'Black Panther' Review

Black Panther Directed by Ryan Coogler | Fantasy, Science Fiction| PG-13 | 2h 15m

By Adnane Baghough

Dec 11, 2018

So, I have managed to stay up late at night watching The Black Panther, the so called "greatest movie" that has introduced new heroes to Marvel Studios. I got to admit, the movie is very different from other Marvel movies. It consists of star Micheal B. Jordan, who was also featured in the movie Creed and will be making Creed II, something I am looking forward to watching. Other stars like Martin Freeman, Chadwik Boseman, Sterling K. Brown and Letitia Wright happen to be playing big roles in the movie and can be seen in most big events in the film. The movie was very cultural, having African culture and African American actors play as super heroes. This is something rarely seen in Marvel movies, so it is a great accomplishment by Marvel. The animation was also something that attracted me the most about the Black Panther movie.

In the movie there is a secret civilization called Wakanda located in Kenya. In Wakanda there is this very rare metal called vibranium, which is known as the hardest metal in the world. The Africans have been in war for years in order to take control over the metal - I would say thousands of years. Then there was one man by the name of T'Challa, who was chosen by the Black Panther from outer space and was shown the possibilities of using vibranium. T'Challa was given the heart shaped fruit which gave him the powers of a Black Panther and that is what ends the ancient war in Africa. In order to keep the whole world from knowing what they posses, there is a dome created out of vibranium energy that protects the vibranium and the citizens there by keeping them out of radar. This is how Wakanda is formed. Generations later, a man known as Erik Killmonger, who knew of Wakanda's existence because the king of Wakanda, a.k.a the Black Panther, slaughtered his father right before his eyes when he was a child. Killmonger trained his whole life and joined the military to gain military might and work for the CIA to reach the Black Panther. When Killmonger makes it to Wakanda he challenges the king for the throne and in less than 12 seconds he defeats him almost killing him. Killmonger throws him over the cliff, a ritual done that symbolizes the death of a young king.

When Killmonger claims the throne, he plans on exposing the ancient civilization to the whole world as his plan to take over the world, but the Wakandans don’t see it that way and think of the new king as a monster but they cannot oppose and even think that there is nothing to be done. The new king demands the plantation of the heart shaped fruits to be burned so no one else can have this power besides the king. Before that happened, one planter stole a piece of the heart shaped fruit and ran off with it and went in to find the dead king. He gave the fruit to the wife of the dead king and ordered her to find the right person who is capable of the power inside the fruit. Instead she finds her husband still alive and still strong and she got shook. She tells him everything happening in Wakanda and tells him the king's plan of trying to rule the world. T'Challa devours the fruit in order to regain his Black Panther powers and goes back to Wakanda to save his kingdom. The battle between T'Challa and Killmonger was long and bloody. T'Challa takes back his throne by the death of Killmonger, but before his death he had a few last words to say to the king and it was the description of how he wanted to show the beauty that Wakanda has to offer to the world. It was very touching.

Personal Opinion

I like the movie very much - it was very cultural and very inspiring. I relate the movie to the old epic poem The Iliad and The Odyssey because in the Iliad, King Odysseus was lost in the Trojan War with his soldiers far from home. He faced many challenges to get to his home and no matter how slim the chances looked to making it back to his people and his kingdom, he still believed he could make it back. I kind of see that in the Black Panther movie. After the release of the movie I looked up online reviews on the movie itself and there were some prejudices claiming that non blacks that watch the movie have to be aware of the black struggle and have to be supporters of the ideology that Black Lives Matter, if not they are claimed racist or just bandwaggoners. I kind of disagree with that claim - a movie is just a movie. Why does everything have to revolve around race? Besides that I found the movie very uplifting and intense, so I ranked it a 10/10.

Image credits to Amazon