Login
I wish i could give this movie more than two thumbs down. Talk about being unimpressed. Just a complete letdown. All i can say is that Michael B. Jordan was great but didn't have enough screen time to really work the heft and importance of his character's plight. I do like how he and Panther kinda dwelt in a moral gray area because of what they chose to do or not do, but it didn't make for engaging enough exchanges. This should have focused more on Killmonger than Panther as it would have given more gravitas to the subject at hand...alas, what we got is a dull and uneven first act that dragged quite a bit until Killmonger became the central focus.
Even then the film's other flaws were far too present to let me enjoy it properly. Chief among these is it's inability to make me suspend my disbelief and go along for the ride. Instead, i just sat there nitpicking and focusing on its downsides as I was too uninvested to do much else. Wakanda seemed about as realistic a place as Wonderland...only without the wonder. The natural beauty of Africa was mostly forsaken for garbage CGI locations and digital matte paintings. But it was not the only thing to suffer.
Panther went from the interesting badass of Civil War to the guy I knew too much about to the point of disengagement. Considering the film centered on him, this proved an issue. I will say that Okoye, the head of his royal guard, was excellent in every scene and, quite frankly, the film's only "badass" character in a movie that should of been brimming with them. Killmonger and Man-Ape do their best with what they have and it works while they're around but it's far too little, too late.. Agent Ross felt so out of place it hurt, Panther's sister was a mixture of annoying and far too ridiculous to be credible. I could go on.
The humor in this is not only out of place but cringe-inducingly lame. Much more than it was in Doctor Strange only in Strange I got over it. Here...I just couldn't believe any of those jokes passed muster. Groaning and eye-rolling every time a scene was ruined by some third rate zinger.
I was also shocked at how incredibly horrid the effects in this were. Up to no standard that Marvel has set thus far. Instead a step back. Green screens and digital matte's were blatantly obvious, Panther's suit and fights were a CGI clusterfuck. Remember that cool car chase sequence in Civil War with Panther? Let's do that again only make it so fake that any of the coolness is sapped out of it. And those rhinos and the ships...sweet nuts! How did anyone accept these as up to par with the previous output?
The action? With the exception of Okoye's fights and the final tribal war, the action was a mix of frenzied, close-up camerawork, sub-par choreography, or seeing obvious digital effects jump around and pretend to hurt each other. Never was there a moment of awe and childlike wonder for me but there were plenty of moments of me wishing it looked better or at least came across as cool. No dice.
The now mandatory credit and post credit sequences are not only useless but one of them upstages the final scene of the movie and robs it of its impact in the process by saying the same thing, basically.
I know i'm in the minority here (the movie made billions by now) but it was shockingly bad to me. Luke Cage was a far better black hero character in the MCU and there were even similar themes of the responsibility of having power and using it for the good of others.
