Black Panther (2018)
6/10
Wishful thinking / Broken ratings / Longread
19 February 2018
Warning: Spoilers
First, this movie has a lot of pointless scenes that achieve nothing, the museum scene with pointless covert operation ending up in killing everyone anyway, that's so not Silent Assassin. The 007 Bond casino scene was just there to establish the most worthless character in movie history - Everett K. Ross.

After the capture of Klaue (surprisingly surviving a horrible car crash), we get another pointless scene where Killmonger and his girlfriend re-capture Klaue just to kill him again for no reason. Killmonger never actually needed Klaue in the first place, so killing him was as pointless as freeing him out. Killmonger also kills his GF for no particular reason yet again. He could've easily get to Wakanda anyway since he has the royal tattoo (they also gave those to vampire servants in Blade).

Then Killmonger and Black Panther participate in previously established variety of local Mak'Gora (election process I guess). Black Panther fails miserably and the new stronger king takes the throne, the end, right? No. They actually want you to root for the most useless and impotent king ever. Killmonger then says something stupid about colonization and oppression, and decides to use the Vibranium weapons (produced solely by a 16 y.o. girl mastermind) to conquer the world. So he's like pro-anti-colonization or something, you tell me. Yet he is betrayed by his people (Okoye literally says she will stay loyal to the king and in 5 minutes betrays the new king) and they all happily participate in a civil war slaughter until Killmonger gets killed. Also love how they intercepted their own ships with their own people, just murdering them.

There was also some sort of brother betrayal, but it was so shallow and lacking motivation that it isn't really worth discussing. The brother (I think) wanted to have some more action and so he betrayed the king just to lower his weapons and suffer a life sentence afterwards. After slaughtering his own people, everything gets back to normal. And the king who solves all problems with violence decides to share his tech and knowledge to help the world. But not like the whole world, mostly African-american people in the US. I'm sure it's going to be pretty easy, since all technology in this world is done by one genius girl.

Then we get the first post-credit scene when BP visits the UN assembly and says that he is ready to share the knowledge with all the nations. I'm pretty sure that we already have a lot of knowledge on slaughtering each other in wars and even civil wars, so his knowledge is not going to make a great difference.

Summing it up, we get a weak impotent king to hold his throne. He never cared about anyone besides himself really, the fact that he suggests to heal Killmonger who killed Zuri just for lulz shows that he doesn't care. He never cares about his own people since he never hesitated on killing them personally. Just a little advice, if you wan't to have a good king character, ask Llane Wrynn how to rule.

Killmonger was driven by revenge at first, then his motivation turned into some uncertain political position about oppression, but in the end it seems that he just loved his country (but not the people, it seems). The scene where BP suggests that Killmonger can be saved and healed completely destroys all the rivalry and the motivation of both.

Anyway, Killmonger and Klaue were the best characters in the movie. The story was nonsense, they achieved nothing , BP leaned nothing and is still a worthless king and a bad leader. Was nice to see Serkis having a lot of fun in this movie, I love that guy and I'd love to see more of him (guess he's tired of playing CGI puppets...Gollum...Gollum).

I also loved all the wishful thinking in this movie, which is mostly based on the comic I guess. Advanced native African people with space technology saving the world? Any educated person would suggest you checking South Africa after 1994. Supporting the immigrants in the US? Come on, guys...

The good stuff: even though there were just 3 sets of Wakanda I still kinda loved it, the music choice was good, showing all that traditionalism, the nature. Killmonger's scene with his father was gold, I wish we had more dramatic scenes (it was well acted and well executed overall). The sister was kinda cool sometimes, being a more modern character and rejecting the old ways. Even though she's a little too much Mary Sue.

Yet the main reason why I still decided to write this is the reviews. This has to stop. And I'm not talking solely about RT 97% which is just ridiculous. It's like people are afraid to judge something impartially cause of getting shamed for being racist or something.

Also, this movie started with fair 7.1 on IMDB later to be loaded with >30% of 10 ratings eventually ending up in 7.9 (as of now, I'm sure it will only go up). I'm not saying that IMDB has something to do with this, but this rating surely does not reflect the quality of the movie.

Conclusion: don't trust ratings (nor RT or IMDB). If you like it - like it, if you don't - no need to be afraid to say that you didn't like it.

You know you've seen a good movie when you exit the theater with something changed inside, an emotion, a thought - BP is not such a movie.
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