I was wondering whether the movie could live up to all the hype. It did. It was a great movie. The plot, the action – oh boy the action, and even the political discussion to some extent. Although I must say that at some points the CGI looked super fake and I think Marvel can afford better. Still, it was a great movie.
Let’s start with the best thing about this movie – the action. This movie has some of the most original action sequences I’ve seen, and that’s hard to find these days. I guess we have director Ryan Coogler to thank for that. Also, after watching this movie, you will totally understand why Okoye (Danai Gurira) is in Infinity War as well, she is just that good of a fighter. For a movie that has women fighting in dresses, it manages to look both practical and spectacular. Also, the entire South Korea action sequences was unbelievable. Yet I would have liked to see more of this sort of action sequence. The movie has a lot of action in it, but less of these great action scenes.
The Disney – just like Wonder Woman burrowed imagery from Disney’s princesses, this movie burrowed imagery from The Lion King. At some points you there was just a feeling that T'Challa is just Simba, but it was most clear with some of the visual choices. I don’t want to give too much away, because something, surprisingly, the trailers didn’t give away.
The characters – I loved almost all of the characters. T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) was a great king, who is really great at adapting. His super smart sister Shuri is going to give Stark and Banner some serious competition. However, Nakia (Lupita Nyong'o) felt like the only female character who had her own motivations and needs. M'Baku (Winston Duke) was great and provided some great comedic moments as well as great action.
The villains – oh boy, this is the third Marvel movie in which the hero fights a version of himself. I mean fighting someone with the same skills and technology. In the first Iron Man movie we have Iron Man vs. Iron Monger and then we have Ant Man vs. Yellowjacket in the Ant-Man movie. This is a third. It’s not that interesting. Michael B. Jordan’s performance just didn’t feel compelling and it felt like he was created to be a typical one-dimensional bad guy, who may have a point, but not good enough (Sterling K. Brown’s N'Jobu did a much better job of at least looking conflicted, he should have had more screen time). Along with the not enough action, I think this is why the movie isn’t doing so great outside of the U.S. (speaking as someone from outside of the U.S.) Andy Serkis’ Ulysses Klaue is by far the better villain. I guess that Serkis was happy to finally show his face, because his performance is just so high on energy and so much fun that it was a real joy to see him on screen. It looked like he had a blast and I had a blast watching him.
The humor – sometimes this movie is funny, sometimes the humor in it’s Marvel tradition destroys emotional scenes and at some moments it was cringe worthy. The movie had less humor than an average Marvel movie, but it needed even less.
Standalone – even though it’s a standalone movie that is relatively isolated from other Marvel movies, if this is your first Marvel movie, you will need someone to help you fill in the gaps, even though there are not a lot of them. If you’re an avid Marvel fan, you will be disappointed by the lack of connection to the rest of the Marvel universe. Even the post credit scenes aren’t very compelling and don’t give you anything new to talk about.
Still it was a really good movie. Entertaining, original at times with mostly great characters and great character relationships and interactions. I am so going to see it again in theaters.
P.S. I really would like to hear Ulysses Klaue's mix tape. Marvel should release that.
I give it 8/10
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