to these strong women and that's so exciting. Even the strongest warrior in Wakanda is a female, played by Danai Gurira. I haven't seen The Walking Dead, but she is really cool in this film and I'm starting to be a big fan of her. The part where she complains about wearing a wig and then chucks it at someone during a fight was hilarious and got a huge laugh out of me.
Not to mention, a lot of the award season films this year have strong female leads (e.g. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; All The Money in the World; The Post; Molly's Game; The Shape of Water; I, Tonya; Lady Bird; etc.)

But I digress.

Going back to Shuri, I loved seeing her dynamic with T'Challa. He's a king, thrust into this position that he is not ready for, under tragic circumstances. He is discovering how to be this great king, how to be this great Black Panther, and as a result he can be very stoic, and he needs to make a lot of difficult decisions. Yet at the same time, he's also an older brother to a fun, loveable sister who just wants to laugh at him. ("Delete that footage!")

Another stand out character of the film was M'Baku. He was really funny, I loved how his tribe kept making gorilla noises whenever they saw fit, and joking about feeding Agent Ross to his children, when he's actually a vegetarian. And then laughing at his own joke for a crazy long period of time.

^That's not M'Baku, I just needed to include a picture of this guy with his lip plate.
SPOILER TIME! Click to show/hide spoilers:

I actually really liked Killmonger as a villain. I loved how his plan played out throughout the film. From his perspective, he's the hero to his family. His father was murdered and abandoned. Yes, he was a criminal and yes he did turn his gun on Zuri, but in the end they abandoned him and his son in order to cover up a lie. It was really sad to see Killmonger's father stuck in the apartment that he was killed in, because he didn't have a proper burial. He's now isolated for all of eternity away from his people.

And so Killmonger seeks out revenge. To him, and to the rest of the world, the Wakandans are evil and selfish, sheltering their technology away from those who need it the most. It was interesting to see how his beliefs mirrored Nakia's believes, and it was cool to see that eventually T'Challa took these different viewpoints on board at the end. He was able to see the value in the villain's beliefs, and the tragedy of what sticking to his rigid tradition and culture has resulted in. In the end, he was able to find a compromise and carry out his rival's beliefs and plans, but in a more compromising and democratic way. A true leader is open to change, after all.

And this allows Infinity War to happen, since Black Panther and his tribe will now be helping out the Avengers and the rest of the world.

It also provides great social commentary, especially in today's trying times where it's evident that we need to all be working together, instead of having our countries divided against each other. The world would do so much better and progress so much further if we were all united.

The quote that Killmonger says as he dies, "Bury me in the ocean with my ancestors who jumped from ships, 'cause they knew death was better than bondage," was a pretty powerful quote, and it tied in well with all the other references to the hardships that Africans have faced over the years.

I was sad to see Erik die, and I was also very sad to see Klaue die as well! Two great villains gone in the same movie! It's a shame because both actors did great jobs at this.

I can go on a lot about the movie, and I'm very keen to re-watch it and buy the DVD, but I will say this: it did feel like I was rewatching The Lion King at times...

(Click to hide spoilers)

So this film was very visually appealing. The action is cool, with a particularly well-shot fight scene in South Korea (and the director does an amazing break-down explanation of this scene here, with spoilers of course), but the action isn't the reason why this film is so good. It's the look of how the traditional African culture adds a vibrance to the film when contrasted with the futuristic technology that the Vibranium brings. It's the futuristic designs of what could be, and it's the amazing costuming of both traditional garb and high-tech Black Panther vibranium suits (his purple outfit is amazing, and I'm not just saying that because I love purple).

The CGI isn't even what you watch this movie for. I mean, the CGI is good, but there are times when the bad CGI is really obvious. Especially in the last parts of the film (for example, fake green screen backgrounds or weird CGI when two characters are fighting while falling). The film still looks really beautiful, though, and they do spend more CGI efforts on the more salient and important things like the look of Wakanda and the technology.

But no, in the end you watch this movie for the stories and the characters that develop out of it. It's a long film, and some parts may feel like a bit of a drag, but it's still amazingly entertaining because it utilises the time to explore these characters, their motivations, and their intentions. And it comes to a very interesting and unique resolution that makes sense for the characters and also allows this movie to pave the way for Infinity War to happen.

My goal was to win. At what and against whom, those were just details.

Molly's Game (2017)

7.6/10 on IMDb
82% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: Signed, sealed, and recommended by Chloe

Watch it if you: Want to a see a thrilling and entertaining story around poker;
Don't know a lot about poker since the movie does a good job at explaining it;
Are a fan of Jessica Chastain
Molly's Game tells the true story of Molly Bloom, a soon-to-be law student on her gap year who finds herself thrust into an exclusive underground poker game. Suddenly, she's rubbing shoulders with the rich and the famous, assisting in hosting movie stars, directors, Wall Street moguls, and even royalty. Everything's going well but she realises that to make it on her own, and to be taken seriously, she needs to start hosting her own games.

Written and directed (the latter for the first time) by Aaron Sorkin, this film was really entertaining. It's really long, at 2 hours and 20 minutes, but it doesn't feel that long at all.

In fact, it's really well paced and entertaining throughout. There are some fast paced scenes and here is where Aaron Sorkin's writing shines; he just wrote these characters so well and he managed to write about poker games in a way that everyone could understand.

At first, I was a little confused as I didn't know a lot of the poker terminology, and some things went by really quickly and it felt like they went over my head. But soon enough I felt it was explained really well and I was able to understand what was going on, even being on the edge of my seat and sighing a heave of frustration when a particular card was drawn.

But it wasn't just the way the poker games were written. The opening scene was such a great scene. It has nothing to do with poker, but it's hard to see it as unnecessary because it was just so entertaining. It was written so well, instantly grabbing your attention, and when it's all over, you feel like you need to take a deep breath, also because of Chastain's fast narration.

Speaking of, I was surprised at how well the voice-over narration added to the movie. It actually was such a good decision, particularly since a lot of movies cop a lot of flack for choosing to go with boring, annoying, and unnecessary narration. Here, it was necessary to develop both Molly's character as well as explain the poker terms to us.

I really did like the characterisation of Molly in this film, and Jessica Chastain did a fantastic job portraying her. Watching interviews of the real Molly Bloom, you could really see how much of her was in Chastain's performance. So the acting and the writing really came together well to portray this intelligent, capable, and yet unlucky woman.

One thing I will say about Aaron Sorkin's directorial debut here is that in certain scenes, it kind of shows that this is his first time directing. The movie switches between present day and the past, and some of these scene transitions are very awkward and jarring. It was skipping from scene to scene and from time period to time period without a seemingly logical seque. For the most part, though, he did a good job for a first time director.

I'm assuming it was an executive decision either by Aaron Sorkin or by the studio to sort of anonymise some of the other characters, even though some of the real life people's names are mentioned in Molly Bloom's book.

It was interesting to see Michael Cera play against the awkward typecase that he always is, instead playing this anonymous poker player who was a famous movie star. In the movie, he's named Player X, but in real life he is probably Tobey Maguire. I was pretty shocked to find out that Tobey Maguire is an absolute jerk, but the other famous actors that Molly hosted games for (Leonardo DiCaprio and Ben Affleck) don't seem to fit the bill for this Player X guy. The general consensus is that Tobey Maguire was the dickhead who treated Molly terribly, and he does worse in the book than what they show in the movie.

That Player X character pops up more in the beginning of the film as we delve into the start up of Molly's poker games, and later as she gets more involved with poker and the potential of breaking the law, that's when Idris Elba's character as her lawyer comes in.

Idris Elba was great, and he has one scene where he is fantastic in. It's the type of scene that they would play at the Oscars if he was nominated. Although, his accent does slip up a few times, but since they're mainly in the scenes where he's really passionate, then I can forgive him for that.

Kevin Costner also does a few scenes as Molly's tough love father. A lot of people liked this one scene with the two of them, but the writing felt a little too on-the-nose personally, particularly since it was dealing with psychologists and 'analysing people' and I just think it didn't do a very good job of portraying psychologists and therapy. I get that in the end it was just trying to say that it's not that easy to always have answers to your problems, but it was still a weird scene for me.

Obviously, though, the star of this is Jessica Chastain. I've already said how amazing she was in this, but seriously, she did such a fantastic job in this movie. Not only is she super beautiful and sexy in this movie, but she is also such a strong female lead actress, and I love how she always tries to pick strong female characters to portray. I'm really glad she got nominated for the Oscar, it's a very well-deserved nomination.

Overall, this was a really interesting storyline based on a crazy true story. The directing could be better, but the screenplay is written really well. The dialogue is fast-paced, quick, and witty, and the narration is great. Jessica Chastain does a fantastic job and it's a very entertaining movie that doesn't feel as long as it actually is.

Winnie the Pooh's depressing backstory.

Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017)

7.2/10 on IMDb
64% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: It's alright

Watch it if you: Are a fan of Domnhall Gleeson;
Are interested in the relationship between the real Christopher Robin and his parents
Goodbye Christopher Robin tells the story of how A. A. Milne's creation (and the following success) of the Winnie the Pooh novels impacted his relationship with his son, the real life Christopher Robin.

I wasn't a huge fan of Winnie the Pooh when I was a kid (I mean, I did watch the cartoon but I never went crazy for them), so I wasn't too interested in this movie, but it was getting alright reviews and it had a good lead cast. I went in thinking I might get really bored and it might be a movie just for old people, but it was surprisingly entertaining. It's not the most entertaining story out there, and definitely not a movie for everyone, but I certainly wasn't bored and was even a little surprised at how engaged I was in the movie.

So since the cast is what sold me on this, let's talk about that since there's not much else to talk about. Domnhall Gleeson, who I love, stars as the post-war-traumatised A.A. Milne, while Margot Robbie stars as his commanding wife.

I really loved Domnhall Gleeson acting as Milne, and Margot Robbie did a great job at making the audience absolutely repulse her. I'm not too sure exactly what these people were like in real life, but their relationship with their son Christopher Robin was very strained, and you can definitely see and feel that in this movie.

Gleeson plays the distant father who kinda-sorta wants to connect with his son. He spends a lot of his time writing (or trying to), and so he ignores his son a lot, but the times that he does spend with his son, you can tell that he was trying his darndest to occupy and engage with him. On the other hand though, Margot Robbie's character thinks that literally just giving birth gives her the right to be a mother, and she doesn't actually put any effort into her relationship with her son. In between this and I, Tonya (2017), Margot Robbie is really making a name for herself with her diverse acting roles.

Speaking of, young Christopher Robin is played by Will Tilston, and Alex Lawther plays him grown up. It's been a great few years for child actors, since Will Tilston did a really good job! He was really cute, with his chubby face and huge dimples, and it didn't help that Mrs. Milne thought it best to dress up her little boy in girls' smocks...

Alex Lawther was also a pleasant surprise to see, as he was in the Shut Up and Dance episode of Black Mirror (2016) which he did a fantastic job in. His role in this is very small, and I hope to see him in bigger and better things.

Then the very Scottish Kelly Macdonald plays Christopher Robin's nanny, which makes her the third Black Mirror cast member here, so it was like a little fun reunion! I really loved her character, I felt so sorry for her because you could tell how much she loved Christopher Robin and how much she cared and looked out for him, especially when she had to witness his parents fighting all the time, and his eventual success after the Winnie the Pooh novels were published. She was Christopher Robin's true mother, since she always played and raised him, and since his real mother (Margot Robbie's character) was never emotionally around for him. Macdonald did a fantastic job here.

So the acting was really good, and I think that was the main thing that kept me engaged. The story was interesting and I don't remember ever getting bored, but I do recognise that it could be slow for some people and therefore it's not really a movie for everyone. It's also not a super memorable movie, but it's engaging in the moment. I'm quite interested in movies based on real people and real events, because I think that even if it was really dramatised and overly-Hollywoodised, it still happened to actual people, and so it's interesting to see that. I think it's also really interesting to see how the story of Winnie the Pooh was developed, just from A.A. Milne seeing how his son played with his toys. And to see how the stories became successful and sort of destroyed Christopher Robin's childhood was so fascinating because I never realised that at all. I don't know if I can see the cartoons the same way anymore.