Black Panther
(2018)
(SPOILERS) Like last year’s Wonder Woman, the hype for what it represents has quickly become conflated
with Black Panther’s perceived
quality. Can 92% and 97% of critics respectively really not be wrong, per
Rotten Tomatoes, or are they – Armond White aside – afraid that finding fault
in either will make open them to charges of being politically regressive, insufficiently
woke or all-round, ever-so-slightly objectionable? As with Wonder Woman, Black Panther’s
very existence means something
special, but little about the movie itself actually is. Not the acting, not the
directing, and definitely not the over-emphatic, laboured screenplay. As such, the
picture is a passable two-plus hours’ entertainment, but under-finessed enough
that one could easily mistake it for an early entry in the Marvel cycle, rather
than arriving when they’re hard-pressed to put a serious foot wrong.
None of which matters to box office, which will far exceed
anyone at the Mouse House’s wildest dreams by the looks of things, certainly
putting the (relative) surprise successes of fellow less-than-sure-thing comic
book properties Deadpool and Wonder Woman in the shade. Like those
two, though, you’re rather left wondering where the great movie lay amid the overwhelming
response. Ryan Coogler has penned all three of his features to date, but this
one, on which he collaborated with Joe Robert Cole, seems to have escaped him.
The basic premise is classically robust – a new king must defend his throne and
land, overcoming challenges of confidence and interlopers – but too often the
results are stodgy or under baked.
It’s actually surprising how ungainly the picture’s commentary
is. Having set up a compare-and-contrast between “exiled” cousin Erik
Killmonger (Michael B Jordan) and (King) T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), the
soundbites of angry young Afghanistan veteran Erik, scorning the isolationist
pose of Wakanda at the expense of black people everywhere (else) and out for
revenge over the death of his daddy, quickly become tiresomely one-note. And
that’s with Jordan giving it everything. While there’s fuel enough to make this
a very different Marvel movie, it’s more defined by how remarkably formulaic it
is; even the playful calling out of white oppression (“coloniser”) seems more manufactured than provocative, and you never
quite know for sure, but I doubt Erik really wanted his last words to induce a
collective groan.
I’ve read praise of how well Coogler and Cole provide for
their wide cast, which may be true in terms of screen time, but only a few of
them are allowed to become interesting along the way. Boseman’s been an
arresting screen presence hitherto, but like Chris Evans, he comes a cropper
when asked to play a simply not very interesting superhero. I had high hopes
when T’Challa volunteered himself for a Bond-esque spy mission, complete with
casino, but the sequence flickers and fades before devolving into an unenthused
CGI-infused car chase. When T’Challa is thrown off a cliff by Erik, possibilities
again presented themselves: of his struggle back from the brink. Instead, he’s
merely revealed as having an ice-cold kip and requiring an herbal pick-me-up.
Lupita Nyong’o also suffers from underwriting, despite
getting significant screen time (I’d hesitate to say she’s the love interest,
but yeah, she is). Better served are Danai Gurira’s take-no-shit bodyguard
Okoye and Daniel Kaluuya’s confidant W’Kabi, but too little is made of setting
their relationship at odds over conflicting loyalties, particularly since this
is parsed out during the de rigueur underwhelming Marvel third act battle (this
one complete with daffy rhino riding). Forest Whitaker just seems to give up
the will when showing up in blockbusters, for some reason (or perhaps it’s just
that they’re not such great blockbusters). And I found Leittia Wright’s kid
sister Q (Shuri) on the annoying side of cheeky. Which I shouldn’t have, as her
performance is enthusiastic and upbeat, and a problem the picture has generally
is that it’s severely lacking in playfulness or irreverence; it’s only really
Andy Serkis bringing that side of the equation, for as long as he’s in the picture.
Martin Freeman? Well, his American accent is better than Sherlock co-star Cumberbatch’s, but he might have the least
interesting recurring Marvel role this side of Hawkeye.
Coogler did a great job with Creed, his graduation to studio pictures, but here he continually
fails to make the most of the further step up in scale. One can almost sense he
knows the comic book genre isn’t his forte. The effects are frequently not very
special (in particular, some very ropey digital doubles that could have walked
off the virtual set of The Matrix
Reloaded), the action sequences are at best competent, but mostly fail to
come alive or thrill – Ludwig Göransson’s
distinctive score does its best, but can’t bridge the gap – the Wakandan
politics are perfunctory and needed to be much more involved, grasping their
sub-Shakespearian mettle for all it was worth to justify the time devoted to
them; at times, it feels like you’re watching a rather inert ’50s or ‘60s
costume epic – the vision quest/afterlife sequences are disappointingly lacking
in imagination, both visually and thematically (since they seem to consist of
spending quality time with one’s dead dad; they may as well be bumping into
ghost Dumbledore at a spectral train station).
The ritual combat/coronation set is, as Tom Paulin would say, awful, especially so since it’s fakeness
is rubbed in our faces when we revisit it; once can almost touch the
polystyrene rock face when one isn’t staring into the unconvincing studio sky.
It’s unfortunate too that he crowd throwing in oohs and aahs and rallying cries
awkwardly punctures rather than fuels the tension in two of T’Challa’s most defining
scenes. Wakanda is very colourful, in an Afro-chic fashion, but cinematographer
Rachel Morrison only fitfully makes it come alive.
There are also some excruciatingly bad setups, such as Erik happening
to be approached at the Museum of Great Britain (what, what, what? The where?) by a director he just happened
to have the perspicacity to poison immediately prior, or Nakia very presciently
choosing to take a look at the casino’s closed-circuit monitors at exactly the
point Killmonger and Klau arrive.
There are bigger problems, though. Most of the interactions fail
to click; there’s a lack of energy, engagement and depth of character. I much
preferred the 1992 Oakland scenes with their respective parents to anything involving
the main leads. Sterling K Brown as Erik’s father N’Jobu really needed a larger
part (he stole the show in American Crime
Story). The biggest issue with Black
Panther is pacing, though. There are much less interesting Marvel films
that have turned out better than this because they’ve flown along. Coogler
never builds up a head of steam.
One area he does dive
wholeheartedly into is the thorny problem of Wakanda’s isolationism. There was
no way he could have avoided it coming up in critiques, so making it central to
the motivation of the new generation of Wakandans is entirely appropriate, as
well as encouraging a degree of topicality. Like the characterisation, though,
the delivery is in so prosaic that T’Challa all but proclaims “I will not be like Trump”. That said, I’m
curious to see how drastically the olive branches offered at the end of the
movie alter the Marvel-verse. After all, Wakanda has seemingly awesome science
that ultimately means no one need die (at least, until their bodies wear out),
unless The Powers That Be intervene and mess things up in proliferating it to
the rest of the world. All that Centauri tech doesn’t seem to have visibly
altered the lives of the average person for the better, after all.
Indeed, Wakanda may be the most technologically advanced
society, but it clearly leaves itself open to other questions over its running.
Like Asgard, power is wielded by birthright or through violent challenge. Added
to which, it’s an advance society with the equivalent of barcoding for
everyone, which can’t be good. Generally, despite the layering in of tribal
factions, there’s very little sense of how this place functions; it seems built
on aesthetics, rather than logic. You can get away with that on Thor’s godlike
plane(t), but I didn’t get much more from this than cool aircraft cruising over
a retro-futuristic cityscape.
So yeah, I thought Black
Panther was merely okay, which is nigh-on damning for a Marvel movie. The
last one like that was Ant-Man and
that at least had the toy train sequence. Doubtless Kevin Feige will be intent
on securing Coogler’s services for the Black
Panther 2, but I’d rather see him pursue something more attuned to his
talents.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.
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