Black Panther - Great story but didn't like it

I liked it more than I thought I would.
Only a couple issues I had was the CIA fella seemed unnecessary to the film. Would have been no impact without him. The other issue is it just feels so small scale compared to some super hero films.

I would like the sequel to take on a more grand tasking.

Man this was a disappointment even though I tried to lower my expectations. It was great seeing a diverse cast and set/character design that celebrated black cultures, but everything beyond that: the plot, the writing, the action, pacing and the CGI sucked. The movie was a total chore to endure... the last big battle was comically bad, armored rhinos??? What :D

The last train fight looked like 90's cartoon CGI my god what happened there? Some scenes honestly reminded me of the star wars prequels because of how badly everything was composed, kinda like the Odin scenes in Ragnarok.

Even the music was disappointing, I expected way more classic hip hop references but most of the time you had generic fantasy choirs. Wakanda theme was great at least.

Bear said:

Divorced from the cultural context of the film, it would at best be a middling superhero story.

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This was addressed in the thread that got closed since many people said the exact same thing but you can't really divorce Black Panther from its cultural context. It's a major part of the movie and its characters, setting and themes.

Htown said:

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Lol!

The characters were good and that's it. But I felt obliged to see it at the cinema before Infinity War and to see all the hype. I should really stop trying to get into the hype because I usually love what other people don't.

I didn't care for it either. The cast is great, the lead very charismatic, story was OK, but the action set pieces are horrible. Didn't like Killmonger and admitingly fast forwarded through the last battle with the rhinos and stuff. Completely silly with bad looking CG.

Keep in mind the only Marvel films I've enjoyed are Iron Man 1 and Spider-Man Homecoming.

zoukka said:

Even the music was disappointing, I expected way more classic hip hop references but most of the time you had generic fantasy choirs. Wakanda theme was great at least.

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The music was far from generic fantasy in my opinion. Considering most of the movie takes place in Wakanda, it makes sense that most of the music has an African influence. But you do get references to hip hop when it comes to Killmonger, which is something that makes complete sense for his character. Part of his theme is at the beginning of this track:



The soundtrack takes African drums, African vocals, African instruments, an African style of polyrhythms and incorporates a film orchestra score to those elements. There's not really anything generic fantasy about it because you would never get these things in your typical fantasy score since most fantasy movies, games, shows, etc. do not draw inspiration from Africa. This is what I mean:



The soundtrack was really great, imo.

Playco Armboy said:

You know, I always wonder why Black Panther is the movie most people make 'it's overrated!!!' threads about, and not say Thor: Ragnarok or Spider-Man: Homecoming despite those also getting great reviews.

And it's like, people really feel the need to point out they thought it was average too.

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They made them about those movies too. BP is just the most recent one aside from IW, expect the IW hate to swoop in in a month or two.


I agree that the movie was overhyped, and not as good as I expected it to be. But I guess it was overhyped not because of how good it supposedly was but rather because of its significance to black people, in which case I can understand that. I enjoyed the movie enough the first time, and tbh, I think the thread the OP mentioned helped me appreciate it more. I had read that thread before seeing the movie. But the second time I watched the film the bad parts got even worse.

I really liked the authenticity of the visuals and the culture on display. I thought they did a great job differentiating themselves from the standard Marvel movies in that regard. The film's aesthetic backdrop has a real earnest vibe to it which bolstered the coming home/crowning subplot.

But yeah, the way the film structured the plot was detrimental to the overall story.

Also, some character motivation nitpicks that seemed really naive. Why does Killmonger absolutely ACE his academic and military career JUST to kill the son of his father's killer? You'd think someone with so much intelligence would be above that guilty by association petty shit. He could have destabilized Wakanda and undermined T'Challa without killing him. He could have effectively exposed T'Chaka's and Wakanda's bullshit without garnering the scorn of those loyal to the unassuming prince.

Killmonger's grudge was very underdeveloped. One can understand N'Jobu watching the LA Riots on TV back in '92 being spurred to do something for his people. But the film doesn't spend enough time showing Erik going from his father's "help our people" to his own "kill everyone else" extremist mentality. It only shows a glimpse of N'Jobu's regret for not being there to guide his son in Erik's spirit realm segment.

It felt like a lot of the film's heavier themes and commentary were under cooked, not to mention great character potential wasted.

And yeah, that final act CGI belongs in the Spiderman 3/Justice League dumpster. Like, all of it. Fake T'Challa, fake rhinos, space ships, fire... Everything. Barf.

SuperiorTrashTalk said:

The music was far from generic fantasy in my opinion. Considering most of the movie takes place in Wakanda, it makes sense that most of the music has an African influence. But you do get references to hip hop when it comes to Killmonger, which is something that makes complete sense for his character. Part of his theme is at the beginning of this track:



The soundtrack takes African drums, African vocals, African instruments, an African style of polyrhythms and incorporates a film orchestra score to those elements. There's not really anything generic fantasy about it because you would never get these things in your typical fantasy score since most fantasy movies, games, shows, etc. do not draw inspiration from Africa. This is what I mean:



The soundtrack was really great, imo.

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Thanks, I did enjoy most of the africa inspired music but I remember there being quite a lot of generic stuff as well. Could be wrong. I liked Kilmongers theme especially when he took over Wakanda, but I wanted so much more classic hip hop and rap. I guess my preconception was that the movie would have more scenes in US.

Many second viewings of MCU movies have me liking them more but sometimes I like them less and Black Panther was one of those times. It's a great movie but the mcu has so many of those and for me it puts Black Panther in the middle of the pack like maybe 6th or 7th on my list. People always talk about the great music but I thought it was ok and that the best music was in the promos not the movie.

The best thing Black Panther has is the world building

I liked the villain and supporting cast, but the main character bored the hell out of me.
The fight choreography was weak and the CG fights looked god awful, especially the final one.
I wanted a more brutal battle between BP and KM where it would just devolve into trading blows until BP was left standing. I feel like that would've had a better impact on me. It also needed a bit more violence considering there were a lot of stabbing with no blood and whatnot.
Story was alright, decent way to introduce Wakanda into the MCU. Hopefully the next film is paced better and has better fight scenes and a more interesting Black Panther.

Maybe because it was hyped up so much, but I was also disappointed with the movie.

The first half was pretty lame overall, except for Andy Serkis being creepy as fuck.

I enjoyed T'Challa and Killmonger. Again though, Killmonger is barely in the film until the second half, and even though he's one of the better MCU villains, they go and kill him off!

All the other characters ranged from "ok" to "why the hell are they even here". I mean Martin Freeman's character? Come on. Remove him from the film and nothing changes. The whole "you're a great pilot, fly this plane for us" thing at the end felt so forced.

Some of the action scenes were pretty lame. Maybe because I had just watched Civil War as a refresher the week before, but the car chase scene felt so similar to the Civil War chase and had no bite to it (though the spear throw was badass).

The humor fell flat for most of the movie.

The African theme was a nice change of pace for the MCU universe.

Overall, I'd place it above Ant-Man and probably the first two Thor movies, maybe Age of Ultron, but that's about it. Can't believe that some people on here were actually saying it blew Winter Soldier out of the water, or even that it was one of the greatest action films of all time. WTF.

Haven't read thru the thread but having seen the movie proper for the 1st time last night, I only had one issue with what was an otherwise vibrant and refreshing superhero movie.

There wasn't enough of T'challa/Black Panther wrecking shit. I really didn't like the 1v1 once they went down into the Vibranium Mines. It was so cool seeing BP fight in the daylight out on the plains. Never had shots like that in a superhero movie before and it was cut short. Comic book T'challa would have destroyed Killmonger during the ritual fight, btw.

And that final line from Killmonger+the final scene in Oakland. That was something beyond superhero movies.

Also, the "WHAT ARE THOSE" line actually made me say "what the fuck" out loud. What a weird, outdated meme to include in your movie.

I just watched it yesterday. Wow... this is not a great movie at all. It's actually pretty bad. I expected so much from it after reading reviews. I guess the hype was more about its significance. And its an important movie and will be remembered as such.
Most of the actors are great. But they can't help the weird decisions that are taken for them. I know the movie's significance and that's great. But they really need people who can make good decisions and good writers.

In short: amazing cast, not that amazing everything else.

But it's a very significant movie and i hope it's the start of many to follow.