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.