I watched Black Panther last night and if you saw the trailer then you saw it already too. That’s right, all the best scenes were pretty much in the promos. There was a good plot, there was good acting, there was good themes, but for a Marvel movie I felt like there should have been more action. I give it a B. I really wanted to give it an A+, but I can’t.
Here was my set up though: 2 tickets $45. Popcorn, candy, and water $28. 2 hotdogs $20. Plus tax. I didn’t pay for all of that but still. It was my idea to go to the new “luxury” movie theater. I was excited to see this movie. I have the Moviepass where I pay $10 a month and I can watch however many movies I want. But you only get to use the theaters they choose for you and it’s the cheaper ones where you don’t get to choose your seats or recline them etc. For Black Panther I wanted to the works. I bought the tickets and picked seats on Fandango.
So you can’t order food at the counter, just popcorn and drinks. The big cushy recliners that recline almost fully horizontal and ambiance were perfect. They had these little swivel tables and a menu and a button to ring the waiter. We ordered food during the trailers. The movie is now about to start, where’s our 2 hotdogs? 10 minutes into the movie comes the food, not just our food but food for the whole row. It’s dark and they are mixing up everyone’s order. WOW, this is how they do it? Took me out of the movie for a minute, I got more than a little annoyed. But I got back into it.
WARNING: Spoilers ahead.
Movie opens in Oakland. I loved it. I am a huge fan of the director Ryan Coogler, he is from the Bay and has the talk of a person from the Bay. In interviews he wears Golden State Warriors gear so it was awesome to see “Oakland, 1992” as the opening title on a giant screen.
They start introducing all the characters. The villain, the King, etc. Good set up. The first act of the movie was great, the second act where the King is dead is great, but the third act is where I think they fucked up. This is where the best action should be, but it was just a big open field battle not very eventful like watch any Lord of the Rings movie to learn how to do it or watch Avengers. And then another already been done 100 times fist fight on some train tracks, watch any James Bond movie. If you are going to do it, you gotta go big please. There was actually only 3 main action sequences, movies like Fast and Furious have maybe 8 big time action sequences. The stakes are too high nowadays.
They had a scene in the beginning where the sister, who develops all the tech in Wakanda, scans the King’s neck to encode him to the Black Panther suit. Yet at the end Killmonger is just wearing the suit like what up. This reminds of me of Ironman 2 and 3 where anyone can just put on a suit and go nuts. Why spend so much time in Ironman 1 developing the arc reactor, getting to know his artificial intelligence, tinkering and creating gnarliness and then anyone can just put it on at anytime and do whatever they want. Also if the sister created the suit like Tony Stark, why can’t either of them disable the suit when anyone, not a hacker or techie, puts it on. The sonic things that run the train track disable the suit. Why didn’t the sister have a sonic disrupter in her arsenal? Klaw had one on his arm that he stole from Wakanda.
They spent a lot of time showcasing all the vibranium tech, yet when it comes time to get buck loco, the bad guys get away, the King dies, and everyone in Wakanda is getting their asses kicked all over the place. In fact in the end they have to disable both suits and maybe get lucky. And again lucky, the gorilla clan rolls up and saves the battle and they don’t seem to use vibranium at all. And another stroke of luck, the white guy saves the day by stopping Killmonger’s vibranium delivery. And why do your clothes have to shred into tiny pieces when you turn the Black Panther suit on?
I didn’t think Klaw should have died, he was rad. And I didn’t think Killmonger should have died. But in retrospect, I can see how they can bring him back. Like Black Panther can bring him to the lab real quick. Or catch him in the spirit realm and be like, “Come back and chill.” By this time in the movie some dude comes out to bring the receipt and tell us to leave our dishes, they will get them later. Why come at that time? Again taking me out of the movie for a minute, 5 minutes before it ends. And 15 minutes before that a baby started crying and acting up.
Anyways, if there was a bit more beefy action then I could bump up this B grade. I almost want to give it a B- but mostly everything was fine. I will watch it again and make sure I am not tripping for no reason. But I should also say some C and D movies are totally my favorite movies. Even though it may seem like it at times, I’m not an all A’s type of guy if you know really know me. McGruber anyone?