By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Ryan Coogler
Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong`o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Leititia Wright, Sterling K. Brown, Angela Bassett, Andy Serkis and Forest Whitaker.
Rating: Excellent.
Ryan Coogler, director of “Fruitvale Station” and “Creed” brings “Black Panther”, his third film under his belt and so far this is a young director that has impressed me.
Based on the comic book by Marvel, the movie takes place in Wakanda, a nation that gets hit a by a meteorite containing vibranium that makes them very powerful.
The movie tells the story of T´Challa/Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) a young man who mourns his father´s death and inherits the throne of Wakanda.
During his reign he will encounter with a serious of events which are to confront Ulysses Klaue ( Andy Serkis) a South African smuggler who has a great deal of resentment agains T´Challa and Erik “Killmonger” Stevens (Michael B. Jordan) a black-ops soldier who has a big resentment against the people of Wakanda and wants to overthrown T´Challa at all costs.
Now T´Challa as Black Panther most confront his enemies and save the people of Wakanda over his enemies, who want to take over Wakanda, control of the Vibranium and use it as a weapon to destroy the planet.
Again Ryan Coogler directed a very fun, entertaining and engaging film and by far the most ambitious he has done so far in his young career.
The screenplay that he wrote with Joe Robert Cole is very original and was written with a lot of detail. I liked the fact that we don´t see the typical superheroe. In Black Panther we see someone who constantly struggles with himself and has doubts of him as the King of the imaginary Wakanda.
I also liked the fact that this film stayed true to the comic book at all senses and the world of the film is very interesting.
The tone of the movie goes with the theme itself. The cinematography by Rachel Morrison is very sharp, with a lot of detail and I liked how she played with the world of Wakanda and The Virtual world where the character of Shuri, played Letitia Wright operates all the technology involving Black Panther.
This film proves that once again, Marvel Comic Films have been better in terms of content than it´s rival DC Comics, since not only care about the look of the film, but also they care about the narrative.
Ryan Coogler´s direction was really good. Not only he chose beautiful imagery, but his cast gave very good performances and knew how to use all the tools he had in his disposal.
The movie had Coogler´s touch in the way that in every single one of his characters goes deep. Not only Chadwick Boseman´s character has a struggle but every single one of them has them as well.
There is one thing that I think it could have been better in “Black Panther” and that is the fact that I would have liked to seen more time screen of Michael B. Jordan´s character since he is the real villain. I felt that we saw more of Andy Serkis`s character in this film and he is not the real villain.
We saw most of the parts that were important in B. Jordan´s character but I felt that if more time would have been invested in his character, I felt the movie could have been even better and shorter.
Michael B. Jordan gives a remarkable performance as Erik Killmonger and I love how he played a character with so much hatred and resentment. For moments you understand why he that way, but in the other you just hate him and that is what makes a very good villain.
The action sequences, visuals are impressive and here Coogler took it to another level. The climactic sequence with the Rhinos was a little bit over the top, but it does work in a certain way.
The beauty of movies like “Black Panther” is that you can be totally over the top and still you´re movie is going to work as long as you have a very good story.
If you can watch first "Captain America:Civil War" before watching "Black Panther" it would help a lot so you can understand more about this character.
Coogler directed another fantastic film, I highly recommend “Black Panther” and is one of the biggest surprises of this year.