This movie was getting a lot of hype in the past few weeks. Hailed as one of the best Marvel superheroes and with high interest especially from the US itself, it was certainly a movie to be sought for this weekend. My wife and I were lucky enough that we still had our last vouchers to enjoy the Gold cinema experience in CGV cinema chain, and we decided to use them for seeing this movie. Without further ado, here goes my personal views of the movie.
Brief Story Line
Movie started some time after the events of Captain America: Civil War where T'Challa/Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman - Message from the King, Marshall etc) returned back to his home country Wakanda together with his trusted confidante Okoye (Danai Gurira - All Eyez On Me, The Walking Dead TV series etc) and his ex girlfriend Nakia (Lupita Nyong'O - 12 Years a Slave, The Jungle Book etc). T'Challa would be crowned the new king of the surprisingly very advanced in technology of Wakanda which to the outside world only seemed like a small poor African country. He also had a younger sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) who happened to be the one in charge of technology development and the Queen mother Ramonda (Angela Bassett - What's Love Got to Do With It, American Horror Stories TV series etc).
Meanwhile at the other side of the world in London, Klaue (Andy Serkis - The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Planet of the Apes trilogy etc) together with his mysterious partner Erik Stevens/Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan - Creed, Fruitvale Station etc) were trying to rob an artifact from the museum, which apparently had enormous value and came from Wakanda. With the unexpected help from a CIA Agent Everett Ross (Martin Freeman - Sherlock TV series, The Hobbit trilogy etc), T'Challa tried to capture Klaue who apparently also had a history with Wakanda.
So could T'Challa capture Klaue and his partners? What was Killmonger's relationship with Wakanda? And could T'Challa be the king that Wakanda needed? Find them all in this origin story of Black Panther
End of Brief Story Line
This is an origin story of a superhero. I had to say that personally I do not know Black Panther before his brief appearance in Captain America: Civil War. So when I saw this movie, I was actually hoping to see a story of how T'Challa from his childhood could became the Black Panther. But this one was made differently as he was shown fully grown up already having the best abilities. And this was not a conventional Marvel movies either as usually origin story was made first before the superhero appeared in other movies. Regardless though, the story was made a bit short and went straight to the time when T'Challa would be made king.
Other than those minor shortcomings that I personally felt, the movie definitely had some good moments. The action sequence in Korea plus the climax scene was awesome. The special effects (apart from few brief "a bit obvious" computerized scenes of Wakanda in the background during the time T'Challa was going to be crowned king) were very good. The visual effects of Wakanda country was also very good, which gave us an idea of how advanced the country was. And there were also a bit of funny moments which involved Shuri whom we truly believed as a teenager who happened to be princess, plus surprisingly from M'Baku (Winston Duke).
The earlier part of the movie was a bit challenging to me as it was unclear who the people were. But it would be revealed later how the event would have great significance to what happened next. Therefore, I would really advise you to be fully concentrated from the start to understand better. To my personal opinion, the movie developed to be more interesting when the villains began to appear and the fights started.
I get the appeal of this movie to critics due to its rather complex character development of T'Challa plus the appearance/representation of the African people in a world where third world country were still looked down. I myself as a simple minded movie audience preferred a more intense superhero movie, which I thought I did not really get in here. Therefore, even if the movie was hailed as one of the best in Marvel Cinematic Universe, I personally did not feel that. It may be good, but certainly not the best. Again this does not mean the movie was bad at all, even my wife was able to truly enjoy it. But as I felt it was not the best superhero origin movie & the fact that the action sequence were not too much, I still prefer other such MCU movies like the first Iron Man, Ant-Man or Captain America. Oh another thing, there was not a lot of surprises here, even 1 or 2 supposed surprising moments could have been guessed by my wife and I.
Anyway, since MCU have got their brand name so famous plus the fact that many people just want to see whatever Marvel throw at them (some just want to see the connection to other movies), this movie would still make it very big commercially. Btw, as usual, there would be end credit scene which was having 2 of them in this movie. So wait till the very end to make sure you see them. In conclusion, no matter what I say, people would still gather to see this one. But my personal view is that it was probably a little bit over-hyped.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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