Official Black Panther MCU Thread

Jards

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Birnin Zana said:
Christopher Priest (former BP writer, for those that don't know) just reviewed the movie. No spoilers in the review but will put review in spoiler tags for those who want to avoid any info.

Panther: First Look (No Spoilers) « Welcome To Lamercie Park

Panther: First Look (No Spoilers)
Well, my date and I got stuck in LA traffic and almost missed it. But that story is for another time.

Despite toiling under the now very tired superhero movie formula (Act Three: The Hero Faces Off Against His Doppelganger!) director Ryan Coogler manages to pull off a few surprises– something I honestly did not think possible. This is not my Black Panther– it is a young king who is still learning and thus still growing and thus capable of being surprised in ways my T’Challa never could. Michael B. Jordan’s more linear and bombastic villain’s hip hop soundtrack tends to drown out Chadwick Boseman’s far more nuanced, surgical prince-who-would-be-king, so you’re likely to read lots of praises or complaints about Jordan “stealing” this movie. The actual thieves are the women– Letitia Wright, Danai Gurira, and Lupita Nyong’o, who are given the most dynamic of the action scenes and who, along with an absolutely glorious Angela Bassett, solve all of the plot’s problems (including rescuing T’Challa)–which is both good and bad. But Jordan’s Killmonger is kind of an idiot. He is an idiot who has a legitimate case– real complaints and concerns about Wakandan tradition along with a thirst for simple revenge (revenge always works in plots)– but make no mistake about it: movie Killmonger is an idiot–something he was not in my comics.

While taking absolutely nothing away from Stan Lee, who was one of the people who taught me this biz, or Jack “King” Kirby, I was disappointed and a little disturbed by one thing. I would guess at least 80% of the characters up on that screen were created by Don McGregor, who was in attendance at last night’s premiere. Forget me or Reginald Hudlin or even Ta-Nehisi Coates (who sat with us), the vast and rich infrastructure of this film was a product of years of hard investment by Don, who was paid some paltry page rate. Don built the world of Wakanda, literally, maps of the place and extensive biographies and character sketches. He deserved much more than to be buried in a “Special Thanks” paragraph in the closing credits. Stan wrote, to my knowledge, only one Black Panther story, and Jack jettisoned virtually everything Don did when he did his own run on the book. Black Panther the movie is Don McGregor’s world brought to glorious life. I’d have liked him to have a larger credit for it (and better seats than waaaaay in the back with the rest of us peons).

There are at least four audiences for this film: Black Panther comic book fans, general comic book fans, African American general audiences and general audiences. This film offers high octane entertainment to all of these groups, but it will be the African American general audiences–who neither know nor care who I am–who will struggle the hardest to make it through the first act of this film without tearing up. The film’s glorious fairy tale of a highly advanced African civilization is enough to drop even the most cynical among us to our knees. A love letter to African Americans, the first half hour of this film had me wiping away tears at the sheer beauty of a people–my people–brought to glorious and amazing life in ways I never could on a static comic book page. Here, Black Panther finally had a soundtrack, and it is the soundtrack of my ancestors, my homeland. It was emotionally overwhelming and something I’d not quite prepared myself for.

There are many laugh out loud moments in the film but almost none of them come from Martin Freeman’s Everett K. Ross. Freeman does the best he can, often eliciting big laughs with simple body language and facial expressions–the mark of a master thespian. But the film gives Ross little to do and almost no lines, which will disappoint fans of my run while the other audiences will simply wonder what he was doing there in the first place.

Unfortunately, by either decree or simple fate, and despite my pleadings with the decision makers, Black Panther nonetheless sticks to formula. Are we really not capable of creating a film that resolves its core conflicts without the predictable big fight at the end? The best parts of the film–and there are many–are the places where Coogler is allowed to vary from this formula or, even better, practice a kind of slight of hand where he doesn’t really fool me so much as he waves a hand puppet, “Hey! Look over here!” distracting me long enough that when the film snaps back to formula I am actually surprised where I, a grizzled old writer, really shouldn’t have been.

All of the performances–including Freeman’s–are near-flawless. These are brilliant actors chewing scenery through each and every frame of this film. They all seem to know they are working on a landmark film–likely the biggest-budget blockbuster film with a mostly black cast, and every single actor here rises to the occasion.

While I’d have wished for much more originality in the final act of the film, I do not hold Mr. Coogler responsible for not reinventing the wheel. But I _am_ tired of watching the same movie over and over and over and over and over– And Then They Fight! I like even less the lesson these films repeatedly teach our children: conflict resolution through violence.

Having said that, I am overwhelmed by a sense of relief that the movie far exceeds my fears about what this thing might have been. It is an amazing spectacle with a rich, thick, multi-layered, often conflicted and expertly nuanced pseudo-Hamlet at the center–a brilliant performance that is bound to be overrun by Jordan’s more flamboyant, focused and bombastic challenger. My self-interest in the success of this film notwithstanding, I am confident the film will be a huge hit with African American audiences and certainly with comic book (and comic book film) fans, leaving only Priest-specific Black Panther fans a bit disappointed, and, of course, the Donald Trump crowd who will hate it even as they buy their ticket.
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There's spoilers within the first 5 lines of that review.
 
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Roman Brady

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Rell84shots said:
Can you not read? JL was not protected and when it debuted in theaters it bombed, the DC stans said the bad reviews hurt the film. BvS JL & LJ did not get the praise Black Panther is getting now.
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What are you talking about? In the post i replied you said y'all just want this to fail? That is present tense so clearly you had made your useless point using the DCEU and had shifted to the topic at hand which is this movie.. And again i state if you truly believe i want this movie to fail then you havent been paying attention
 
kingdarius

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Bryan Danielson said:
Not trynna get into Chad biz like that but just thinking about how he arrived at this premiere alone with no wife or date.

Shiittttttt if she not married, if I was Chadwick..... I'd be trynna get up on and whife Nicole Baharie with her sexy ass.:noah:

shyt they already were an item on 42 might as well let Art imitate Life:lawd:

Martha
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She done fukking white dudes yet?
 
SmarkMero

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Bryan Danielson said:
Not trynna get into Chad biz like that but just thinking about how he arrived at this premiere alone with no wife or date.

Shiittttttt if she not married, if I was Chadwick..... I'd be trynna get up on and whife Nicole Baharie with her sexy ass.:noah:

shyt they already were an item on 42 might as well let Art imitate Life:lawd:

Martha
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I don't know if he is still with his rumoured girl still..............

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I however wonder how Tika Sumpter feels whenever she sees any Black Panther promo on show:sas2:
 
ozzy

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China racist as hell! Peep their black panther poster!
DUy2eKLUMAEeuiN.jpg


Chinese poster vs original

F them and their General Tso's chicken 4 real 4 real

Source: Can Disney Possibly Succeed With 'Black Panther' In China'?

“
Consider this list of movies from the past two years:

Get Out, All Eyez On Me, Girls Trip, The Dark Tower, Marshall, Ride Along 2, Hidden Figures, The Best Man Wedding, Barbershop: The Next Cut, Suicide Squad, Central Intelligence.

All featured black actors in the lead roles. Several were big successes at the box office and profitable for their backers.

But not one of these movies was authorized for release in mainland China’s movie theaters.

It’s not that the Chinese film authorities actively discriminate against films with black actors. But a big part of their job is to import movies that will succeed at the local box office, and their experience and instincts tell them that such films haven’t typically been embraced by China’s moviegoers.

Not that they’ve tried very hard to change the status quo. Movies with black stars in the lead roles sometimes succeed in the Middle Kingdom—Will Smith’s MIB 3 was a top-10 hit there in 2012—but more often than not they are either rejected for distribution or fail to make a splash in the market.

I couldn’t say whether Chinese moviegoers purposefully avoid films with black stars. But I started thinking about the issue as it relates to China back in 2010 when the Karate Kid re-boot released there. The film was produced by Will Smith and starred his son Jaden in the title role opposite Jackie Chan. Despite the fact that it was made as a co-production with substantial backing from the huge and powerful China Film Group, despite the fact that it was given a preferential PRC release, despite the fact that it grossed $176 million in North America and $175 million in other overseas markets, and despite the fact that it featured China’s favorite movie star Jackie Chan in the second lead role, The Karate Kid bombed in China, with a paltry $7 million in box office collections.”



 
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