Originally published April 22, 2019

I’m going to be honest with you, if you’ll promise not to judge me. A teensy little part of me worried that Black Panther would not be as good as I remembered. I privately considered whether my memory had overvalued the experience as a symptom of my excitement.

I shouldn’t have worried.

Believe the hype, because Black Panther is transcendent. If my original estimation of the film was off, it was because I was too excited to catch everything that was going on. Ryan Coogler has managed to synthesize together almost everything that has worked for past MCU projects, along with some unique additions all his own. The result is possibly the best feature-length debut for a superhero, bar none, and one of the best entries of the overall Marvel Cinematic Universe.

All-Star Ensemble

The cast is fantastic. It takes some doing for Martin Freeman to be the closest thing to a weak link in your ensemble (he’s perfectly adequate, but he doesn’t stand out in the ensemble). I could easily get bogged down just listing the strong performances in this film, so I’m just going to hit what I thought of as the high notes.

Chadwick Boseman is still great as T’Challa, combining charisma, determination, and vulnerability in equal measure. This is a man still grieving his father, but not being allowed the time to adequately process those feelings because he is the king. This ultimately leads him to act recklessly, which almost gets him killed.

Danai Gurira plays a compelling Okoye, the leader of the Dora Milaje (think the Wakandan Secret Service, which happens to be all-female). She’s competent and composed, with a wry humor. However, she’s not emotionless. She is forced to make decisions in this film that hurt her deeply, but her honor prevails. She’s one of my new favorite characters in the MCU.

Lupita Nyong’o plays the complex Nakia, love interest to T’Challa, pre-eminent member of the Wakandan intelligence services, and voice for reform of Wakanda’s isolationist policies. She’s a spy who sees the world not in terms of what other countries could do to Wakanda, but instead what Wakanda could do for other countries.

Letitia Wright is Shuri, T’Challa’s teenage sister, source of comic relief, and the Wakandan equivalent of Tony Stark. She’s charming, engaging, and hyper-intelligent. Only time will tell if she’s on the same path as her comic counterpart.

Antagonists

Winston Duke is a treasure as M’Baku. He has far less screen time than the others I’ve mentioned, but he owns it. On a related, I’m very happy with the way they took the character in the film. The comic version of M’Baku originated as a villain known as the Man-Ape, which is…not great. This film wisely sidesteps the name entirely and chooses to depict M’Baku as more in-line with the later Christopher Priest take on the character.

Even Martin Freeman, who I explicitly named as the weak link, gives a solid performance as Everett K. Ross. The main problem with Ross is that he feels tacked on. He’s more a plot device that represents an ethical dilemma for T’Challa than an actual character.

Finally, Michael B. Jordan manages to pull off one of the most compelling Marvel antagonists to date, representing an undeniable threat while also presenting a point of view T’Challa can’t ignore. Killmonger carries a righteous fury, but it’s tainted by the life he chose to live in its pursuit. For all his talk of overthrowing the current order, Killmonger still sees the world through the lens of the American military-industrial complex. He’s a provocateur that fancies himself a revolutionary. He’s trying to fix the world, but he’s just flipping the same old script.

Revitalizing the MCU Aesthetic

As far as the production design, there is honestly nothing like Black Panther in the superhero genre, or in major blockbusters either. The aesthetic is unabashedly afrofuturist. It’s incredible. Wakanda presents itself as a nation of tribal farmers to the world, but it secretly hides a metropolis of futuristic skyscrapers under a holographic mountain. Traditional garb is juxtaposed with hovercraft and mag-lev trains. The Dora Milaje wield spears, but those spears can stop tanks and knock aircraft from the sky. While it’s not exactly a new concept (I’m pretty sure afrofuturism dates back to the mid-19th century), it’s dramatically underrepresented in mainstream pop culture, so it’s great to see such a major film influenced by it.

The costuming in particular is incredible. There’s so much I could talk about just here, from the Dora Milaje attire to the party clothes the characters wear in Busan. However, I want to focus on the Black Panther suit and Erik Killmonger’s gear. The Panther Suit manages to look like a high-tech battle suit and a faithful adaptaion of the often under-designed comics design. It’s a tough line to walk, but it cartwheels down it. Killmonger’s gear, meanwhile, is notable for one reason; it’s totally patterned after Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z. Nothing anybody says can convince me otherwise. Ryan Coogler himself could tell me it’s not and I would not believe him. That is Vegeta’s armor.

Sight and Sound

Black Panther is one of the few MCU films with truly great cinematography. The film maximizes attention to all the right details. In particular, the shot of Killmonger burning the heart-shaped herb which then transitions into a spiraling shot of him ascending the throne is superb.

You could write an essay just on the music in this film. It’s excellent in every way. You’d be better served reading about the particulars elsewhere, from somebody more qualified to discuss them in detail. I just know I enjoyed the music, and that it’s like nothing else in a major motion picture at the moment. In particular, Killmonger’s Theme is absurdly good, and memorable to boot. The combination of the horns and the flute is dynamite.

Literally my only technical complaint is that the action gets hard to follow in a couple of big fight scenes (a problem that has plagued many Marvel movies). Some of the action sequences are excellent anyway, especially the chase scene in South Korea.

Narrative Excellence

The story seems to be a condensed version of Christopher Priest’s seminal run on the Black Panther comic. If you know anything about comics, you know that is very good news. The story begins as T’Challa officially ascends to the throne via a rite of passage. Shortly thereafter, an old enemy surfaces, forcing T’Challa to embark on a quest to avenge the harm this man has done to his country. But this is not the real threat, as the sins of the father have come back to haunt the royal family of Wakanda.

My only complaint in the narrative department is the bit with the escaping ships at the end of the film. It very much feels like it’s tacked on in order to give Ross something to do. It breaks up the pace of the finale and it doesn’t add anything of substantial value.

There’s also something a little gross about positioning Ross as such an unambiguously positive force in the film considering he works for the CIA. The big problem with Killmonger is that the American military-industrial complex methodology has corrupted his more high-minded ideals, but somehow we’re supposed to buy that the white dude who’s higher up the chain of command is a good dude? Frankly, I blame it on Civil War, which introduced the cinematic version of Ross as a CIA Agent. His original comics incarnation was a diplomat.

My Favorite Parts

I don’t want to get bogged down in that stuff though, because the film is still fantastic. I want to give a quick run down of moments where this film really sets itself apart.

-The big reveal shot when the true Wakanda is shown for the first time is awe-inspiring. It’s clearly a modern metropolis, but one not beholden to Western ideas of design and function.

-When M’Baku challenges T’Challa for the mantle of the Panther, there’s a really important element to the fight that can get lost in the adrenaline. The climax of the fight is not when T’Challa wins. He puts M’Baku in a losing position well before the fight ends. T’Challa’s victory does not come when he defeats his opponent. It comes when he defeats his opponent and his opponent lives. The scene clearly demonstrates that even though M’Baku is only known to us as an antagonist at this point in the film, his life is still of infinite value.

-Similarly, the death of Killmonger is depicted as tragic, both in the eyes of the audience and the eyes of T’Challa. He may have been planning something heinous, but he wasn’t entirely wrong. No matter how wrong he was, his life had value. The film let’s the audience sit with him as he’s dying, reflecting a reverence that has not been afforded to many MCU villains.

A True Ensemble

-This is more an entire sequence of the film than a moment, but I’d like to talk about what happens when Killmonger beats T’Challa and takes on the mantle of king. At that point the film does something absolutely crazy for this type of film; it removes T’Challa from the narrative entirely for a time. It’s almost unthinkable to cut the main character out of the movie for a substantial chunk of time during their first feature. But Coogler trusts the audience, and he trusts the rest of the cast he has built up. The other characters carry the narrative for several scenes until T’Challa returns, and the film is better for it.

-“I’m kidding, we’re vegetarians.”

-War Rhinos. That’s all.

-The end of the film actually has the protagonist changing their mind due to their interactions with the antagonist. T’Challa recognizes the legitimacy of Killmonger’s grievances, even if he does not respect his methods. He opens Wakanda to the world and sets out to use their power for good.

-One of the things that makes this movie work is that it’s not afraid to acknowledge the real world. Wakanda is a fictional country, but it exists in a world based on the real one. Coogler is not afraid to ask hard questions about Wakanda’s existence in a world hostile to people of African descent.

The Best of the Best

Black Panther is fundamentally about responsibility. What is T’Challa’s responsibility to Wakanda as its King? What is Wakanda’s responsibility to the rest of the world? Do the Wakandans have a responsibility to share their knowledge with the rest of the world, particularly to the communities of the African diaspora? What form could that aid take? Separately, what responsibility does Wakanda have to Everett K. Ross, who almost lost his life trying to save Nakia. It’s an undercurrent through the whole film. And unlike many other Marvel films, these questions are not tacked on as afterthoughts. They underpin and inform the conflict of the film. We’ve got maybe three or four other entries in the MCU that can claim as much, and I’d argue that only Winter Soldier is as effective (so far, though there may be another contender waiting in 2019).

Black Panther is exactly as good as you’ve heard. It’s nailing the traditional superhero origin narrative while also operating at another, higher level. It’s a cultural phenomenon. And I cannot wait to see what it leads to.

As a result, say hello to your new #1 on the MCU Rankings.

PS- If you read this piece and you liked what you saw, consider donating to my Patreon! Donations from readers like you make this site possible.

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