Black Panther | Cinema Spotlight

The Skeleton Crue Brand Podcast

Marvel Knights was my first introduction to Black Panther, and ever since that 1998 run by Christopher Priest and Mark Texeira, I have adored the character.
A few years down the line I came across the animated Marvel Knights Black Panther series on Netflix and my fandom for T’Challa significantly deepened. Then once the MCU gave us our first look at a live action Black Panther, I became obsessed with idea of T’Challa leading his own movie…

At this point, it’s just redundant to say that Marvel has knocked it out of the park yet again.. Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige and Disney can do no wrong when it comes to the MCU, and Black Panther is just another win to add to their ever growing list of cinematic wonders.
There was nothing that I didn’t love about this live action depiction of Wakanda and all it’s associated tribes and characters. I did have a few “I would have done this differently” moments, but none that took me out of the story, the action, the visuals or performances.

Visually, this movie was unbelievably stunning, I couldn’t have imagined a better reflection of a “real life” Wakanda. Everything from the tribal meets futuristic architecture of their buildings, to the naturalistic essence of all the Wakandan tech was imagineered perfectly. The heart shaped herb was brought to life perfectly, and the depiction of the ancestral plane didn’t feel out of place!

The cinematic adaptations of these characters came with an added bonus over the comic books. In the comics, most Wakandan characters feel very stern, not exuding much in the way of lighthearted humor, similar to the Asgardian characters. Even in Civil War, T’Challa held a very composed demeanor… but to be fair, he was also freshly mourning the loss of his father. I wonder if Marvel Studios took a queue from Thor: Ragnarok and intentionally made everyone’s personality a little lighter.
I’d say “in my opinion” there was one character who slightly stood above the rest, but it seems to be that the overall audience consensus is that Shuri really stole the show. Personally I’ve enjoined Shuri as a character from the comics, and she does rival T’challa as my favorite Black Panther. What I loved most about our cinematic Shuri, aside from her heartwarming sense of humor and personality, was her tech genius. I’m really looking forward to a meeting between Shuri and Tony Stark in Infinity War and really hope it happens. Going into this movie my villain expectations were reversed, I really had thought Klaw would have played a much larger roll in the film.. But Killmonger was a really impressive surprise, and his motivations, though highly misguided in their execution, were completely valid and understandable.

Aside from some minor and personal story pacing qualms, there is one thing that has bothered me about most MCU movies… Marvel really needs to stop killing off their bad guys.. But their deaths didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the movie on a whole.

All and all this is just another cinematic bar set by Marvel Studios and I can’t wait to see more from Black Panther and Wakanda in the inevitable sequel and Avengers: Infinity War.