I was very much excited when Black Panther's character showed up in Civil War. For years I thought he would make an excellent addition to the Marvel universe. I much preferred him to super America guy (Capt America). His backstory is much more interesting and his costume is badass. I was super stoked to see him kicking ass in Civil War and wished he had gotten more screen time. After Civil War I heard he was getting his own stand-alone feature! Huzzah! I yelled, to no one in particular. I was hopeful they would focus on the heritage of the Black Panther and the inter-tribal wars in Wakanda and T'Challa ruling his people and being challenged for his throne. Oh oh! The goddamn PC police got a hold of this one!
Throughout the film there are references to slavery, colonization, whites and a slew of other things that don't belong in a superhero movie. There are a few times when it was loud and clear that this movie is about how evil the white man is and that he should be removed from the equation all together. I know what happened in our past but that was a few hundred years ago. Last time I looked everyone in the US has the same rights. Even women! Crazy. One particular scene even has a bunch of tribal warriors barking every time the one white guy in the movie tries to speak. Really??? For some reason (thanks Obama) it's become cool to hate white people and even encouraged in social media. Why? Because slavery. Hey I know that stuff happened back in 1885 but that's like yesterday! Everything today is white privilege this and systemic that. Ok, show me where any of that exists. You can't??? But why not? Who cares? because facts don't matter and neither does my white privilege opinion apparently.
As far as content goes the main actor Boseman does a decent job playing T'Challa but that's where the decentness ends. The bad guy in the film (Killmonger) is flatter than a 90 year old womans' tits. In order for a movie to have a compelling good guy there HAS to be a compelling protagonist. He was just...there. I go to a Marvel movie to see some badass action scenes and my childhood superheros brought to life. Even the CGI was spotty at best. The soundtrack was very lackluster as well. I just watched the movie and I don't even remember what it sounded like. Not a bit. The fighting scenes were done pretty decent but the overall "technology" of Wakanda was a bit off. Somehow Vibranium has made everything inside Wakanda look like a thousand years in the future but they still sell woven baskets in the city. Why? They talk about whites as being bad but they themselves have created a single-race world. Isn't that a bit uh, racist? Oh, no it's not. I forgot, I'm white. This movie was like finding that great video you saw years ago but then having your computer crash right before you fire off your knuckle children. Just a letdown. Which is the same thing my father told me last time I visited him.
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