After decades of playing an important role in the history of Marvel Comics, Black Panther is finally getting his day on the big screen. Captain America: Civil War marked the character's first live-action adaptation, and as part of the unfolding Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe he will soon be at the center of his very own solo movie. But what exactly can we expect from the upcoming blockbuster? That's what we're here to talk about.
Cast
Directed by Ryan Coogler
Produced by Kevin Feige
Written by •Ryan Coogler
•Joe Robert Cole
Based on Black Panther
by • Stan Lee
•Jack Kirby
Starring •Chadwick Boseman
•Michael B. Jordan
•Lupita Nyong'o
•Danai Gurira
•Martin Freeman
•Daniel Kaluuya
•Letitia Wright
•Winston Duke
•Angela Bassett
•Forest Whitaker
•Andy Serkis
Music by Ludwig Göransson
Cinematography Rachel Morrison
Edited by •Michael P. Shawver
•Claudia Castello
Production
company Marvel Studios
Distributed by Walt Disney Studios
Motion Pictures
Release date •January 29, 2018 (Dolby Theatre)
•February 16, 2018 (United States)
Running time 134 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $200 million
Box office $898.3 million
Summary
After the death of his father, T'Challa returns home to the African nation of Wakanda to take his rightful place as king. When a powerful enemy suddenly reappears, T'Challa's mettle as king -- and as Black Panther -- gets tested when he's drawn into a conflict that puts the fate of Wakanda and the entire world at risk. Faced with treachery and danger, the young king must rally his allies and release the full power of Black Panther to defeat his foes and secure the safety of his people.
Review
Black Panther, the latest entry in Marvel’s shared cinematic universe, is a remarkable feat of world building and visual craft. Its setting, the fictional central African nation of Wakanda, is a technologically advanced wonderland light years ahead of the rest of the world that lives and breathes, unlike anything we’ve seen from Marvel Studios or the superhero genre at large. Its protagonist, King T’Challa—who fights in defense of his nation as the Black Panther, equipped with a bulletproof suit and imbued with enhanced strength, speed, and agility—is played with both regal confidence and real vulnerability by the versatile Chadwick Boseman.
But what drives Black Panther isn’t its visuals or superacts. What drives the film is its pursuit of the idea that arguably defines the superhero genre, best articulated in 1962’s Amazing Fantasy No. 15: “With great power comes great responsibility.” And what makes Black Panther unique is that it pursues this in the context of its characters and its setting. It asks not just, “What is T’Challa’s responsibility to Wakanda?” but “What is Wakanda’s responsibility to the world?”
First, the basics. Black Panther is unmistakably a film from Marvel Studios, with all the humor, action, and callbacks to past movies that act as a connective tissue between the different entries in its mega-franchise. But it strains against that template. Throughout the movie, director Ryan Coogler delivers moments that feel as rooted and personal as anything in his previous films, while building environments that carry a real sense of atmosphere and place. Wakanda is fantastical, but in Coogler’s hands it feels as real and as lived in as the Oakland, California, of Fruitvale Station or the Philadelphia of Creed, the two films he wrote and directed before signing up with Marvel.
