Review of Black Panther (2018) by Maxsnow99 — 19 Feb 2018

Black panther was not a good movie. it was at best a sub par superhero movie. the movie had some quality effects and acting, but that's about it. in terms of writing and story this film fell very short. I would first like to point out the biggest problem I have with this movie, simply from a storytelling perspective. when engaged in ritualistic combat with this movie's primary antagonist the main character loses all his mystic powers to even the playing field. he then loses, badly. now losing to the main villain the first time is a common plot point, but normally the main character loses due to a lack of planning, foul play, or a need to train and gain some new perspective to defeat the antagonist(luke returning to Dagobah, Batman climbing out of the pit bane was born in, etc). here black panther, whose sole merit is his training and good heart, loses. he has lost all my at this point. The only thing i've been told is his strong suit, honorable combat, he has just lost at, but I am somehow supposed to believe he is the one meant to fix everything. Take iron mans suit away, he's still a genius, take caps shield away he's a super soldier with a heart of gold, take black panthers panther powers and pajamas away, and he's apparently worthless. but there is still some chance to redeem himself. he could learn something new despite the fact that he has trained for ritual combat his whole life. maybe it's some emotional revelation. he does gain some tension with his father but even in his visit back to the spirit world he doesn't really confront him, he just mentioned it and says he has unfinished business. this new emotional conflict wasn't present during the original fight with the villain so how its resolution would help him is beyond me. he then wins the last fight for no reason other than it was the end of the movie. he tried using some weird tactic with the train, but if you cut out every scene of them dodging a train the movie would have been exactly the same. on that same topic if you cut out every scene with the man from the CIA the movie would have been the same. this movie is full of filler like this that doesn't really move the plot. the fact that people are praising this movie so much confuses me. it is not new or fresh, it is a heap of rehashed plots, themes, and tropes. To top it off the beginning and end of the movie are exactly the same. What I mean by this is that nothing has changed. If you just show the first couple minutes and the last couple minutes nothing seems to be different. Black panther becomes king and stays king and everything is the same.in almost any good movie something has to be different at the end, the plot had to change something, look at almost any of the most famous classics and the ending has something different, even the big lebowski had change at the end.there is some minor difference at the end, they are trying to do more with the outside world, but this is cut short at the end of the movie so we really don't know where that goes. And the whole theme about helping other countries didn't really have anything to do with the main conflict of birthrights.

I am honestly baffled that this movie has received such shining reviews. It is nothing special. It was no better than any other superhero movie. I'm not saying a superhero movie cannot be amazing. The dark knight was an amazing piece of cinema, but this movie had no substance, nothing new or interesting, no characters that weren't generic (scientist sibling, honorable warrior man, angry young antagonist who was wronged). There are some other specific issues I have with the movie’s plot but I'll leave it at that. This movie was bland, just like the vibranium pajama wearing hero it was made for.