WARNING - SPOILERS
This movie was all-around thumbs up from me -- except for a couple of the jokes. The plot follows the story of the new king of Wakanda, a hidden country in Africa filled with the most high-tech technology imaginable constructed using the power of a rare metal called vibranium, whose name is T’Challa, played by Chadwick Boseman. He aspires to be as good a king as he believes his father was, but immediately faces new challenges as his mission to bring a thief back fails and a vengeful outsider. Soon he realizes that his father was not the perfect man he once though he was when he finds out that he had murdered his own brother, T’Challa’s uncle, for distributing vibranium weapons to the outside world. The ‘outsider’ turns out to be his cousin, Erik Killmonger (played by Michael B. Jordan), disrupts the nation of Wakanda and challenges T’Challa to a fight for the throne, and throws him off the cliff, making him the new king. Erik has the same worldview as his father did and immediately starts a movement to share the advanced resources of Wakanda with the people around the world who have previously been unable to fight for themselves. Essentially, civil war breaks out as T’Challa is saved and brought back to health after his fall and he, along with his sister and girlfriend try to stop the jets flying out with the weapons. Erik and T’Challa end up sparing on one of the magnetic train tracks, and of course T’Challa comes out victorious. At the end of the film we see that T’Challa has been restored as king of Wakanda and adopts some of the propositions made by Erik to share the technology of Wakanda with the outside world, something that he had previously struggled to make a decision about.
First of all, I think it is a must to recognize the significance of this superhero movie with a predominantly black cast. It is awesome to see that progress is being made in the cinema world in terms of casting, but it’s a pity it has taken so long and there is definitely a long ways to go to still. Also, I thought that it was really cool how the character of Erik Killmonger was so passionate about what he was doing because he wanted to help his people that had been, and still were being, oppressed and had been deprived of resources needed to put them back on their feet. Even in the very last scene, we see how he quotes a former slave saying, "Bury me in the ocean where my ancestors jumped from ships because they knew death was better than bondage." The success rate of this movie was outstanding. It passed the lifetime gross of Titanic at $665.4 million, and is third to only Avatar and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Pretty incredible. This is understandably so considering amazing visuals of the film. I thought the costumes and landscape shots in this movie were absolutely stunning, as well as the design of all the new technology. I think that the producers did an awesome job at the incorporation of different aspects of African cultures, including the importance of traditions and ancestry. All of the actors in the film did amazing work, and are all extremely talented. Although, I have to admit whenever I see Martin Freeman on camera, I can’t help but think of Bilbo Baggins.
What I enjoyed less about the movie were the cheesy jokes written for T’Challa’s sister, Shuri, and M’Baku the leader of the mountain tribe. The one-liners from Shuri were mostly cringe-worthy, although I can see the reasoning behind giving her dialogue that connected her to the setting of the outside world, given her age and obsession with technology. In this way, I can accept all her lines except for the “what are those” joke. This one is what got me, but again I can see the appeal as it is easily recognizable to such a huge audience of young people. To be honest, M’Baku’s jokes were pretty amusing when the American FBI agent tried to talk, but I couldn’t tell if I wanted to genuinely laugh at his joke or at the fact that he was the only one in the scene who was laughing. Then again, what’s a Marvel movie without a couple of awkward jokes?
Anyway, movie a must-see and there’s really not much else to say about that.
This movie was all-around thumbs up from me -- except for a couple of the jokes. The plot follows the story of the new king of Wakanda, a hidden country in Africa filled with the most high-tech technology imaginable constructed using the power of a rare metal called vibranium, whose name is T’Challa, played by Chadwick Boseman. He aspires to be as good a king as he believes his father was, but immediately faces new challenges as his mission to bring a thief back fails and a vengeful outsider. Soon he realizes that his father was not the perfect man he once though he was when he finds out that he had murdered his own brother, T’Challa’s uncle, for distributing vibranium weapons to the outside world. The ‘outsider’ turns out to be his cousin, Erik Killmonger (played by Michael B. Jordan), disrupts the nation of Wakanda and challenges T’Challa to a fight for the throne, and throws him off the cliff, making him the new king. Erik has the same worldview as his father did and immediately starts a movement to share the advanced resources of Wakanda with the people around the world who have previously been unable to fight for themselves. Essentially, civil war breaks out as T’Challa is saved and brought back to health after his fall and he, along with his sister and girlfriend try to stop the jets flying out with the weapons. Erik and T’Challa end up sparing on one of the magnetic train tracks, and of course T’Challa comes out victorious. At the end of the film we see that T’Challa has been restored as king of Wakanda and adopts some of the propositions made by Erik to share the technology of Wakanda with the outside world, something that he had previously struggled to make a decision about.
First of all, I think it is a must to recognize the significance of this superhero movie with a predominantly black cast. It is awesome to see that progress is being made in the cinema world in terms of casting, but it’s a pity it has taken so long and there is definitely a long ways to go to still. Also, I thought that it was really cool how the character of Erik Killmonger was so passionate about what he was doing because he wanted to help his people that had been, and still were being, oppressed and had been deprived of resources needed to put them back on their feet. Even in the very last scene, we see how he quotes a former slave saying, "Bury me in the ocean where my ancestors jumped from ships because they knew death was better than bondage." The success rate of this movie was outstanding. It passed the lifetime gross of Titanic at $665.4 million, and is third to only Avatar and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Pretty incredible. This is understandably so considering amazing visuals of the film. I thought the costumes and landscape shots in this movie were absolutely stunning, as well as the design of all the new technology. I think that the producers did an awesome job at the incorporation of different aspects of African cultures, including the importance of traditions and ancestry. All of the actors in the film did amazing work, and are all extremely talented. Although, I have to admit whenever I see Martin Freeman on camera, I can’t help but think of Bilbo Baggins.
What I enjoyed less about the movie were the cheesy jokes written for T’Challa’s sister, Shuri, and M’Baku the leader of the mountain tribe. The one-liners from Shuri were mostly cringe-worthy, although I can see the reasoning behind giving her dialogue that connected her to the setting of the outside world, given her age and obsession with technology. In this way, I can accept all her lines except for the “what are those” joke. This one is what got me, but again I can see the appeal as it is easily recognizable to such a huge audience of young people. To be honest, M’Baku’s jokes were pretty amusing when the American FBI agent tried to talk, but I couldn’t tell if I wanted to genuinely laugh at his joke or at the fact that he was the only one in the scene who was laughing. Then again, what’s a Marvel movie without a couple of awkward jokes?
Anyway, movie a must-see and there’s really not much else to say about that.