The Wakandan Man's Burden
Let's get the least interesting part of any discussion of the Black Panther out of the way first. Yes, I'd give it a solid 3.5 out of 5, or maybe a 4. It was a thoroughly crumulent MCU feature, after all. Better than nadir outings Ant Man &Thor: Ragnarok, but also, much like the rest of the MCU, not something I'm putting in my personal collection. It features that similar showdown of a 1rst headlining effort where the hero faces a nemesis with similar powers, (IronMonger, Yellow Jacket, Abomination, whatever the name of that evil wizard in Doctor Strange was...) and a stack of rushed worldbuilding.
However, there are some notable differences , thanks to the setting of Wakanda, an advanced technological paradise hidden in the jungles of the Congo. The key questions in T'Challa's rule as King of Wakanda is whether or not to enter the modern international world. Wakanda has survived for centuries by not getting involved in affairs outside the 5 tribes and their borders. Accepting no refugees, waging no exernal wars, and neither contributing nor accepting foreign aid, despite their apparent poverty.
And yes, there's a definite 'We Wuz kangz' aspect to the whole affair, an unintentially funny Wokeness deliberate in its appeal to that straing of pan-Africanism that appeals mostly to African Americans, and nobody else really. Most Africans identify by tribal community first, national border second. -Speaking of which...-
Our villain, Killmonger, is a rare one in the MCU in that "Villain Has a Point" breed of antagonists. He's not merely in it for 'muh greed' but wants to wrest control of Wakanda's throne in order to set the nation on an imperialist track. His goal essentially to use Wakanda's defensive network of spies and vibranium weaponry to overthrow the governments of the world in the name of uniting... well, everyone who happens to have his skin tone. (Awkward) (Hilariously, this also means that both Pro-and-An-tagonist are variants of Alt-Right/Hotep/Pro-Black Mythopoetic Masculine Identitarians.)
Our hero is smacked down, rises again, overcomes his adversaries, and, in an uncommon twist, recognizes the rightness of his opponents cause. Killmonger is literally a Zealot, as in, "Simon the". As much as Simon is portrayed as a vengeful fanatic, desiring Jesus to preach discord against the Romans in Jesus Christ Superstar, Killmonger seeks to send Wakanda out into the world to take revenge on "the Colonizers'; to bend the world to serve those whom he sees as his people. But as Killmonger sees mass slaughter as the path to preserving his downtrodden, T'Challa instead takes the role of King as Leader, to peacibly share Wakanda's wealth with the rest of the world. It's interesting to see the Hero take up the Villain's goals, but prove himself the hero by achieving them by ways in line with his own Moral Code. Most movies honestly lack that complexity, comfortable with either supplying a punchable Nazi to be killed and discarded, or to drag the protagonist down into the muck and ultimately discredit the notion of heroism.
The ending poses a curious scenario- on that rightness of expanding into the world with that advanced technology, because you have the technology. Reversing the races, it's literally a call to neo-colonialism (if it's for people's own good, of course.). Where Killmonger vows that the sun will never set on the Wakandan Empire, T'Challa seems to be set on an attempt at the Bush Doctrine, building "Wakandan Outreach Centers" in Compton. Hence my tagline. I'm not sure if anyone else in the theater was reading this much into things, but I honestly wonder how the Pro-Blacks would have reacted if the races were reversed. T'Challa is essentially set to become a reverse Mighty Whitey by the end of the film. Just food for thought, which is, besides a competent story free of plotholes you could fly the First Order's Supremacy through, is all you can ask for from many modern movies.
And while I praise all this- there's still a few problems that keep this from being a perfect, own and repeat view film.
1: Pacing. Godawful. The whole matter takes place over a few days, with people flitting about the world at improbable speeds and never apparently suffering jet lag, nor needing sleep. Even stretching it out to a series of weeks would allow tension to build as a slow burn of the plot ratchets up tension. Much like the (much worse) Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther feels instead like to 2 films smashed together.
2: Not much of a spy network. For all the reviews praizing the James Bond-ian aspects, that pacing problem also means that we never get to see any real detective or espionage work done. Other characters exist only as NPCs to hand T'Challa a side quest to fly to South Korea, or the like.
3: Wammens. OH FOR THE LOVE OF GAWD, CAN WE STOP WITH THIS 110 LB FEMALE CARTWHEELING NAVY SEALS THROUGH THE AIR ALREADY? That Yasss Qween aspect is really egregious by the ending, with the bald-headed Amazonian Royal Guard smacking around and spearing... their husbands. W'Kabi especially has to bend the knee to his wife. A coup, counter coup and civil war that doesn't last much longer than a couple hours can be annoying enough, but do you have throw in 'female empowerment' by way of what boils down to a kung-fu Sapphire Stereotype as well?
3b: You destroy any dramatic tension by undermining the threat to any female character. We're almost guaranteed that a woman in a Disney-owned actioner will handily best any male opponent(s) in the end, so we're never left guessing if something won't immediately go her way.
3c: 3 Women die in this film, all killed by Killmonger, to show how Dastardly McEvil he is. Oddly enough, while the first one is to set up a clever heist (and also involves killing a roomful of men, but hey, who cares? They're only men) the 2nd kill, that of his female accomplice, is only done to illustrate that A: he don't care about the wammens, therefore, eebil, and B: to preserve any hero character from having to kill/punish a female baddie. Utter cowardice, that. As for the 3rd, he does a non-gory throat slice on an Amazon Bodyguard attacking him. For a moment, I thought she was the General, from another character's reaction. But then I realized the problem of a bunch of people whith shaved heads, similiar features and similar clothing in a blurry action sequence. But as for that fight- seriously, Killmonger should have been decapitating those chicks left & right.
