Black Panther

Black hasn't been this cool in a long time. The boys and girls at Marvel seem to have understood that a watered-down save-the-world story with a ton of visual effects best applied to the destruction of a major American city wouldn’t hold up again, or at least not until the next Avengers (who imho pull a slightly different strand of entertainment). So they decided to be smart about it and use the current geopolitical issue of refugees to their advantage, and crammed national and racial disparities into a cool heroic story full of moral values and fine ideas, spiced it up with a healthily ambitious plot. It might not be the best Marvel flick, because Avengers, with Captain America will pummel it with all those cool dudes and a plethora of TOP figures on one set, but it is certainly one of the smartest comic book movies. Plus, with heroes who, strangely enough, don't want to destroy the world, but to liberate it. (02/20/2018)

I hope I won’t be called a racist if I express my contentment with a film where the only white guys are two Hobbits ;). The rather serious and the comment-on-world-problems style suits the Panther, it is clear that the roots lie in the Civil War which reemerges here. Coogler knows how to take the right stance and Michael Jordan’s Killmonger cashes in on this in an interesting variation on the anti-hero. Boseman just reinforces his position after his great debut in the third Captain and his T’Challa scores him points at his home (the great storyline about his sister). A leisurely start up with an excellent chase in South Korea easily beats the opulent fight in the finale, which maybe unnecessarily relies on the tried and tested. It certainly won’t disappoint – it just won’t surprise. The visuals are fantastic. Wakanda is fantastic and I can’t wait to take another look at her. The music by Ludwig Göranssonon is a chapter in itself, bristling with Africa and beating to modern black rhythms. Luckily there is just a bare minimum of rap and generally don’t disturb. WAKANDA FOREVER! (02/16/2018)

Once again, a very fresh comic spectacle. Almost all of it takes place in Africa, so the design is, as expected, wonderful and the viewer gets to see a lot of great ideas on how to combine folklore with science fiction. Moreover, everything is helped by Ludwig Göransson's perfect music - quite possibly the most imaginative soundtrack of all the Marvel films. T'Challa was sufficiently presented to us in Civil War, so the story can follow that film smoothly, and although it actually tells the story of the origin of another superhero, it does it at least fairly uniquely, it’s own way and with great actors. (02/17/2018)

Direction-wise a solidly crafted Marvel movie with literally amazing action scenes, but with an average main character. The existence of the comic book character doesn’t help him and neither does the fact that Marvel is attempting to balance the representation of genders of the human race. Maybe it wasn’t intended in that way, but it definitely looks like it; Wakanda is so boring and unfunny that it’s hard to find anything positive about it. But yeah, I realize that Black Panther has a place in the universe. He for sure won’t be my favorite hero, though. (10/19/2018)

It's definitely not the best Marvel film, and a big role in the hype is played by the political level which, btw, sounds perfectly fine to me, like when a black boy from the Ghetto tells you a fairy tale that he has been hearing since childhood. T'Challa is a remarkably humble figure by MCU standards - Tony Stark stripped of vice and infected with a mixture of Shakespeare and the Lion King. It's magically naive and refreshing, because unlike other Marvel films, Black Panther is really devoted to its characters and, for example, the villain played by the charismatic Jordan is better depicted here than most of his competitors. Black Panther in turn shrinks the MCU world and curtails it by a cosmic dimension. In fact, it only deals with very familiar and current problems, and as a result, it feels like an even bigger fairy tale and escapism. In a way, Coogler concluded his black trilogy, which creates the figures of black saints. In Fruitvale, his efforts were undermined by social realism and in Creed by a lot of clichés, whereas Black Panther feels like his most convincing film, despite all of its problems with tempo and tricks. It's a pity he doesn't have a slightly sharper edit and a greater use of the hip hop soundtrack. Otherwise, this textbook Afrofuturism is really a very pleasant companion. A film that believes in a better world and that the super-protagonist is sometimes the one who just does something selflessly for the community. Political correctness? I say common sense. (02/14/2018)