7 Replies to “No, I haven’t watched Black Panther”
Reminds me of the Disney movie Frozen. People raved about Frozen when it first came out. My immediate instinct was to guess that the Disney princess rescues herself rather than the prince (very close!). The movie itself was mediocre: cookie-cutter villain, pointless side characters, and songs that had nothing to do with the main plot.
I’m avoiding Back Panther for the same reason as you. I haven’t seen the movie, only media headlines. When “Black Panther” and “colonialism” are in the same headline, it makes me skeptical.
I watched Black Panther about a month after it was released. By then, I heard a whole bunch of hype about how it was ‘groundbreaking’. I didn’t dislike the movie, but it certainly didn’t live up to all the hype that went around it. Quality wise, I would say that it was about the same as any other superhero movie. It was entertaining, with an average plot, great special effects, and some good fight scenes. Would the movie have gotten nearly as much press if the lead hadn’t been black? I doubt it. Furthermore they made several half-assed attempts to address social issues (institutional racism, poverty, the Black Lives Matter movement, etc) without really addressing any of those issues in any depth or providing a solution of any value. If I could do it again, I probably would have waited until after it was out of theater and seen it on Netflix. Waiting until your next international flight would be perfectly fine. Short answer: you’re not missing much.
As an aside, I would say the opposite about Wonder Woman, which I thought was a solid movie in its own right. It showed female empowerment without bashing masculinity/men, to the point where I stopped thinking of her as a women and saw her primarily as a superhero.
I actually just watched both movies (WW on Netflix, BP on Blu-ray rental). Wonder Woman was great. Black Panther was good but unsurprisingly didn’t live up to the hype.
Black Panther was surprisingly evenhanded in its treatment of certain social issues. In the real world, you have the black progressive side vs. the racist by default side. The movie was able to get around that by having black people with…different views?!
I finally got a chance to see the movie, and I enjoyed it but I have to make an extra effort to suspend my disbelief, like usual for superheroes stories. The two major head scratchers for me were the way, despite how advanced and futuristic Wakanda is, they choose their king and that the king is the titular superhero, so expect lots of a king doing not king business.
The thing that surprised me the most, was feeling like this was three movies in one. The first one being about choosing a new king and an “antagonist” that came out of nowhere (well, kinda). The second one was the pursuit of an enemy of Wakanda that the previous king could not apprehend. And the third one about the titular enemy of the film taking the place of the king for a brief moment.
The most BS part for me was how the titular enemy was accepted in Wakanda. If the king did care to explain who the titular enemy was and what he did on the second act (or arc?), that could make things a lot more interesting.
The action was standard I guess. I like Black Panther mostly because it reminds me of henshin heroes of tokusatsu and because how he was able to cast away his desire for revenge in his debut on the last Captain America movie. I also liked how they didn’t make cameos for the other marvel heroes (they could easily insert Captain America into the mix) and let the movie stand on its own.
Anyways, this is a Marvel movie after all, so expect it to be like the other movies, or rather, like three marvel movies in one. If you didn’t enjoy any of the previous marvel movies, then chances are you probably won’t like this one
I almost forgot. For all the praise the movie receives for its progressiveness, at the end of the day, it’s very shallow with the issues it mentions. They are as integrated into the plot as a McGuffin is to any film, or say something really meaningful with the resolution of the moral dilemma unless you count more US (by Wakanda proxy) interventionism as a really powerful message. The social commentary was more along the lines of “we acknowledge these issues exist by mentioning them (very sparingly) and not showing them” than anything else
I’m really a n00b with comic books, to the point where I don’t know which ones are DC and which ones are Marvel, and I haven’t seen most of these movies. Perhaps watching them may change my mind, but I’m not down with having multiple heroes in the same universe. Somehow I feel like it cheapens them.
More social depth would’ve been fine, but I wouldn’t demand it. You already had three movies in one. I can’t imagine them squeezing in much more.
A futuristic society having its king determined by combat is strange, sure, but if that’s the will of the Panther god, gotta comply.
Reminds me of the Disney movie Frozen. People raved about Frozen when it first came out. My immediate instinct was to guess that the Disney princess rescues herself rather than the prince (very close!). The movie itself was mediocre: cookie-cutter villain, pointless side characters, and songs that had nothing to do with the main plot.
I’m avoiding Back Panther for the same reason as you. I haven’t seen the movie, only media headlines. When “Black Panther” and “colonialism” are in the same headline, it makes me skeptical.
Frozen is Black Panther for white chicks. Both movies became box office hits by giving their target demographics something to latch onto.
I watched Black Panther about a month after it was released. By then, I heard a whole bunch of hype about how it was ‘groundbreaking’. I didn’t dislike the movie, but it certainly didn’t live up to all the hype that went around it. Quality wise, I would say that it was about the same as any other superhero movie. It was entertaining, with an average plot, great special effects, and some good fight scenes. Would the movie have gotten nearly as much press if the lead hadn’t been black? I doubt it. Furthermore they made several half-assed attempts to address social issues (institutional racism, poverty, the Black Lives Matter movement, etc) without really addressing any of those issues in any depth or providing a solution of any value. If I could do it again, I probably would have waited until after it was out of theater and seen it on Netflix. Waiting until your next international flight would be perfectly fine. Short answer: you’re not missing much.
As an aside, I would say the opposite about Wonder Woman, which I thought was a solid movie in its own right. It showed female empowerment without bashing masculinity/men, to the point where I stopped thinking of her as a women and saw her primarily as a superhero.
I actually just watched both movies (WW on Netflix, BP on Blu-ray rental). Wonder Woman was great. Black Panther was good but unsurprisingly didn’t live up to the hype.
Black Panther was surprisingly evenhanded in its treatment of certain social issues. In the real world, you have the black progressive side vs. the racist by default side. The movie was able to get around that by having black people with…different views?!
I finally got a chance to see the movie, and I enjoyed it but I have to make an extra effort to suspend my disbelief, like usual for superheroes stories. The two major head scratchers for me were the way, despite how advanced and futuristic Wakanda is, they choose their king and that the king is the titular superhero, so expect lots of a king doing not king business.
The thing that surprised me the most, was feeling like this was three movies in one. The first one being about choosing a new king and an “antagonist” that came out of nowhere (well, kinda). The second one was the pursuit of an enemy of Wakanda that the previous king could not apprehend. And the third one about the titular enemy of the film taking the place of the king for a brief moment.
The most BS part for me was how the titular enemy was accepted in Wakanda. If the king did care to explain who the titular enemy was and what he did on the second act (or arc?), that could make things a lot more interesting.
The action was standard I guess. I like Black Panther mostly because it reminds me of henshin heroes of tokusatsu and because how he was able to cast away his desire for revenge in his debut on the last Captain America movie. I also liked how they didn’t make cameos for the other marvel heroes (they could easily insert Captain America into the mix) and let the movie stand on its own.
Anyways, this is a Marvel movie after all, so expect it to be like the other movies, or rather, like three marvel movies in one. If you didn’t enjoy any of the previous marvel movies, then chances are you probably won’t like this one
I almost forgot. For all the praise the movie receives for its progressiveness, at the end of the day, it’s very shallow with the issues it mentions. They are as integrated into the plot as a McGuffin is to any film, or say something really meaningful with the resolution of the moral dilemma unless you count more US (by Wakanda proxy) interventionism as a really powerful message. The social commentary was more along the lines of “we acknowledge these issues exist by mentioning them (very sparingly) and not showing them” than anything else
I’m really a n00b with comic books, to the point where I don’t know which ones are DC and which ones are Marvel, and I haven’t seen most of these movies. Perhaps watching them may change my mind, but I’m not down with having multiple heroes in the same universe. Somehow I feel like it cheapens them.
More social depth would’ve been fine, but I wouldn’t demand it. You already had three movies in one. I can’t imagine them squeezing in much more.
A futuristic society having its king determined by combat is strange, sure, but if that’s the will of the Panther god, gotta comply.