Not even sure where to start with this one. I don't want to turn this into some race debate thread, but like c'mon man. Are you implying that the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow don't still affect black people, specifically Americans? Obviously, Pan-Africanism and Afrocentrism can be taken to the point where they are toxic. I've had to cut ties with people because it was toxic. But saying that black people's past doesn't determine black people's present is something else, and not a good something else.

 

I had bad feelings about the movie since I've heard first info about the plot from people who watched this, but my friends decided to go see it before the convention so I ended up watching it last Friday. It brought a very surprising consensus for our group as we all rated it around 3-4/10.

To put it simply - the movie sucked.

The main reason is, of course, poor writing. T'Challa has a personality and agenda of a cardboard cutout and Killmonger

Spoiler

is an idiot, who is supposed to be an expert at overthrowing governments yet his plan had literally 0% chance of success. He was a mix of comic Killmonger and White Wolf, but without being even half as interesting as any of them.

Add to this how poorly executed storyline is, with a lot of time being wasted on extraneous parts of set up, but

Spoiler

T'Challa's team's plan to regain throne consisting of immediate final confrontation.

There is also a matter of lazy worldbuilding where everything is explained by "lol, Vibranium".

That ties into a matter of designs. The city was clearly designed after a conversation that went along the lines of:
- We need to make a futuristic African country, but I have no idea what to do.
- How would you do normal futuristic countries?
- Lots of skyscrapers.
- How does Africa look?
- Mud huts with straw roofs?
- So, just slap mud huts and straw roofs on skyscrapers and you are golden.

There is more stuff that doesn't really make sense considering that the movie goes with Hudlin's "Wakanda was always advanced".

But hey, even a weak content-wise movie could be entertaining with good action scenes. Unfortunately, the only really good action scene was the car chase that was almost completely shown in trailers. The final fights were the biggest sinner here with the main one being just meh due to primitive choreography and dragging on and

Spoiler

the group combat being straight-up terrible and nonsensical.

Also, the rivers don't flow upwards and super sekrit casinos would serve something better than Jack Daniels.

The best thing the movie did was completely scrapping comic Shuri personality, which was unbearable. Klaw and M'Baku were also pretty well done.

And it baffled me, for how the movie is supposed to be progressive, it basically has black kids immediately going "let's steal it" after seeing T'Challa's ride. No stereotypes here.

 

When I saw the trailer I was like..., "Ehh, I'm not seeing it. Why is everyone hyped for this? Other than FIRSTBLACKSUPERHEROOMGMCUSOPROGRESSIVE!! I'll wait for the DVD so I'll at least know what's going on when Infinity Wars pops."

I was the same with Dr. Strange and S-M Homecoming. Disappointed in those two as well. Maybe I'm just burning out on MCU.

 

Finnaly got around to seeing this last night. It was, in two words, only okay.

Apart from the soundtrack, which I thought was well chosen, there was nothing really good or really bad about the film. The acting was fine, character depth and development was passable, dialogue had its ups and downs, action scenes were nothing spectacular, plot was comicbook standard.

M'Baku was enjoyable for a bit part. Wish he had gotten more screentime.

 

I think the MCU deserves to end after Infinity War.

It won’t bc of money, but they will gradually start losing money the more complex it gets.

My girlfriends never seen a marvel movie but agreed to watch them with me in a marathon prep for Infinity war. She balked when we saw there were 18 films.

We’re almost done with phase one lol

 

Just saw it recently, too, and enjoyed it. I liked Thor 3 better and the Wakanda-technology-wank was getting a bit old.

It might just be me, but it feels a bit like the black power hype overshadows the fact, that this movie actually did a really good job with its female cast. Particularly Lupita Nyong’o's character.

 

As a whole, the movie did well with creating interesting secondary characters that are asking to be explored. Nakia was a prime example, as was M'Baku. There was more nuance to them than in previous Marvel installments, though I'd argue that Ragnarok had a few folks I found interesting outside the main ensemble too.

 

I don't argue with that, but I feel like the female characters, in particular, were pretty strong.

Nakia, who's basically T'Challa's motivation to open borders, help others and played a big part in making the return fight possible.

Okoye, who's a straight-up badass and stands up for what is right.

T'Challa's sister is a tech wunderkind, can fight while, admittedly barely, managing to stay on the right side of going full Mary-Sue.

The Queen was portrayed as strong, proud and supportive pretty well, too.