By Alex Navarro
I think Black Panther was a mediocre Marvel movie. It was full of amazing special effects, a great soundtrack featuring original music by Kendrick Lamar, and a talented cast of actors. It’s a mediocre movie to me because of how poorly executed it was. It’s an average Marvel movie that doesn’t really have anything going for it, except for having the first lead black actor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The movie starts off with Black Panther, or T’Challa, and his sister, Zuri, trying to get his ex girlfriend back from a mission she’s on to inform her that the King, Black Panther’s father, has died. They get back and begin the ceremony, starting with taking the King’s powers away and challenging the warriors from every tribe. All seems to be going well until a tribe comes at the end of the ceremony and challenges him. After a long, hard battle, T’Challa eventually wins. At the same time, a mysterious man steals a vibranium hammer from a museum.
After getting crowned king, T’Challa goes on a mission to capture Klaw, a man with a cannon arm who killed the father of one of T’challa’s friends. They get in and see that an FBI agent who Black Panther knows is there to set up a deal with Klaw for the vibranium he stole. It turns out to be a setup and a fight breaks out leading in to a massive car chase, ending with the capture of Klaw. During the interrogation with Klaw, they get attacked and Black Panther gets a glimpse of our new villain, which turns out to be a fellow Wakandan. Black Panther gets his uncle to tell him who the mysterious villain is and finds out that he is his cousin, Erik Killmonger, whose father was killed for betraying Wakanda and who was left to fend for himself.
His cousin eventually kills Klaw, travels into Wakanda, and challenges T’Challa for the throne. Killmonger beats Black Panther and plans to kill anyone that gets into his way. Black Panther comes back and fights him with the aid of his family and a fellow tribe.The movie ends on with good note with Black Panther planning to share Wakandan resources with the outside world and aiding anyone in need.
My problem with the movie is how it is executed. The special effects and the comedy/action sequences are just shoved in.There were many scenes in the movie that would clearly need blood such as people getting stabbed, getting their throat cut, and literally getting hit by a rhinoceros. Many of the locations of sequences really threw me off with how out of place it felt. The comedy for sure was the worst part. There were so many parts of the movie where comedy wasn’t really needed like the “what are those’’ scene and the ‘I made it rain’ scene. It felt forced and really lowered my opinion about the movie. Admittedly, it was an amazing Marvel movie, probably one of the best, but as a stand alone movie it was just ok.
