From its complex villain to its amazing fictional world, Black Panther took the superhero movie higher
Film Features Age of heroes
The first time we see Wakanda in a Marvel movie—the physical location, not a blip on a map or a word spoken in hushed tones—it’s in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, after the credits have rolled. What we see is a futuristic lab, the kind we’ve come to expect in movies. Everything is cobalt steel and glass. There’s a hard geometry to the design, like the way spaceships look in sci-fi movies. Lab technicians wear blindingly white, wrinkle-free outfits—the kinds of things that you can’t wear if you have a pet that sheds. Outside the lab window, we see a misty jungle and an imposing sculpture of a panther. It looks cool. But the next time we would see Wakanda, it would be something else. It would become breathtaking.
If the Wakanda of Black Panther had looked like the Wakanda of Captain America: Civil War, nobody would’ve complained. When Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created Black Panther in 1966, Wakanda was a big room of whirling electronic doohickeys—doohickeys that the Black Panther used to trap and hunt the Fantastic Four—hidden under a forest shell. Over the decades, different comic writers fleshed Wakanda out, developing a history and a mythology and a general societal structure for this mysterious technological utopia in the heart of Africa. To see any version of Wakanda in a movie would’ve felt like a victory. But Black Panther director Ryan Coogler made Wakanda look more than cool. He turned it into a world, a place worthy of awestruck landscape shots. A place to get lost.
Black Panther is a superhero movie. We know this. It’s a story about a character that already existed in comics and in another movie, one that would continue to exist in other movies. It has all the hallmarks of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: the recurring tertiary characters, the post-credits stinger, the general sense that it’s building to something bigger even as it tells its own story. The first real action scene—the one where T’Challa fights a group of human traffickers in Nigeria—is expert superhero myth-making, its gunfire only illuminating tiny glimpses of its hero, working like strobe lights. The movie ends with two CGI musclemen punching and kicking each other, fighting for control of a mysterious fictional energy source. These are all superhero-movie things. Black Panther hits its marks, and it hits them well.
But Black Panther is also something larger than a superhero movie—or maybe it represents an expansion of what a superhero movie can be. T’Challa is not a masked underdog fighting to balance superpowered exploits with a normal life. He is the venerated leader of a nation. He has tough decisions to make, but he never has to decide whether he wants to stop being the Black Panther. His powers aren’t the result of an accident. Instead, he’s part of a long and proud tradition. And he exists within a fantastical context, surrounded by people just as vivid and miraculous as he is. Tonally, Black Panther is closer to Lord Of The Rings or Avatar than it is to most other Marvel movies. (Sometimes, it’s closer to a Bond vehicle, too.) The movie has funny moments, but it mostly eschews the rapid-fire snark of other Marvel movies. And it’s a whole lot less concerned with how its characters interact with the larger universe, more concerned with how they interact with each other. There is a contained sincerity that speaks to a larger confidence, a mastery of the language.
Black Panther is an origin story, but it’s not the story of the Black Panther’s origin. (The origin of the Black Panther is the origin of Wakanda itself, and the movie gets that out of the way in an introductory exposition-dump that plays as a soothing, dreamy bedtime story.) Instead, this is the origin story of Killmonger—the movie’s antagonist figure, but not quite its villain. Crucially, Killmonger is the figure with whom Coogler, Black Panther’s director, identifies. The movie even gives them the shared hometown of Oakland, and it opens with a scene that ties personal reminiscence to crime-movie pastiche, before immediately turning toward the fantastical. The first voice we hear belongs to a young Killmonger. When we meet an adult Killmonger, he’s pulling off a daring heist, something similar to what his father was attempting to plan in that opening scene.
Killmonger has a point of view, and it’s one that the movie grants a certain amount of sympathy. He’s Wakandan by birth, but he’s a black American. In the military, he’s been an active participant in the project of empire. He’s seen the carnage that a hegemonic state can cause. He’s helped oppress other people. But he also knows that there’s this other place, this African Xanadu that has the technology and power to end all that. It won’t. It keeps everything secret, defending its own population at the expense of everyone else. None of this sits well with Killmonger. He’s not operating out of greed, or out of a longing for chaos. He has political objectives. And by the time the movie ends, T’Challa has to admit that those objectives are right, even if he doesn’t agree with the methods.
It certainly doesn’t hurt that Killmonger is played by Michael B. Jordan, one of the handsomest and most magnetic actors to come along in many years. Jordan is also the star of Coogler’s other two movies, Creed and Fruitvale Station, which earns him a certain amount of audience sympathy from the jump. (Much has been made of Jordan’s stilted and stagey acting style, especially compared to the movie’s other, more fluid characters, but I like the theory that Killmonger only talks like this because he’s been rehearsing these speeches in his head for his entire life.) From a certain perspective, Killmonger is Harry Potter or Luke Skywalker—the prince who grows up in exile, the one who changes his entire world once he gets a chance to enter it. Killmonger is so sympathetic that Coogler has to show him choking old ladies and murdering his own girlfriend so that we, the audience, don’t get the idea that he’s really the hero. A good villain doesn’t realize he’s the villain. A great villain might not actually be a villain at all. That’s Killmonger.
But it’s not just Killmonger. Black Panther is a movie so fully realized that I know the fifth- or seventh-most important character a lot better than I know, say, Stephen Strange, main character of Doctor Strange. Nakia, Okoye, Shuri, M’Baku—they’re all characters with ideas and view points and personal aesthetics and great lines. (Shuri, dismissive but in love with her own genius: “Another broken white boy for us to fix.”) Even Andy Serkis’ Ulysses Klaue, a tertiary villain if ever there was one, brings a wicked physical joy that makes him a whole lot more memorable than the main villains in most other Marvel movies. I love him reveling in the fight he just had in the Busan casino: “That was awesome! Awesome!” Even when he dies, he goes out cackling.
Black Panther has its issues. The ending fight scene gets a bit numbing. There are character arcs—like Daniel Kaluuya’s W’Kabi, betraying his country and his wife for reasons that are never fully explored—that don’t quite satisfy. But you have to demand a lot of a movie to complain about a random supporting character’s illogical decision-making. Black Panther matters, of course, because it’s a beautiful, aspirational view of black life. (The costumes alone!) But it’s also expert pop filmmaking on its own terms. Overwhelmingly popular and genuinely moving in its story of personal journey and philosophical clash, Black Panther is the theoretical ideal of a Best Picture Oscar winner. In the world of superhero cinema—vaguely disreputable, even as it becomes commercially dominant—it’s a tremendous overachievement that it was even able to enter that conversation.
2018 was the year that superhero movies completely took over. Six of the year’s top 10 highest-grossing movies—including the top three—were superhero movies. Movies that never should’ve worked, movies that maybe didn’t work, were raking in hundreds of millions. And even in that company, Black Panther stood tall, pulling in more than a billion dollars and, at least in North America, out-earning the massive crossover event that it was at least partially designed to prop up. Certain moments and scenes and lines immediately entered the cultural vernacular: Wakanda Forever! Is this your king? Don’t scare me like that, colonizer. That, more than the money or the awards-season acclaim, is what puts Black Panther in that Dark Knight realm. It’s a sensational pop culture moment that’s also a great movie. We don’t get enough of those.
Other notable 2018 superhero movies: In a year without the Black Panther phenomenon, the Russo brothers’ Avengers: Infinity War would be a runaway winner here. It’s a ridiculous juggling act, a galaxy-spanning cosmic adventure saga that finds room for all these dozens of characters that have become intimately familiar to us over the past decade, giving them all roles to play and building to a genuinely shocking and straight-up upsetting ending. It’s an overwhelming epic spectacle, and it still carves out space for a beaten-down Norse god and a trigger-happy anthropomorphic raccoon to have a serious conversation about anger and loss and doubt. Even if we still can’t properly judge Infinity War until we see how Endgame wraps up all its dangling loose ends, it’s a hell of a thing to pull off.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s other 2018 entry, Ant-Man And The Wasp, felt anticlimactic after Black Panther and Infinity War, but in a way, that’s why it works. Ant-Man And The Wasp isn’t a grand galactic vision; it’s a piece of wacky low-stakes fun where a bunch of appealing actors get chances to be funny and ridiculous by changing sizes at the exact right moments. The San Francisco car chase is an all-timer, and Michael Peña kicks the movie up a couple of notches every time he goes into a motormouthed monologue. Ant-Man will clearly have a serious part to play in the coming operatics, so I’m glad we got one more chance to see him—and Marvel itself, for that matter—just do some silly bullshit.
But the year’s most inventive Marvel movie—and maybe the most purely enjoyable—didn’t come from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse comes up with a whole new animation style to dive dizzily into the absurd, wonderful silliness of comic book cosmology, telling a light and efflorescent and moving coming-of-age story while still making actual characters out of a goofy noir reboot and a manga robot. The fact that my kids can now identify Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham, is a strange and beautiful thing. The fact that they love him is nothing short of a miracle. And the fact that they could make any sense at all out of a movie about overlapping fictional universes and piled-up identities is a testament to some truly incredible filmmaking.
Spider-Man’s movie caretakers pulled off another coup when they managed to get anything—anything at all, really—out of Venom. Thanks to various corporate agreements, this meant a movie about Spider-Man’s toothy, face-munching half-alien doppelgänger—one who already had a tarnished cinematic legacy, being the worst part of Sam Raimi’s misbegotten Spider-Man 3—that couldn’t even acknowledge the existence of Spider-Man. By all rights, Venom should’ve been a tangled mess of bad CGI and uncatchy catchphrases and opaquely incoherent intellectual-property management. And it is a mess. But it’s also a generally entertaining mess, thanks largely to Tom Hardy’s gonzo what-the-fuck-I’m-going-for-it performance and the movie’s sense of its own batshit insanity.
Speaking of messes: Deadpool 2 leaves plenty of them, spattering more guts on more windshields than even its predecessor had managed. But just like the original, Deadpool 2 is commendably single-minded in its pursuit of gross-out meta-comedy. If anything, it has even more fun fileting the conventions of the superhero movie. Consider: Ryan Reynolds making fun of Josh Brolin by calling him Thanos just a few weeks after Brolin really had played Thanos in Infinity War. Or the movie introducing a whole new sequel-ready super-team and then immediately, brutally killing almost all of them. Deadpool 2 is a stupid movie utterly jammed with obvious jokes. I like it.
It’s not a Marvel movie, but Incredibles 2 proved once again that Pixar can make a better Fantastic Four movie than any of the actual Fantastic Four custodians ever managed. Incredibles 2 is quietly a huge success, making more money than any non-Black Panther, non-Infinity War movie of 2018. It has better action scenes than most action movies, better comedy beats than most comedies, and more general familial warmth than most family movies, so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that it also has a lot of fun building out its whole comic book-esque universe. The actual plot is never anything more than generically effective, but little moments like the raccoon fight are utterly transcendent.
While we’re on kids’ cartoons, Teen Titans Go! To The Movies is as self-aware as Deadpool 2—and just as quick with Green Lantern jokes, too. The movie extends the antic stoner charm of its TV series, and it’s a movie about what it takes for a superhero to get a movie, which adds a few layers of ridiculousness to an already-ridiculous project. There’s also a part where the heroes, in a hit-and-run accident, kill a keytar-playing tiger that’s voiced by Michael Bolton.
And the DC Extended Universe lived to fight another day. Aquaman, which looked like a terrible idea on paper, turned out to be a massive success and also an absurd, borderline-psychedelic good time at the movies. Clearly, director James Wan realized that he was making a movie about an arrogant, ultra-buff undersea king and that he should just go all the way ridiculous. I’m still vaguely stunned that Wan convened a cast full of heavyweights—Nicole Kidman, Willem Dafoe, Patrick Wilson—and that none of them took themselves the tiniest bit seriously. Jason Momoa, a man who clearly enjoys his own sexy lunacy, is the absolute right person to hold all this together. By the time an army of giant crabs shows up, we have entered some beautiful nether-realm. Julie Andrews voices a giant sea monster! It’s great! I was high for this, and that was the right way to be.
Next time: That’s it! We’re all caught up now! As with A History Of Violence, my column about the history of action movies, we will check back in with Age Of Heroes again at the end of the year.
But two weeks from now, I’m launching a new column, in which I’ll go through the highest-grossing movie of every year, tracing the evolution of blockbuster-level film and watching popular tastes—and Hollywood’s ideas about how to serve those popular tastes—change from decade to decade. For no particular reason, we’re kicking things off with 1960, which means the first entry will be on Stanley Kubrick’s gladiator-rebellion epic Spartacus.
542 Comments
I watched this shit and found it highly overrated as hell. Wakanda looked ugly. I blame Twitter for hyping this movie to hell.
“…this is the origin story of Killmonger—the movie’s antagonist figure, but not quite its villain.”“He’s not operating out of greed…”
This argument kind of gets thrown out the window when he decides to burn all the magic flowers. He doesn’t care about saving the world, he’s a power hungry psychopath who wants to plunge the whole world into war for the sake of his vision.
The fact that he manages to dupe people into believing anything else proves that he’s an excellent villain, but he’s definitely 100% a villain.
White Nationalists and The Alt-Right like to talk about the fear of “White Genocide” but Killmonger LITERALLY wants White Genocide.
Hey, let’s be fair. He also wants to commit genocide against Chinese people, there’s diversity to his atrocities.
Your comment reminds me of the tragic fact that the Black Panther will not cover the current ongoing Chinese colonialism in Africa.In fact, if they do cover Chinese colonialism in Africa, they will try and whitewash (ironic) it as a positive for Wakanda in order to not offend Chinese audiences. It’d be “Wolf Warrior 3: I’m not Imperialist, My Best Friend is Wakandan” in summary
Yeah, I like Killmonger but make no mistake, he’s essentially Magneto. He has no interest in bridging the world, only leading it with his kindred brethren, whom he would also sacrifice to meet his ends. He has a tragic past but that sympathy is spent quickly.
Isn’t’t an essential part of most Magneto stories that he tried to work with Xavier, but eventually grew so disillusioned over how mutants were treated he went villain?
Killmonger never had the part where he tried to do it the less killy way.
One of the many things I love about BP is that Killmonger feels like such a real character. Specifically, he seems very much like many real world revolutionaries turned dictators (think Castro, Mugabe, etc.). He has a good point based on a just cause, but he s also a narcissist who conflates his cause with his own quest for power, to the point that he’s willing to sacrifice those around him or take actions that are in his own interest but not the interest of the people he’s championing (e.g. the burning of the herb). Lots of history’s revolutionaries were really bad people (or possibly became so at some point along the way), and I think Killmonger represented that really well.
To be fair, if he was less killy, he wouldn’t have gotten the name Killmonger. 😉
Either that or Michael B. Jordan just likes to set things on fire. He’s done three movies where he sets stuff on fire: Fan4stic, Black Panther, and Faranheit 451.
If I looked as cool walking away from flames as Michael B Jordan does, I’d make people include it in every movie too.
I’m on the side that doesn’t find Killmonger all that deep or relatable and it’s entirely down to his over-the-topness in every regard. Like, it sucks you lost your dad, but he was a shady arms dealer that committed high treason. He wasn’t exactly wronged. And it wasn’t exactly ‘white America’ or ‘the Colonialist West’ that got him killed. There’s a whole missing middle section of his life that might have better framed that, but I feel like he should have stuck with wanting to subjugate and grind down Wakanda.
Exactly. Compare him to Magneto. Bigoted humans threw him in a concentration camp, so when he hates other bigots it makes sense. But when he’s mad at the west, the worst thing they did was…. let him grow up without a dad in Oakland? Which presumably wasn’t a walk in the park, but we don’t have any reason to believe it was especially awful. He still got into MIT, had a career, etc.
100% this.
So many try-hards carping on about how he’s the most amazing Marvel villain ever, and I saw his character as so very one-dimensional and frankly not worthy of his place in the movie.
There’s missing scene where his mom was jailed by cops for a crime she didn’t commit, which is why his dad got pissed at the t’chaka for not helping out due to non-intervention, then his dad orchestrated the weapons theft as part of a strategy to undermine the system. If the boy was raised to believe that systems were meant to be undermined violently, his mother dies in jail due to a corrupt system and then his dad is killed violently due to another system, His villainy makes a lot of sense. IIRC Coogler cut that scene because it basically amounts to a pile of exposition in the initial scene, and takes away the energy and urgency of the second prologue.
That helps, but I don’t get why someone who believes fundamentally from a young age that systems were meant to be undermined violently would go into, and excel at, the Naval Academy, MIT, and SEALS, JSOC, etc..
When he knew all about Wakanda and how to get there all along…
Childhood tragedy is the basis for single minded excellence in a lot of stories. Its pretty much how batman excels at everything.
Coogler was wise to cut that scene; not only would it have dangerously overloaded the exposition dump at the beginning of the film, it would have detracted from the nice parallel focus on Killmonger and T’Challa’s relationships with their fathers.
This is the part I never understood about the reception of the movie. Dude was mad his dad got killed while committing treason against his own people! How is that anyone else’s fault but his own.So stupid.
But part of his revenge against Wakanda is to carry out his father’s plans, though. That’s where the global conflict comes in.
Thank you. His own people are expendable in his quest to get to Wakanda: there is no reason to believe that he wouldn’t sell out everyone there to reach his quest for power. He’s a great villain for all the reasons you mention, but he’s that: a villain, and a power mad one a that who’s against all of the equality he’s just supposedly fighting for.
It’s unfortunate that Killmonger is actually in so little of this movie, and spends so little of that time actually interacting with the other major characters in non-action scenes.I would’ve preferred they cut either of the waterfall fights (or something else) to give Killmonger more time for some political maneuvering within the Wakanda high court.
Yeah, that bothered me in the movie: that he thought he could just show up, kill T’Challa, and everyone would just blindly follow him because now he’s the king. I don’t care what the laws are, if you come in and completely change the course of the country, people are gonna revolt. As an MIT grad, you’d think he’d be smart enough to know that.
Wakanda’s system of government has been one of my biggest problems with the film. I have a hard time believing that such a technologically and enlightened nation would rely on trial by combat as their means of selecting a leader. I guess they did insist on isolationism, so they had some backwards thinking ingrained in their concept, but still.I would’ve preferred to see Killmonger manipulate his way in using his wits rather than by brute force.
That would make for a good comic but a boring movie.
No, they are plenty of entertaining movies about characters manipulating and scheming. Like, the entire scene when they are questioning him in T’Challa’s royal court is not boring. More of that.
Fair enough. But to interject 20-30 minutes of that kind of movie into the superhero action flick that this was would be jarring.
I thought that was odd too. If someone white made the movie, I wouldn’t be surprised if people criticized it for racism and perpetuation stereotypes of tribal warfare among Africans, despite their advanced society.
It helps if you remember that there apparently IS a Panther God who more or less acts as the Electoral College in determining who rules Wakanda.
I see what you’re saying, but from a strategic perspective, burning the garden is a smart move.
It’s like Ross says, it’s SOP for the CIA during regime change.Dude’s very much a “The Abyss Gazes Also” figure.
I’m not so sure burning the magic flowers was the best strategic move. I mean,if he wanted to take over the world, wouldn’t an army of super dudes hopped up on magic flowers be helpful?
When he burned the flowers he proved he didn’t care about Wakanda. He probably wanted to win the war, but Wakanda being wiped out in a counterattack would’ve been an acceptable outcome for him.
He’s totally an abused who becomes the abuser.
Bravo on this series, Tom. It’s been a weekly highlight for me. Man, I can’t wait for the next one.
It should be interesting, and I have to admit I am especially looking forward to the ones on really, really bad blockbusters.
Won’t the 2010’s basically be Age of Heroes again?
Surprisingly, no:
2010: Toy Story 3
2011: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 2)
2012: Marvel’s The Avengers
2013: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
2014: American Sniper
2015: Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens
2016: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
2017: Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi
2018: Black PantherThe 2000’s will have more overlap, with Spider-Man, Spider-Man 3 and The Dark Knight taking the top spot in their release years.
Hunger Games ought to be fun.
And The Last Jedi….Oh, man…*reserves tickets*
BP made more than Infinity War?? Wow.
$21.2 million more – just under one Overlord’s worth (The 100th highest grossing domestic film of 2018)
The Grinch in 2000. Get ready….
Infinity War has no right being as good as it is. With that many characters and that many plotlines to converge at once, it should be a total mess. But it’s really enjoyable and has become one of my favourite Marvel films. I love how tonally bleak it is compared to others in the series and it’s really impressive how well they’ve managed to merge the weird Marvel space shit with the more “grounded” characters like Captain America etc.
It’s my favorite MCU film.
Mine, especially because of that ending.
I’m trying to decide if it’s just my favorite film ever.
Infinity War worked because not only does pay off, IT HAS TO PAY OFF.It’s a movie that requires everyone to work to their best or else 10 years of Marvel movies would’ve gone to waste.You want to see what would’ve looked like if Infinity War sucked? Look at The Defenders. The Defenders IMO ruined the entirety of the Netflix MCU for me, and it left such a bad taste in my mouth I refused to touch any future Netflix MCU shows ever since. I hated The Defenders so much to where thank god Infinity War worked out for me in the end.
How do you take a ninja cult that ressurects the dead and make them boring as shit?
Spending thirteen hours on them (or whatever) didn’t help.
The ninja stuff was a huge red flag for me in Daredevil and my eyes would always glaze over when they were mentioned. You can have your comic-booky ninjaness, or you can have a grounded crime drama, you can’t do both.
Season 2 of DD had given me taste aversion for ninjas. Too many ninjas!
Whiterose and The Dark Army in Mr. Robot are a better version of The Hand and are much more terrifying than The Hand.
Yesss! More realistic definitely.
I don’t see why you can’t do both. They just did it poorly near the end of season 2 of DD which is where the NCU lost me. The last episode specifically.
Arrow at least balanced the two better than the Netflix shows.
The same way you make a vampires vs werewolves franchise boring and leaden, I would suppose.
By making them faceless & silent, so they are robbed of all personality.
By wearing the audience out on numerous nearly-identical horde fights between Daredevil 2 & Iron Fist 1 before we ever got to Defenders.
By not even bothering to develop the characters of 2/5 of their leadership, one of whom is dead by episode 5 of 8 & the other of whom isn’t even introduced until episode 4 of 8.
By never ever ever once explaining to the audience what the effing crap a “Black Sky” is.
Season 2 of Jessica Jones was that for me. What a fucking AWFUL followup to what had been a bright shining star for the Netflix MCU
Yeah I didn’t bother with any of them after that, despite loving DD and Jessica Jones.
FYI: Punisher is very, very good.
Season 2 was a bit of a letdown but Season 2 of Daredevil and Season 1 of The Punisher more than make up for it.
I love the first four episodes of The Defenders. The fight in the high rise when they all come together and their conversation afterwards in the Chinese restaurant felt like really great launch point for a cool team-up series.Little did I know those scenes were the peak of the series. What a let down.
Hard to believe they cast Sam’s roommate from Revenge of the Fallen as a Ninja Master here.
The disappointing part of the Defenders is how low budget it seemed.
It was about on par with the rest of the Netflix series, so it didn’t stand out too much to me, but I know what you mean.There was a certain level of dynamism that probably would’ve been better achieved if these had been made by the film division.
With the recent news of Shang Chi, it’s hard to imagine that they wouldn’t have preferred their martial arts film venture to be based on the great Fraction and Brubaker Iron Fist stuff instead if Netflix hadn’t gotten to him first. A big film version of the 7 Capital Cities of Heaven would’ve been epic.
You should check out Daredevil S3 – it’s legitimately dope.
Agreed. It was a lot better than Season 2. Also: I believe you are/were Stake from Critically Touched? I have to thank you for starting that Person of Interest thread a few years ago. Without it, I never would have discovered my favorite show of all time. So, thank you!
Happy to hear it, dude! I definitely lost touch after Mike shut down the original site, but that was a great crew.
It sure was. The re-design was not as bad as Kinjapocalypse.
There are a few post-defenders shows that it would behoove you to check out. Namely Punisher, DD season 3, and Iron Fist season 2, of all things. The key to all of this is pretending Defenders never happened.
Well, there are 2 things you have to know from Defenders: Misty’s & Matt’s medical statuses.
As soon as Defenders killed off Sigourney Weaver, the only actor able to make some of that shitty writing work, in favor of an Elektra who was somehow worse than the Jennifer Garner version, I know there wasn’t any hope. I made it through most of it, but never even watched the final episode because I cared so little.
I do agree that The Defenders was a big disappointment. The big issue was that it never established a threat worthy enough to drive the story. They had Sigourney Weaver in the villain role for god’s sake and they wasted her for the most part. I feel the Disney streaming service is the real reason for the MCU Netflix’s end but this lacklustre crossover definitely didn’t help things.
You’re actually missing out. Punisher 1 & Daredevil 3 are absolutely killer.
The NCU lost me way before Defenders. I didn’t finish Iron Fist and only got through the first ep of Defenders before clocking out.
And like Age of Ultron or Civil War, it has very little to do with the event comic it’s named after, which involved Adam Warlock’s evil counterpart from an alternate universe called Magus.The movie is more an adaptation of Thanos Quest, a prelude to Infinity Gauntlet where Thanos acquires the Infinity Gems, and the first third of Infinity Gauntlet.
The movie also has a good mix of content from Hickman’s 2013 Infinity series.I love Thanos Quest. I know it would’ve never quite worked as a movie, but it would’ve been cool to see Thanos get all the stones just on his wits alone. It might’ve been nice to see him get at least one this way, but it’s fine. It makes sense, to make it more visually spectacular, to bring in the Black Order characters from Infinity and just change what they were looking for. I have not seen the trailers, but I’m guessing a big part of Endgame is the last half of Infinity Gauntlet (complete with a bigger part for Nebula)
And like Age of Ultron or Civil War, it has very little to do with the event comic it’s named after, which involved Adam Warlock’s evil counterpart from an alternate universe called Magus.The movie is more an adaptation of Thanos Quest, a prelude to Infinity Gauntlet where Thanos acquires the Infinity Gems, and the first third of Infinity Gauntlet.Spot on. But in fairness, I think that when they first announced the title, there was a collective thought that it would be an adaptation of Infinity Gauntlet, although I do also recall speculation that Adam Warlock and the Magus might make their presence known.And to be honest, for a movie, Infinity War does make for a better title. So there’s that.
Funny. It’s almost as though the movies have their own canon.
No need for hostility. I get they’re their own separate canon. But these movies are adaptations of the comics and I find it interesting comparing the two. For example the event Age of Ultron barely has Ultron in it. In fact it’s more accurate to call it Wolverine and Sue Storm’s Whacky Time Travel Murder Adventure. In fact, all it really accomplished long term was integrate Angela into the Marvel Universe, which had even less to do with Ultron.
Yeah we finally completed our MCU runthrough with my daughter so she can catch Endgame with me on the big screen. She’d only heard it was “sad” and so was already reluctant about it. After the snap, it was a steadily increasing cascades of “No!” “Nooo!” and finally “NNNNOOOOOOOOO!” (for you know who). Then that fucking mic drop of an ending. Even my wife, who isn’t into the MCU, gasped out loud. My daughter got up and ran around the house sobbing. I still don’t like the Thor stuff in it, but otherwise it’s a great movie that hits everything it needs to and is all the more impressive for all the elements they tie together and how they bounce characters off of each other meeting for the first time. OF COURSE Stark and Strange would hate each other. OF COURSE the GOTG gang would immediately prefer Thor over Starlord when they meet him.
I didn’t mind the Thor stuff but mainly for the characterization of Thor being kind of broken after all the stuff that’s happened to him (from his perspective, he’s gone through the events of Ragnorok and Infinity War back to back – the guy must be shattered!). I did appreciate that when he finally did get the new hammer they wasted no time in getting him into the fight, as in he instantly teleports there.
The Thor stuff worked for me for one reason: He had Rocket with him.
Thor and Rocket are surprisingly good together. Strange and Tony are another interesting match. They are/were arrogant asses.
And both are my fiance’s favorite characters (Iron Man and Doc Strange). So seeing them together made her very excited.
Thor restarting the forge at Nidavellir was quite possibly the most metal thing he’s done in the MCU and it’s the sort of big, mythic action that feels right at home in one of Jason Aaron’s Thor books and can only be properly depicted airbrushed onto the side of a van.And then he shows up in Wakanda and initiates the greatest exchange in MCU history when he introduces Steve to his friends Rabbit and Tree.Man, Thor was great in Infinity War.
I love Peter Dinkage’s line reading revealing what the new hammer is called. Totally channeling the innate stoner metal vibes.
YES! Thor was my favorite part of Infinity War. I’ve been waiting for 3 (4? 5?) movies to see THAT Thor. Taika hinted at it in Ragnarok, but for the most part we were getting the goofy, “Point Break” Thor from the early comics. Ragnarok and then Infinity War finally gave us the Thunder God I’ve wanted to see. When he lands in the Bifrost and Bruce soils himself and then he just obliterates the Black Riders with one swing…!? Give me more of that. And then to show that arrogance and vengeance when he hits Thanos and then lose… oh man… And I have to wait until Saturday that weekend to see Endgame? No way was I going to sit in the front row… Gah! /nerdrant
LOL“I am Groot.”“I am Steve Rogers.”I laugh my ass off every time I see that.I would say, though, my definite favorite Thor moment is learning he’s the God of Thunder (not the God of Hammers, lol) and going to town on Hela and her minions.
“It’ll kill you!”“Only if I die.”“Yes … that’s what … killing you means.”
So good. The fantasy side quest to get he new hammer is one of my favorite parts in a movie where every part was my favorite.
I love the Thor stuff in it, because for some reason his scenes with Rocket just really landed for me. Something about two of the most ridiculous MCU characters getting deep was a winner, and I kind of hated the first two Thor movies. It’s a shame that Endgame might be it for Hemsworth, because his Thor is finally worth spending a lot of time with.
If Marvel said to Hemsworth that Waititi wants to make another Thor with him I’d bet he’d jump at the chance.
After Thor 2 Hemsworth seemed frustrated and done with the character, after Ragnarok he seems invigorated.
Thor and Hulk need a road trip across the galaxy movie because it would be epic and awesome.
The craziness of the Thor movies means we can accept that he won’t find it at all odd to be having a conversation with a talking raccoon. It means we can just concentrate on the content of their dialogue, which is surprisingly heartfelt.
“This is not a dude … you are a dude” slays me every time
Even despite the tonal bleakness, it still manages to pack in exactly the right amount of the trademark MCU humor that (in my opinion) has actually been the glue holding everything together. It’s a masterpiece, although I agree that BP is the better movie to write about for this column, since it was more than just an MCU entry.
Every time I watch it, I’m amazed at how quickly it goes by. 2.5 hours should not blaze by that fast.
It’s two hours of everything you ever wanted to see in a superhero movie and 20 minutes that rips out your soul. I loved it.
I didn’t realise until it was there on the screen that I’d waited all my life to see a superhero movie where a living god brings down a lightning-controlling axe on a horde of alien monsters.
I mean….that’s exactly what I’ve been waiting for. Huge superhero action. What else could possibly be more comic book than that?
The Russos and Marcus & McFeely have twice managed to pull off what may genuinely be the most difficult thing in cinema: making a movie with like, 20 main characters work into a legitimate cohesive whole. It should not be possible. It should feel overstuffed and disjointed and aimless. But the result in Civil War and Infinity War was something exciting, coherent, laser focused on what mattered, and surprisingly smart. It’s impressive as hell.
It’s definitely up there with Animal House.
I find myself thinking back on that movie more than Black Panther…but then, I am white and basically nihilistic…squarely on team Thanos, and happy to see his hero’s journey reach fruition.
…I just hope he gets to snap again and do away with the other half in the sequel.
I think Spiderman 3 kind of left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth as far as the balancing act.
I wish it got more love. It’s stupendous. It’s a cultural milestone. It’s an overwhelming good time at the movies.
One of the great things about Black Panther is how the whole concept of Wakanda subverts the old imperialist Lost African Kingdom trope, where a Western explorer discovers some isolated, backwards tribe and is taken to be a god because he has, like, a box of matches or something. (Hello, King Solomon’s Mines.) Klaue is in that traditional ‘explorer’ role here, but he’s also overtly motivated by greed and far outclassed by the people he’s stealing from. The movie takes the ingredients of those tired old ‘Darkest Africa’ stories and makes something new from them.
The one thing I particularly disliked about the movie was Bilbo Baggins — I thought he was really shoehorned in there in a weird sort of reverse diversity (reversity?).I like Freeman as an actor, but between this and the Hobbit movies he has been stuck with some really clunky characters.
plus the whole queasy thing about a cia agent being a good guy in a movie about africa.
Not only that, but a CIA agent in Africa whose triumphant climax comes when he shoots down some planes.[Tugs at collar.]
This is an unfortunate side-effect of the change from his comic origin, and why he doesn’t really fit here. They should’ve saved him for his original function as a government analyst-type who gets caught up in T’Challa’s world.
Although this is blunted by showing the CIA guy immediately conceding “yeah, you are way better than we are at this” once confronted with the truth about Wakanda, and pitching in to help in whatever way he can.
Of course…a CIA agent is also the bad guy in this movie about Africa.Erik’s entire schtick is that his experiences have just turned him into an American-style imperialist, even if he has different aims.
A white CIA agent who thwarts a global black revolution, at that!
I like the Ross character from the comics, and if he’s used like in the comics he will eventually justify his presence, but I agree that he feels stuffed in here. They should’ve held off on his character for a story that was more about what he brings to the narrative.Not that he can’t still be used that way eventually, but it felt too early for him.
Not to mention the insane notion that a career CIA man would decide to help the secret futuristic African superpower rather than steal their tech and try to overthrow T’Challah and replace him with a US-approved right wing dictator at the first opportunity.
T’Challa basically is a US-approved right wing dictator by the end, isn’t he? He’s helping the US, he seems to be an absolute monarch, and religious combat-based monarchy sounds pretty right-wing to me.
And he was pro-registration in Civil War.
Even more important he’s articulate and you never see him with his pants sagging down beneath his butt.
Oh damn.
To be fair, in the comics Wakanda has transitioned into a Constitutional Monarchy following Coates’ run.
It can be two things.
I’m hoping they were including him to set up a future sequel, because I really like the character in the comics, even though he felt kinda superfluous in this first one.Whenever T’Challa visits the US, Ross is always assigned to be his bodyguard, which usually goes about as well as you think, if you think it ends with him pantsless in a grimy bathroom and T’Challa has to save him from Satan.
Why say reversity when Tolkien actor is right there?
Freeman is the view of the West interacting with Wakanda. Except now the CIA agent who has verbally bitch slaped Captain America in Civil War is just a wide eyed kid in Wakanda who’s hoping he doesn’t get eaten by the Jabari. He is actually kind of important to the story.
The fact that Cap just takes that about Bucky having a lawyer is one of my problems with Civil War. Between what we see of Agent Ross in CW and his early parts of BP I was expecting him to turn out to be a bad guy.
That’s what I like about how Freeman plays him. I don’t think he is a bad guy, but he is a spook for the US government and it took a lot for him to put anyone else first. Even then, it was mostly because he was overwhelmed by the technology and advanced culture he was surrounded by.
Once he gets his footing, I fully expect for him to be a pain in T’Challa’s ass again.
I felt like he was the only redeeming thing about the Hobbit movies.
Actually Everett Ross was a supporting character in Christopher Priest’s Black Panther run. He sold his soul to the devil for a pair of pants.
Yah…when they had him blowing up shit from that Wakandan skycraft, I was like:”Wait. Did they really have the only white character destroy the hope of exporting African armed resistance/supremacy?”
I can’t figure if that was tone-deaf or on purpose.
But he was totally unneeded, as warm a presence as Freeman is.
They had the white character acting under the orders of the black king, destroying an invasion ship before it crossed a border & triggered a war.
I like to think that some beancounter at Disney (or hell, probably an exec) definitely said “But we NEED a white character in there somewhere!” and they went through thr list of 3rd tier MCU characters, found the dorkiest one, and said “Alright, here he is. Here’s your white ‘lead.’”
Except Agent Everett Ross isn’t just a character from Marvel Comics. He’s specifically a supporting character in Black Panther comics.
shhhhhhhhh let me dreeeeeeeeam
He’s still not the best integrated, but for me it helped when I learned he was already a Black Panther supporting character. They didn’t find a MCU character they thought would work, they set him up in Civil War to use him later.
“One of the great things about Black Panther is how the whole concept of Wakanda subverts the old imperialist Lost African Kingdom trope…”
… until a dude who literally calls himself “Killmonger” comes in, defeats their king in single combat, and everyone in the futuristic utopia is just like, “Well, he’s the new king now, I guess we have to start World War III.”
I’d argue it’s still a reversal of those old narratives, where the implicit threat was usually the reverse: that the modern world will invade and destroy the lost kingdom. King Solomon’s Mines even has a Killmonger-style exiled prince, Ignosi, but when he’s restored to the throne he wants nothing more than to preserve his kingdom’s isolation. (His explorer pals are happy enough to oblige, as they get to leave with pocketfuls of diamonds.)
Haggard’s Africa stories are a good deal more complex than people only casually acquainted with them think…Quatermain is self-loathing and in many of the books, the African characters are the central story, with Quatermain just being there as sort of a dipshit observer…there are also some where all of the characters are Africans…and of course the two wild-card books where Quatermain is an ancient Egyptian and caveman….
What? Didn’t EVERYBODY do a Victorian fiction binge after ebooks became a thing?
Yeah, that was my one issue. These people love their country so much that they’re just going to let some lunatic step in and take it over so quickly? No one’s going to be close enough to him at any point to just shoot him in the back of the head and call a do-over?I say those sentences as an American with no irony, btw.
Well yeah, but he wasn’t white, so subversion.
I still want to see on the big screen the scene of Black Panther outwrestling a glowing red panther made of pure sound in complete silence, but I don’t know how it can happen with Klaue now dead.
Unless, by some strange quirk of fate the Master of Sound still lives?
My biggest complaint with the film is that this obviously developed, progressive, advanced, enlightened society…still chooses it’s leaders in trial by combat. And they seem totally unprepared for when that inevitably backfires on them.
Good point. In real-world politics election-by-combat is considered so backwards that only UKIP still chooses its leader that way.
It seems that it was more of a left over ritual, as no one challenged T’Challa.
But as the King gets the power of the Black Panther, which is mainly a physical power as shown, a physical trial makes some sense.
He got challenged early on in the movie and genuinely seemed at risk of being defeated by the Jabari tribe. They seemed to be taking it pretty seriously.
And that seemed to be the first time in generations that someone had challenged for the Panther. Also, everyone in the scene seemed genuinely surprised the Jabari came down from the mountains. I don’t think they had shown interest in the throne in thousands of years.
Even weirder is the Jabari tribe, who somehow get away with excluding themselves from the rest of Wakanda but still reserve the right to challenge for leadership with everyone else.
I still wanted to see him become a being of living sound.
Except, despite the advanced society, they for some reason perpetuate tropes of African tribal warfare.
This, so much this, and that’s why “Black Panther” as an image destroyer is so important.
I wish the CGI in the movie had a bigger budget. I enjoyed Black Panther but some of the fight/action scenes(particularly when he fights Killmonger on the underground train tracks) look like CGI from 2002. Which I find weird, because even Iron Man 1 has better CGI.
I don’t think the issue with the CGI was money, I think it was time issues, I’m hoping the next movie improves on this issues
by all accounts it SHOULD have looked better. Cost $200 million which is no small fee considering some MCU films that cost $50 million less had CGI that looked way better.
It’s especially weird because BP looked perfectly solid in his Civil War fight scenes, so they clearly knew how to animate him at some point.
I’m excited to see how the box office column goes, since there will be overlaps with the two existing columns all over the place.
Not as many as you might think, depending on Tom’s methods. According to Box Office Mojo’s numbers, only five of the films covered in this feature topped the box office in their respective years (and that’s going back to 1989’s Batman), and the only other superhero film to take the yearly box office crown was Spider-Man 3.And only two movies from “History of Violence” show up: T2 and Raiders.EDIT: One caveat: Box Office Mojo’s numbers for annual box office only go back to 1980, so maybe another “History of Violence” movie is in there. Superman: The Movie was the only pre-Batman movie Tom covered here, and it came in second for the box office in 1978, according to Google. So get ready to read Tom’s write-up of Grease in about 36 weeks.
Good point. I am excited to see the next feature because it would be an interesting exercise to debate “influential” movies vs. actual influences of movies that made a bunch of money.
No doubt. When I looked up the Box Office Mojo numbers, I was surprised to see 2000’s top-grosser was The Grinch, beating out the likes of Castaway and Gladiator.
. Tonally, Black Panther is closer to Lord Of The Rings or Avatar than it is to most other Marvel moviesMost of that is already very Thor. Instead, this is the origin story of Killmonger—the movie’s antagonist figure, but not quite its villain. What does it take to become a villain, if screaming about world domination and killing children doesn’t cross the line? And by the time the movie ends, T’Challa has to admit that those objectives are right, even if he doesn’t agree with the methods.He admits that Wakanda should do more to help the world, but I don’t think you can reasonably say Killmonger’s plan would help people. But you have to demand a lot of a movie to complain about a random supporting character’s illogical decision-making.Do you? Those two characters get a pretty good chunk of screen time, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that their characterization makes sense.
Also, the movie’s climax hinges on the idea that people in Oakland are just itching to overthrow the US government and just need better weapons to do so, which seems like an odd thing to throw in.
I’m pretty sure Killmonger’s plan was to arm a lot more black people than just Oaklanders (Oaklandites?)
Oaklandians.
Most of that is already very Thor. Only really the second Thor, and that movie sucks. So BP still gets credit for doing that tone well.
Something that doesn’t get brought up often enough about this film: Ever since Iron Man kicked off the MCU, he’s remained the franchise’s most bankable single character, to the point that all of the franchise’s first five films to hit a billion dollars included him. Black Panther is the one that broke that pattern (and it’s since been recently followed by Captain Marvel, so suck it, Ike “no one will go to a movie with a black or female superhero” Perlmutter).The initial cut was reportedly four hours long, so Coogler was naturally forced to cut a LOT of stuff he didn’t want to, including a better explanation for why W’Kabi sides so strongly with Kilmonger. I’m still hopeful he gets a redemption arc down the road.If you want a reason for why so many people hate comic book fans, look no further than the fact that after years of us complaining that no comic book movie ever got a Best Picture nomination, our response when it finally happened was to complain some more that it wasn’t the right one. And can we all just acknowledge how amazing it is that “Which superhero movie deserved an Oscar nomination” is even a legit discussion to be had now?
I think it’s legitimate to complain that Infinity War didn’t also get a nod in a year where Green Book won best picture. That’s a problem with the Oscars, though, not comic book fans.
When something like Return of the King gets the prize for being the culmination of a series of genre films replete with technical, storytelling, and logistic achievements, I have a hard time arguing that Endgame wouldn’t also deserve something if it manages to stick the landing.
Agree but i still feel that despite Black Panther’s oscar nom – there’s still a bias against massive comic book blockbuster that would work against Endgame getting considered.
Ah, but Return of the King had a literary pedigree. Comic books will never be respected as serious art form, and superhero movies will never be taken seriously by elite reviewers, who’d rather jerk off over some incomprehensible eurotrash like Climax than acknowledge the achievements of films that are actually designed to be entertaining.
I agree completely with you. But re: literary pedigree- I think Return of the King’s win demonstrated the changing definition of a literary pedigree.Tolkein’s books were hits in the 60s, but they were still fantasy, something the Academy had previously never really recognized. It was pretty astounding at the time that they were nominating Fellowship and Two Towers, let alone actually awarding it to Return (although it was expected by that point)I agree that I don’t think they will be there by the time Endgame comes up, but the parallels are striking.
“Tolkein’s books were hits in the 60s, but they were still fantasy, something the Academy had previously never really recognized.”
Agreed, but there’s fantasy, and then there’s FANTASY. As much sneering as Tolkien may elicit from literary circles, he’s generally acknowledged as in a different class than someone like, say, J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Mysterious Mcguffin was never going to win a Best Picture Oscar, but no one takes issue with Return of the King being Best Picture of 2003 (along with the ten other Oscars it won), in large part because it’s considered “art”, whereas Infinity War, for all its achievements, is considered merely an action movie. I don’t think that will change anytime soon, though I DO think there will come a time, decades hence, when the MCU receives its proper due from critics, after enough time has passed and enough perspective has been gained.
“If you want a reason for why so many people hate comic book fans, look
no further than the fact that after years of us complaining that no
comic book movie ever got a Best Picture nomination, our response when it finally happened was to complain some more that it wasn’t the right one.”This needs all the stars. Well said.
I’ll give kudos to Into the Spider-Verse for handling the idea of Peter and MJ divorcing with far more maturity than the comics ever did…
Imagine if they’d somehow managed to handle it with less maturity. Now that would have been a mighty feat.
Also they now have a young Spider-Man who is popular and can now have original Spider-Man grow up and become an adult…
Which Nick Spencer has been doing!
I’ve said this before, but I much rather prefer Thanos’ portrayal in the comics where he was basically an Incel on God Mode who wanted the personification of Death to sleep with him rather than as the universe’s biggest Malthusian.
And had a helicopter with his name on it, can’t leave that out.
One shouldn’t, the Thanoscopter is one of Thanos’ most dangerous weapons in his arsenal.However we should all definitely forget his brother Eros, who has creepy mind control powers that work by stimulating the pleasure centers of the brain. He basically has the power of mind rooffies. To make matters worse, The Avengers let him be a member.I’m pretty sure there’s an outstanding warrant for his arrest on Earth ever since his dad helped him evade charges of sexual assault in Dan Slott’s She-Hulk run.
In their defense, they didn’t know he had those powers when he joined. His keeping that aspect of his powers a secret was a plot point in Stern’s run.
Hoping he says “Drat!” in Endgame
I had seen and been amused by the Thanos-copter before but “Drat!” is a whole new level of wonderful cheesy villainy, it absolutely needs to be revitalized.
Wasn’t the whole point of his appearance in She-Hulk to prove that he wasn’t using his powers to sleep with women?
He still used them on She-Hulk and J Jonah Jameson’s son to have them fall in love and get married. Even then he was never really acquitted for the charges because his dad absconded with him mid-trial.
I was a twelve-year-old Marvel nut when Starfox joined the Avengers, and even I said, “The fuck is this bullshit?”
These are the same people who were perfectly fine with a brainwashed Ms. Marvel going off with her rapist, after all.
Eh, that always seemed ridiculous to me in the comics (and mainly an excuse for Thanos to stand around having one-sided conversations) so i’m glad they didn’t go that route with the movies. Although if they decide to bring in those giant disembodied heads representing Order and Chaos, I’m on board!!
Thanos’ very first appearance in the MCU teased the line “to court Death.” We can read that now as a wordplay on his comic counterpart’s motivations, but it may have been possible they were going to go in that direction. I feel like the character was left on ice for like the next 10 movies, because they couldn’t crack the story, or make it fit with the rest of the MCU, so they went with the new idea
While Black Panther is the obvious choice, I would have preferred a full-length article about Spiderverse or Aquaman, both of which I think are more ambitious and interesting movies. Rewatching Aquaman at home, I was once again struck by its Game of Thrones-meets-Avatar-meets-a Saturday morning kids cartoon vibe. It’s such a weird and wild and BEAUTIFUL looking movie, as is Spiderverse. Black Panther has the deeper and more relevant themes, but other than that it plays things pretty safe.
Agreed, I think there’s still a lot more to unpack about Spider-Verse’s approach to the medium than there is to unpack in Black Panther. It’s great, and fun, has excellent style, but it’s Big Themes are worn pretty well on the surface.
Did you catch the ‘making of’ with the directors? Really interesting stuff about almost imperceptable details like playing with framerate and such.
GodDAMN! That was amazing. I love me a good, snappy informative behind the scenes that makes me go “WHOA! That’s crazy!”.
I love everything about Spider-Verse. That movie is a true work of pure ART. Personally, I think it’s finest super hero movie ever made.
I can see Spider-Verse as more ambitious or interesting, but Aquaman? I really liked Aquaman, but you pretty much have to ignore the films’ respective stories to think that Aquaman has it over Black Panther in either category.
I was incredibly underwhelmed by Aquaman.
Micole Kidman was miscast as hell.
THe effects were dodgy.The dialogue was not the best.
it felt like it needed just a few more passes on the script to work.
I didn’t hate it, I was just underwhelmed.
sometimes i feel like i’m gonna go to hell because i really disliked black panther. i was never a huge fan of the mcu, but this one got hyped up as something that transcended the genre. after the admitting pretty good opening 20 minutes, however, i felt that it was just a generic marvel movie. also that scene when black panther smirks after tossing a henchman under the wheels of a sportscar made me queasy. marvel seems to like to have their heroes kill but can’t reconcile what it would look like. as a result, the violence became anestheticized and to me, even more upsetting.
plus the cgi at the climax was butt ugly. the movie looked like a ps3 cutscene.
The climactic fight was astonishingly bad, just wretched in a movie that prides itself on visuals. And while I liked the movie, I feel like those visuals were oversold in general — Tom talks about the lab being the first thing we see of Wakanda and yes, we get those cool Afrofuturist landscapes and establishing shots but a good chunk of the movie is right back in the lab. (The costumes were boss throughout, though.)
I didn’t feel like any of the action sequences were that compelling, and we’d seen better versions of most of them in the MCU itself. For a movie that is at its heart an action film from the director of Creed (which had phenomenal fight scenes), I was surprised it got so much of a pass on this aspect amidst all the deserved accolades.
The waterfall fights were fine but in general yeah, not strong stuff. Even the casino fight produced more of a “Oh, this is the ‘single-shot’ fight” reaction as opposed to “damn, this kicks ass.”
The waterfall fights were probably the most unique and exciting. I could’ve done with only one of them.
Agreed, but that shot of Okeye leaping from the balcony, her dress blazing like the fire of vengeance, was pretty badass.
I was onboard with Creed right up until it fell into the exact same trap the original Rocky films did – fighters taking 50+ direct shots to the head and not being affected by it. Any Rocky match would have been stopped, if he wasn’t killed in the ring first. Adonis guessing correctly how many fingers the ref is holding up was ridiculous – anyone could see his eye was completely closed and stopped it right there.
Eh, when you are watching a Rocky film, you just accept some of the stylistic nonsense or it isn’t going to work for you. I give them a pass because I believe the realism of their violence the same as I do most Hollywood action films, which is none at all.
Oh I know – after the first one you knew what you were in for with the fight scenes. It was just disappointing because the first one plays it so straight in every other respect right up until the end. The others become more cartoonish as they go, but Creed felt like Rocky I all over again – and again, right up until the fight itself.
It wasn’t a guess, btw, his corner was signalling with taps on the back of his head.
OK, that definitely helps. Didn’t notice that. Still, there’s no way a ref looks at him and lets him back in the ring.
This is something I hope they explore in the sequel. There’s maybe one scene in BP at the street level where we get a peek at regular ol’ Wakandans. Everything else is relegated to the lab, throne room, a field or the burial room.
“There’s maybe one scene in BP at the street level where we get a peek at regular ol’ Wakandans.!”Yes! And I understand this is the problem with any utopia, the more details you try to lay out the more choices you have to make and the more chances you have to make things less utopian — someone in the audience will find fault with how things work if they know how they work. And making the government a monarchy is a smart way of keeping the focus on that higher level. But I was still wondering what exactly the multitudes in a country that seems to have solved scarcity are doing all day.
EDIT: I suppose you could say the same for the people of Asgard but 1. that’s explicitly out of the “real world,” as opposed to hidden from it, and 2. they seem to have a solid socioeconomic structure of watching specious and poorly-acted theater.
“Have you noticed that ever since that Dark Elf invasion, Odin’s been putting on a lot more plays?”
They have a Merchant Tribe, and a Mining Tribe. Presumably the River Tribe fishes, and presumably the Border Tribe, in addition to guarding the border, raises livestock. Only the Mountain Tribe are do-nothing goldbricks.
Based on Costume Designer Ruth Carter’s Oscar speech, I think she’d agree that the costumes were easily the most amazing part of the film.
Nah, you’re not gonna go to hell for that, because those are legitimate criticisms. If you were whining “reverse racism” or some crap, then you’d need to worry.
Infinity War, I think, was the MCU movie that most closely captures the feeling of a comic book, jumping right into the story, the breakneck pacing, the faux-cliffhanger ending, a very formidable villain, etc. It had so much fist-pumping action exactly offset by the genuine emotion of the Thor/Rocket scene, the final scene between Thanos and Gamora, and the Snap. In fact, I’d say this movie is perfectly balanced…as all things should be.
A year since, I began to appreciate Black Panther because it’s surprisingly the most optimistic of the MCU films. It’s also quite memorable and people still make memes about Black Panther today. In fact, Nvidia called their 3D autonomous car project “Wakanda” and even paid Marvel to use the Wakanda license. People still use “Wakanda Forever” memes and stuff. Also, the fact that Green Book won Best Picture at the Oscars made people wish that Black Panther had won Best Picture.
While Jordan’s Killmonger gets all the praise, I really like how T’Challa is presented in Black Panther. He’s shown as being less quippy than other MCU characters, which not only separates him from the pack, it also allows the supporting cast to play off his seriousness. Shuri, Okoye, M’Baku, and even Killmonger seem more dynamic when paired with him. But the Panther isn’t a boring straight man who merely reacts, he’s just learning how to be responsible in his new role as leader.
I really hope they keep that aspect of him going forward. If we are, as rumour would have it, losing “the big three” in some way, then having T’Challa take over Cap’s role as the de facto leader and “straight man” would make for a pretty seamless transition, while also opening up new areas of dynamic to explore.(In this scenario Stephen = Tony and Carol = Thor)
I think they’ll do a “new” Avengers consisting of Black Panther, Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, Dr. Strange and Valkyrie now that it looks like the original team is throwing in the towel. Seems like a risk but two of those have helmed billion dollar movies so I’m sure it’ll be fine.
Seems about right:Cap = BPIM = Dr SThor = CarolHulk = SpideyBW = ValkyrieThough it makes me wonder what we’re going to see happen with characters like Rhodey, Sam, Bucky, etc.My off-the-cuff prediction is that both Widow and Hawkeye will either retire or go off and do their own thing, Vision and Wanda will move over to the TV side, Rhodey will probably also retire, and then both Sam and Bucky will be Avengers-adjacent, in that they’ll probably fill the Hawkeye role of “call when needed”.Of course, if either of them (most likely Bucky) picks up the shield at some point, that will change the calculation entirely.
I would honestly love to see a standalone where Sam takes up Cap’s shield and struggles with the responsibility at first, then gets some super-soldier serum and gains Cap’s actual powers and goes overboard, before realizing that it wasn’t just Cap’s physical powers that made him great.
Counterpoint: Falcon stinks.
Counterpoint: Nuh uh.
Look at you with this prediction!
I love the idea of Bucky picking up the shield but they’ve completely stripped him of personality at this point that I’m not sure it would even work now.
As said this on the 2016 article (mostly) in reference to Civil War, but Black Panther certainly reinforces it and to a degree so does Infinity War. As much as I love the quips in the MCU, and I do, T’Challa being the no time for this crud straight man is so refreshing.
Does it not bear mentioning the idea this is a markedly progressive movie falls apart completely in the actual text where not only is elite rule the savior of the nation and the world the villian is the only one expressing discontent and that villian is specifically written as a psychopath obsessed with power and the politics of envy? It’s inherently conservative and that’s even before you get to the CIA guy being a good guy when it comes to an African nation. That’s just the icing on the bullshit cake really.
Isn’t Nakia also expressing discontent with the system? And her approach is basically the one he actually goes with.
She’s not talking about overturning a massive empire that’s robbed, enslaved and murdered for 100s of years though.
Okay, but now you’re moving the goalposts from “the villain is the only one to advocate for change” to “the villain is the only one who wants to violently conquer America”.
No I’m saying the only one to express discontent is the villain because he is the only one who does anything about it. I don’t think putting quotes around things I haven’t said is helpful here.
Nakia does everything she can. And T’Challa eventually expresses the same discomfort and acts on it.
Well no not everything she can as she doesn’t take over Wakanda in order use it’s incredible power to gain justice for an entire continent. That’s almost the least someone that close to that level of power can do when faced with the abominable actions of the nations that have carved up, pillaged and murdered all over Africa for centuries.
Nakia isn’t a revolutionary, and there’s no way to try to “ take over Wakanda in order use it’s incredible power to gain justice for an entire continent” that doesn’t end in a bloodbath. That’s almost the least someone that close to that level of power can do What is, exactly? Conquering the world to try to make up for imperialism? Because I’m pretty sure the solution to imperialism isn’t “more imperialism”.
Yeah you ever think the way it’s set up so the only solution is the CIA friendly one is specific deck stacking to make it so? Like that’s a perfect encapsulation of why the film isn’t progressive. It’s pro elite rule, pro CIA and anti-revolution against war criminals.
and anti-revolution against war criminals.I’m pretty sure a violent uprising isn’t going to be supported by most progressives.
I mean when the alternative is enslavement, rape, genocide then progressives are often fine with a muscular foreign policy.
I’ve said this before, but Nakia is the secret MVP of the movie, since it’s her outlook and plans that get acted upon, not Killmonger’s.
Not only that, she saves the royal family and the herb.
Sure, but in the end that nation decides freely to share its gifts with the world to help people out, which is decidedly not conservative. Unless the sequel reveals that Wakanda was willing to share but only for a hefty profit and hoarded the supply of its tech to drive up prices, I suppose.
Sure but this puts the responsibility on Wakanda for not sharing it’s tech earlier to help other nations on the continent rather than you know the plundering colonial powers
But that’s the classic superhero dilemma exactly: we should have been doing the right thing even in the face of others’ shittiness. Wakanda had great power, and with great power you know the rest of that saying. T’Challa flat-out says to his predecessors that they were wrong!
Putting the responsibility on a Wakanda for stopping centuries of real world theft, genocide and slavery and making them eventual allies with the major countries who did all that shit isn’t a progressive or heroic outcome.
Then superhero stuff has never been progressive or heroic, which means that BP isn’t any different than anything else in the genre.
Right which means all the crowing about it being progressive is total nonsense.
But since this would mean it’s no different than any other entry in the superhero genre, your complaint would be rendered meaningless.
Huh? The people calling it progressive are differentiating it from other films because they think it’s progressive.
And you’ve circled back nicely to my first response with that.
Your first response suggests it’s actually progressive. It’s not for reasons explained before your response and after it.
Sure it is, for reasons explained by myself and others. You disagree! We get it!
Presumably you disagree because you can point out why it’s progressive in a way that hasn’t been shown to be untrue.
See above! Best wishes.
I accept you conceding. Be well.
I accept yours as well. Enjoy the weekend.
Have a re-read. I didn’t offer anything. You otoh declined to argue your points.
I agree, you offered nothing but a “nuh-uh” in the first place, leading to this entire interesting exchange. Again, concession accepted. Be blessed.
Aside from the fact even your mis-characterization doesn’t make sense you really do need to re-read. I offered an argument which you ended up agreeing with despite yourself. Once that happened you tried to get snarky and even struggled with that.
No, I’m afraid you presented an argument that the film wasn’t progressive because it depicted a conservative society, to which I responded that the film also depicted that conservative society deciding not to be that way anymore. At which point the “nuh-uh” came in, with the idea that someone deciding to do something progressive isn’t progressive because they shouldn’t have to decide to do something progressive. Anyway, others can read it all and judge for themselves.I do genuinely love the part when you played the “ha ha you conceded” card at me and then seemed to take great umbrage at me playing it back, though. I like that moxy.
“At which point the “nuh-uh” came in,”Why lie about something that’s in black and white a few posts up?As for the moxy I figured that as you tried to gloss over the fact you ended up agreeing with me and then just tried to be snarky instead of conceding the point a little snark back at you was appropriate, bizarre you think it was me who tried that first though as again it’s all in black and white. So you want another try? We’d just got to the point where you were close to figuring out the superhero genre including BP is innately conservative.
Calling Wakanda a conservative society is a bit of an understatement, no? It’s a monarchy where changes in power are decided by one on one combat. One of the largest reasons I didn’t find it’s other themes as resonate as they could have been was that the structure of Wakandan society and the complete lack of democracy was just accepted as fine. Hell, Killmonger beats the shit out of T’Challa and a very large portion of the population just roles with that and is about to start invading and destroying other countries.
Sure, but I think that’s a separate question (one I hope the sequel explores – as Wakanda opens up to the world, it would necessarily open itself up for change as well).
Wakanda deciding to share its resources with the world is literal progress. I’m not sure how else you’d define progressivism.
Because the set-up is oh shit this African country could have stopped hundreds of years of slavery and genocide if they’d just learned to share their resources, when you set that up against global powers plundering Africa for it’s resources it’s not a progressive message it’s still saying this African country should allow global powers access to it’s resources.
There’s a big difference between foreign nations raping Africa for its natural resources, and Wakanda CHOOSING to share its techonological, cultural, and societal advances with the rest of the world.
Sure but now it’s a story about how the responsibility is partially on an African nation for not sharing it’s resources earlier to help other nations on the continent rather than, you know, the responsibility of the plundering colonial powers
There’s exactly one reason to think BP is progressive – the cast.
In the service of a conservative pro-monarchy (at the very least) narrative. A sneakily smart if grim bit of PR.
No, it doesn’t. Acknowledging a moral duty to help one’s fellow man doesn’t absolve the people victimizing said fellow man.
Not absolve and not alone, but having your heroes team up with the CIA, not take any action against e.g The US, UK, France etc and having the villain who is shown as superevil be the one making the quite justifiable critique certainly whitewashes (pun intended) a lot.
Killmonger isn’t the only person in the movie critiquing the world as it is.I don’t know what “action” you’re thinking of — the superpowers aren’t occupying Africa anymore, the various ills are now far more subtle and not things amenable to a military solution; which, indeed, is a big part of the issue with Killmonger, since the sort of violent action he’s contemplating pretty much always makes things worse. Wakanda begins its new foreign policy with what appears to be economic and cultural outreach.
Not occupying Africa is pretty weak as a defense especially considering there’s still a tonne of US troops and bases there. Killmonger is the only to question and take action which is the key thing here. The only one willing to do anything is shown as a psychopathic murderer.
The small numbers of American soldiers in African nations are mostly there to train local militaries at the request of the governments in question, and in some cases participating in operations against terrorist groups like Boko Haram. They’re not occupying forces.Killmonger isn’t the only person taking action to improve things. Nakia is already doing so at the beginning, and T’Challa deciding that she’s right is kind of the whole point of the film — and also that Killmonger’s proposed solutions are counterproductive, even aside from his egoism.
The idea the countries are freely requesting boots on the ground is itself conservative. “Free choice” to refuse the US means the US treats you at best as a potential danger and at worse a enemy. There’s no way to frame the US’s constant presence all over the world as anything progressive. I don’t think I’ve ever said Killmonger’s action are good or correct my point about him is that the one person who really carries around the justified anger and need for justice is shown to be a egotistical villain and the people who want to work with the fucking CIA are the reasonable ones.
I’m sure there are political considerations when requesting military aid. However, governments also generally do really want US aid.Comparing military support against domestic terrorist groups to occupying armies is nonsense, and they certainly don’t need to be violently expelled.
Governments needing US aid is a thing that happens of course but it doesn’t make it a progressive thing to do.If the domestic terrorists are in part response to US military presence or a result by previous US actions causing “blowback” there’s absolutely a case to be made to get rid of the US.Like I can get on board with the fact BP is raising some interesting issues (and it would be a joke if it didn’t address them) but the superhero genre is inherently conservative, Disney is inherently conservative and the stories are always created within that framing.
Boko Haram, to cite the most prominent example, is an Islamist terrorist group dedicated to founding a state based on Salafist theology. Getting rid of small numbers of American military advisors is not going to make them go away.
Salafists and Wahabbis have been in large part a response to imperialism and the Wahabbi’s are in part funded by the US. Which is a pretty good encapsulation of my points about how the film trying to address imperialism’s role in African atrocities and then siding with the US and CIA at the end of the film makes it decidedly not progressive.
The film doesn’t “side with” the US, other than pointing out that Killmonger’s scheme to change things is a terrible idea that wouldn’t work. Wakanda enters the world stage specifically to improve the existing world order.
Working with the CIA. It’s siding with the US. And yes having the anti-American be a psychopathic murderer is conservative.
No, it’s not. They (meaning T’Challa and Everett Ross, who for most of the movie is operating on his own) have the same enemy in this specific instance, for different reasons, which is a typical feature of statecraft. Wakanda is not supportive of US policy; the whole damn point of the movie is otherwise. That’s why the movie ends with T’Challa showing up in the US to try to improve things for people there.
And the film intentionally gives the CIA a good guy role precisely because it’s a conservative movie made by a conservative studio in a conservative genre. Real convenient for the narrative to stop just before T’Challa has to do anything that would harm the US. Yes that’s not intentional at all I’m sure.
Everett Ross is a longstanding supporting character in the comics, who is used to demonstrate the complexities of Wakanda’s relationship to the outside world.That’s called the setup for sequels, where presumably we will see what this new, active Wakanda will look like. One story at a time.
It’s still pretty conservative because it assumes the reason most countries are struggling is lack of resources or lack of tech to exploit those resources instead of other countries’ appropriating those resources.
The monarchy stuff is because monarchy is a great system of government from the perspective of drama. That’s just a convention.The film is certainly not conservative. Its fundamental message is about long-standing injustices in the contemporary world order.
Yes its a convention that’s pro a very conservative view point. Like you’re agreeing it’s conservative but saying it’s OK because it’s drama. Which sure but it’s still conservative to not get rid of the monarchy and have the only person genuinely question it be the villain.The film is definitely conservative because it’s message addresses injustices with conservative solutions and framing.
Killmonger doesn’t question the monarchy; he just wants to be the king. There’s never any argument over the system of government.Beyond which, monarchism isn’t a live philosophy in western political debate, so that’s not a conservative position in any meaningful sense.Monarchy is a useful dramatic device, which is why it’s so common in fiction.The film’s solutions are framing are absolutely not conservative. Modern conservatives don’t even acknowledge that these are problems.
You’re bang on about Killmonger not questioning the gov and I was sloppy to suggest so. Fair point. He wants that unilateral power which is bad, it’s also bad that the unilateral power is still in play at the end as a good thing making it conservative not progressive. Monarchy is alive and well in the UK for example and is very much a conservative bastion. Just because empire is seen as a good thing by many conservatives still doesn’t mean acknowledging it for the evil it caused is inherently progressive when the solutions proposed are conservative.
The UK is a constitutional monarchy; the Queen is a ceremonial figure, as she is in my country. Not even ultra-Tories argue that the Queen should run the country (indeed, the Queen herself doesn’t).There’s nothing conservative about the film’s solutions — economic assistance for disadvantaged communities is intrinsically not conservative, for instance.
I mean Tories are literally saying the queen should step in with all the brexit shit. I mean sure it’s not like she has unilateral power but it’s still a monarch as head of state, an unelected chamber of government with hereditary peerages and elite aristocracy and all of that has massive conservative impact.Economic assistance is definitely conservative as practiced by say the IMF who hang all sorts of conditions on aid. And of course the US’s cultural and economic outreach is deployed specifically to give them control in other nations.
Some random people complaining isn’t the same thing as a political party supporting rule by a hereditary monarch. The monarch hasn’t been the directing force behind the British government since the late 18th century, and has been politically neutral since the 1830s.The House of Lords in its current form is a bit ramshackle, but almost all of its members are appointees, like the Canadian Senate. And by convention they’ve long deferred to the House of Commons anyway.Wakanda’s foreign policy isn’t suggested to be geared along those lines, so that’s an irrelevant comparison. And purely from a domestic political perspective, government intervention to improve disadvantaged communities is not something supported by contemporary American conservatives.
Government intervention to ensure American hegemony keeps on ticking is supported by conservatives and many of the smarter ones couch it in “improving disadvantaged communities” or “overthrowing dictators” to get the public on board.The point I’m making about the UK is that there’s still an aristocratic elite linked to the monarchy and power is still in the hands of those people. The last PM before May and various other Tory MPs are literally relatives of the royal family. To suggest this can be ignored to say monarchy is dead doesn’t remotely approach progressivism.
Which still has nothing to do with what the film is advocating. That some groups disingenuously claim to support something for their own purposes doesn’t make it conservative or a bad idea. That’s like claiming universal healthcare is a Republican idea because Donald Trump bloviates about having a great healthcare bill that everybody will love.Every society has an upper class. That’s not the same thing as being a monarchy, and so the idea that using a fictional monarch as a lead is sending a conservative message is nonsense, as nobody in the contemporary west advocates such a system. It’s a dramatic conceit that allows the film to play up the question of what a person is meant to do with power, whether they should use it to help others and what exactly that means. And the film’s answers to that question are liberal.
The UK literally advocates such a system there is barely any republican movement and the idea is villified across 95% of the media. Just because it’s watered down doesn’t mean it’s not seen as valid.I’m also not saying something is bad because conservatives support it I’m saying it’s bad and conservatives make excuses to get other people to support it. Using a fictional monarch as lead doesn’t promote conservatism but having the fictional monarch lose and then regain his power as the monarch rather than take down aristocracy is a conservative message. It’s maintaining status quo, that’s literally conservative.
As I already explained, the UK and Canada are constitutional monarchies where the Queen is ceremonial. The governments of both countries are democratic. Absolute monarchy of the sort shown in Wakanda is not a live political philosophy in western politics.That’s not a conservative message, as the film is not about debating the monarchy, it’s about what Wakanda’s role in the world should be. Who the king is is the means of telling that story. T’Challa’s story is fundamentally altering the bedrock of Wakandan foreign policy. That is not conservative.
It’s altering it to be an ally of the US which is conservative.The fact the UK still has a symbolic monarchy and an elite rule made up of lots of people from the monarchy is not a good argument for saying monarchy is dead.
Wakanda is not allied with the US. T’Challa and the other good Wakandans do not support the way the US government’s domestic or foreign policy, as is obvious throughout.Absolute monarchy of the sort depicted in the film is dead in the west. Constitutional monarchy is still around, which is neither here nor there since western constitutional monarchies are democracies. Somebody like David Cameron is not “from the monarchy”; he’s a descendant of William IV’s bastard children from 200 years ago. There are tons of people all over the world, of every social class, with that sort of distant genetic connection to royalty.
Cameron is from the upper class, the aristocracy with a connection to the monarchy. He’s from a party largely sourced from the upper class aristocracy with connections to monarchy. To suggest this means monarchy is irrelevant in the UK is madness. Elite aristocratic rule is still very much part of the UK and the monarchy is a major part of that.You say they don’t support the US in Wakanda but they’re isolationism is defacto support when they’re the one power who would have been able to stop the US and other imperialist powers. In the film T’Challa does nothing to challenge the US hegemony and in fact, surprise surprise takes out the one person who was challenging it. How wonderfully convenient!
Whether Wakandan isolationism is morally justifiable is the whole damn point of the movie, with T’Challa deciding that it wasn’t. Which is why he changes Wakandan policy. And they do not enter the world stage to enforce the status quo — hence, the symbolic starting things in Oakland.What form this will take going forward (especially since there’s a lot of incentive to keep the MCU broadly recognizable as our world, similar to the dilemma the comics have always faced with technology, etc.) remains to be seen, but Coogler is a talented and socially aware filmmaker, so I’m interested to see where it goes.
If the sequel has the US’ soft empire as one of it’s antagonists I’ll genuinely retract everything I’ve said here. Fruitvale Station is indeed a great movie.
Wakanda doesn’t side with the CIA or the US, the main CIA operative sides with them partially because his life is at stake. Which of course could bring up a whole different set of issues.
Your solution is transparently stupid though. “The Imperialist powers have to PAY for using violence to create political change beneficial to their interests! The only possible response to their aggression is to use violence to overturn their governments! That will create a political change beneficial to our beliefs and interests!”
As a conservative myself I certainly didn’t identify it as conservative.
Another Breihan column! This is excellent news.
And one with two years before it’ll run out of material!
That Breihan column is wrong! I am Spartacus!
Yeah, I like the idea. A plan for after that one would be to go through the last X years of Best Picture nominees and write about which one should have won instead of the one that did win.
Look I like BP too but if we’re ranking movies there’s no way Spider-Verse isn’t top spot. I can think of numerous problems with BP whereas I’m stymied for ideas at S-V.
If I was going to criticicize Spider Verse, I’d say the parental struggles felt sort of generic. But it’s hard to say much else. Even the way Morales struggled to make his powers work felt like a really fresh take on something we’ve seen before. It’s an amazing balancing act that never feels forced or insincere.
If I was going to criticize it I’d say that having Peter just be Gwen’s friend and having schlubby Peter not seem to especially know/care about Gwen removes a lot of the pathos of their dynamic, they’re basically just coworkers. And maybe we could have gotten a little more of the alt-spiders. But still, it’s solid.
I loved Spider-verse, but that’s my only gripe with it – that Gwen doesn’t react to meeting 2 Peter Parkers, and none of the Peters react to her. It really undercuts why Gwen was significant and why she’s there at all.
S-V has me torn over whether I’d rather have a Miles Morales or Spider-Gwen hoodie. It’s quite a serious problem.
Why not both? https://drunkmunk.com/collections/hero-hoodies-marvel-comics
My one big issue is, why was Tombstone even there? He does literally nothing that couldn’t have just been a random Kingpin henchman, which was a big letdown after he’s so cool in the PS4 game (and Spectacular Spider-Man basically made him the Kingpin).
Does movie Tombstone even talk? I feel like he didnt say anything.Also agree on the PS4 tombstone. I hope the next Spider-Man expands on the side missions so they can use more bad guys (something like Arkham City/Knight).
He had like two lines in the fight at May’s house. There’s a deleted scene floating around where he confronts the Spider team at the gala.
Spider-Verse was an absolute blast, gorgeous and fun and well-written. I was very glad to see it recognized over Incredibles 2, which had some great sequences (raccoon fight, train chase) but a surprisingly weak story.
I was very disappointed with how much of Incredibles 2’s thematic content was a retread of the first film. And then the action scenes were generally inferior as well.
The ending action scene was fine enough but not as thrilling as I’d of wished. And the opening scene was very weird, as an action sequence on its own it was OK but thematically, it contradicted everything the first movie had built up to about the family working together, it felt like a huge step back. Train and raccoon were aces but also out of step with each other — train is full of wonderful cartoon physics (Elastigirl is the best super to watch in motion and the separating motorcycle is a brilliant way to make the most of that) that are still grounded in the “real” world of the movie, while Jack-Jack vs. the raccoon is essentially a Tex Avery cartoon. That is awesome! But stylistically it doesn’t fit in.
The ending scene with the boat was too busy and not thrilling at all. For better or worse, preventing a boat from crashing does not compare emotionally with stopping a giant robot. I agree about Elastigirl, but I still feel that Inredibles 1 did more inspired things with her power than anything in part 2. Her sneaking into Syndrome’s fortress is one of my favorite parts of that film- the train rescue does not compare.
I don’t really consider the raccoon fight for the reasons you suggest. It’s a gag to me.
“For better or worse, preventing a boat from crashing does not compare emotionally with stopping a giant robot.”Whoa now! Are you saying Speed 2: Cruise Control is NOT superior to The Iron Giant?
I am saying that! Come at me, bro!
*Comes at Charles R in boat that cannot drop below 25 knots in velocity without exploding*
I think Spiderverse is the better movie, but BP is the more culturally important movie.
Long-term that’s a potential limitation. Its importance is tied to a particular point in time. Spider-verse does things that are going to affect the way these kinds of movies are made for quite a while, and at the same time has some overlap with BP in terms of long-term cultural significance.
Both are great from a diversity perspective, and you’re right in that Spiderverse has the added checkmark of changing animation technology. So you might be right in that in the long-term, the impact on the animation world will be much larger. But I don’t think many people will be cognizant of that. It’s way easier for people to remember how important BP was for the culture. It was (and is) a huge phenomenon. Spiderverse is a great movie and also a huge win for diversity in film, but I don’t think it caused as much of a visible phenomenon as BP did. Obviously things like impact are hard to measure when you’re looking at a worldwide scale, but that’s just how I see it.
To be fair, he’s not ranking superhero films, he’s picking the most important one. And as much as I love Spider-Verse, I would argue (as Tom has) that Black Panther is the more important film.
then your argument would not only be bad, but it would be false
Black Panther is objectively the most important movie of 2018.
oh, so you don’t actually pay attention to movies. Just the blockbusters.I Am Not A Witch. 24 Frames. Shoplifters. BlacKkKlansman. All much more important than anything Black Panther could put out. There are many others as well.A Quiet Place was arguably more important than Black Panther in that it gave not only a starring role, but the crux of a movie, to a deaf person and gave us a view of their world.I feel bad for you that you’re naive enough to think that just because you wrapped some black people in color and set them in Africa that it makes the movie important. Black Panther was fun… on a smaller scale of a black superhero it had importance. But in the big picture it wasn’t all that important.
Fuck off.
This is a column explicitly about superhero movies. The question is not “what is the most important movie of the year?” The question is “what is the most important superhero movie of the year?”
you’re getting dismissed because you’re dumb. The statement was “Black Panther is objectively the most important movie of 2018.”The statement is grossly false. You can go move goalposts somewhere else kiddo.
I forgot you were replying to another comment; I thought you were responding to the author.
the big picture is that it was a “big picture”
So were Warcraft and Suicide Squad. Doesn’t make them important.Learn what words mean if you’re going to use them.
Don’t worry, I’ll use little words. Black Panther is more important because it is the first example of a “big picture,” meaning, a big budget blockbuster, that featured a non-white cast and crew(with minor exceptions). It was immensely successful both because of the film itself, and because of its diversity. That’s why it is objectively more important than any of the other movies you listed above. I hope I was clear. Now go be a dick somewhere else.
We’re discussing the most important comic book superhero movie of 2018 and BP’s relevance to the African-American community is valid part of the discussion. That’s not to say it was the most important movie to that community. Just to stay with common cast and crew Creed II might be more important.
I retract my comment. I see where the person you were replying to said it was straight up the most important movie of 2018, no qualifiers.
Fair, I suppose
…just how in the prior year he picked Wonder Woman as the most important although I think we can all agree Logan was clearly the better movie.
I’d say if there’s ever a column like this that looks at the history of animated features – which I’d be hella into, by the way – ‘Spider-Verse’ would have 2018 in the bag, no question.
Is it important because it brought back 2002 Spider-man’s CGI team to do the black panther vs black panther fight?Oy vey that looked terrible.
Spiderverse looks cool, very cool, but I wouldn’t say I came out of the movie thinking about any thing other than that it would have been nice to explore more of the characters that were just asking to be explored.
If they play their cards right, Spiderverse could be the Iron-Man of animated superhero movies. The expanded universe and sequel opportunities are virtually limitless. I really hope there’s a stand alone Spider-Gwen movie for me to take my kids (especially my daughter) to in a couple years.
I kind of agree, but the big draw of the spiderverse was the creative visual look of it, and that was plot driven. I’d be interested in seeing the team do more stories but I don’t know if there’s any more in that particular well.
It’s tricky because the column is ostensibly about the “most important” superhero movie of each year, but 2018 was last year and there hasn’t been time for that year’s movies to have any kind of lasting influence yet.
Of the three big ones, I’d say BP had the most immediate impact and I think that’s what he’s going for.
It’s not based on quality, it’s based on importance. I’d argue that Spidey-verse would, at most, be in 3rd on that list.
Is it supposed to be the best or most important/influential movie?
This is my ultimate problem with Black Panther. Is it a hugely influential and important cultural event of a movie? Hell yes. But is it really that good of a movie? I fully admit there are a lot of cultural aspects my suburban white ass can’t fully appreciate in this movie but I feel like it get’s a bit of a pass on obvious CGI and dependence on the limitless uses for vibranium.
When Breihan was doing his A History Of Violence series, he almost had a three-way tie in 1981 between Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Escape From New York and The Road Warrior. (Raiders won out.) 2018 seems to have something similar happening with superhero movies. As the years progress, I wonder if people will look back on 2018 with that same sort of debate between the cultural significance of Black Panther, the sheer scale of Infinity War and the absolutely entertaining Into The Spider-Verse.
Doubtful. I think all of you are wildly overstating how important that movie was. At the end of the day, there’s still a lot of people who don’t really care about animation (myself included). I didn’t watch it, and I don’t know a single person who did. Meanwhile I don’t know a single person who DIDN’T watch Black Panther.It’s entirely possible that SV is objectively (if there is such a thing) better movie than Black Panther, but there’s no way it’s as culturally important.
There was also the article for 2008 of this series where Iron Man was basically 1B to The Dark Knight.
I mean, I agree with you that S-V is the more solid movie (and i loved BP too). But this column was never about the “best” superhero movie of a given year; it was about the “most influential”. I HOPE that Spider-Verse will become influential to a whole lot of creators. I saw a lot of artists going nuts over it and the possibilities it opened for animated films. But it tragically didn’t get as much attention, or box office money, as it deserved. (Mainly because I’m saying it deserved to do as well as the live-action movies, and it just didn’t; a lot of people stayed away because “animation is for kids”.) Whereas, as the article makes clear, Black Panther just vaulted into a whole other realm of influence on pop culture. It entered the real world and the culture in a way that was transcendant, and extremely important to a lot of people. (You can also argue that Infinity War did this, given how the concept behind the Thanos Snap has become so well known and referenced in the oddest places. But I think the argument that Black Panther was more widely emotionally important and influential to the zeitgeist is a solid argument to make.)
One amazing thing about this column was watching us go from 1989, in which the runner-up to Burton’s Batman is Dolph Lundgren’s unwatchable Punisher movie and there was no real #3, to 2018, in which there are half a dozen different movies that would have made a 1989 comic book fan’s head explode.I think Black Panther vs. Spider-Verse is a close call. But then how can you even conceive of Infinity War being something like the third best comic book movie of the year? And then Aquaman is the #6 movie on this list, and it’s a million times better than an Aquaman movie has any right to be.Interesting times.
BP is probably my favorite MCU movie from the year, but I had the most fun at Spider-Verse.That said, the apex superhero moment of 2018 came from Patrick Wilson yelling “CALL ME OCEAN MASTER” and no one can convince me otherwise.
Patrick Wilson was really doing his damnedest to still seem threatening when, due to the underwater physics, he basically has to shimmy around menacingly.
I would happily mark Spider-Verse as the best ever film made from a comic book.
“T’Challa has to admit that those objectives are right”No he doesn’t, Killmonger wanted to spark coups and overthrow multiple world governments (which he’d then probably have a not-small hand in rebuilding). Those are his objectives. The thing T’Challa learns is that Wakanda cannot stay separated from the world as their isolationist policies are what led Killmonger to come to be.
I think what he means is that Killmonger wants to end Wakanda’s isolationism and “help” the rest of the world, or more specifically the African diaspora.T’Challa eventually agrees that it’s time for Wakanda’s to reveal itself to the world, but through humanitarian aid and not by armed conquest.I think they are both interested in ending the isolation because of the suffering it has caused, like what Killmonger experienced.
T’Challa eventually agrees that it’s time for Wakanda’s to reveal itself to the world, but through humanitarian aid and not by armed conquest.Right, but like, that was Nakia’s idea at the beginning of the movie, before Killmonger ever showed up.
Actually, it was T’Chaka’s idea in Civil War. The most egregious sin committed by Black Panther is completely ignoring the speech T’Chaka is giving in Vienna when he’s killed…the speech in which he was outlining his intentions to bring Wakanda into the world.
I’m not sure that’s exactly what he was doing in Civil War, it was more a measured reaction to what happened in Ultron with some escalation due to his diplomats being killed by Crossbones.
While I liked Black Panther and Infinity, I have to say that months after seeing Spider Verse it still sticks with me. The origin story was very good, though I’m not sure it did the awkward teen stuff better than the first Raimi or Homecoming, which were also well done. But the way Spider Verse broke apart and then came back together again was just fantastic. I am simply astonished to his day that they managed to make it work so well despite being an absolutely ludicrous idea.
Spider Verse was one of my favorite movies of 2018 and I saw a lot of movies last year. It’s use of animation is spectacular (the final fight is just so great). Plus the whole notion of anyone being able to wear the mask is just beautiful. Add in a Stan Lee cameo that packs more of a punch with him being gone and you have a great movie.
I need to rewatch Spiderverse because while I definitely enjoyed it I didn’t quite get the hype.
I really enjoyed BP, but I saw it late… to the point where I had read a lot of coverage about it, and how good it was, and how amazing Killmonger was as a villain. Basically I got really hyped up for it.I left the movie enjoying it a lot – it’s definitely in the upper half of of the MCU movies for me. But the thing that really sticks out to me is the lauding of Killmonger as a great villain.He’s not, in my opinion. His “complicated” motives completely fall apart once he gets a hint of power. His answer to the oppression of black people all over the world is to arm them to the teeth with superior weaponry and enslave/kill all the white people. There’s no nuance to it, no subtlety, no real intelligence or thought.He is/was billed as the best villain in the MCU, which honestly until Thanos was a pretty low bar… but I thought that Killmonger was the least compelling part of BP by far. The fact that some people apparently have issues calling him a full villain is also interesting, given that his primary motivation is to take power and commit genocide. Just because he happens to be black and the genocide he wants to commit is against white people doesn’t make it any less of a villainous act. Genocide is always bad.
That’s what makes him so tragic. He’s becoming what he hates.
I don’t have time right now to address everything about BP I would like to say (other than I now REALLY want to watch it again), but would like to add the following two comments:1. Infinity War was a better film overall. Though you could argue that’s because it benefits from all the hard work and build-up that’s gone before it.2. Ant-Man and the Wasp was… not all that good. I’m a big fan of Ant-Man 1, but number two just seemed to have no real purpose or direction. It just hit many of the same beats as the first one, but nowhere near as well, and was just a much more bloated and unwieldy movie. It actually reminded me of Guardians 2 in a lot of ways, in that the people behind it just seemed to have gone “how about it’s just like the first one, but broader and dumber???”
Ant-Man/Wasp was the first Marvel movie I didn’t buy the DVD or Blu-Ray for.
Same here. I think it’s the worst MCU movie. The story / plot was an absolute mess. The only thing that save it from being terrible was good acting and some good lines.
Ant-Man and Wasp exists solely for the end credits scene to explain why he wasn’t destroyed by the snap
I forgot who specifically said it, but either Feige or the director said that Lang was spared because he was one of the lucky 50% not because he was in the quantum realm.
It’s interesting – in my mind, it exists solely to introduce Hannah John-Kamen to the MCU, presumably to have her later headline every Marvel movie that Tessa Thompson doesn’t.
Agree, i was very excited to see Ant-Man & Wasp but left feeling underwhelmed, although the chase at the end was quite fun. I think it was just too much “now everyone can shrink” and not enough focus on Rudd. Or maybe just not really having much of a villain, although Goggins is always welcome & i hope he returns in a future movie with some more advanced tech weapons or somesuch.
T.I. as earnest security technician cracks me up.
The middle of IW is eminently skippable. I usually FF from Cap’s appearance to Nidavellir/Wakanda on rewatch
+1 on both accounts. I felt like I was the only one who watched both AM&TW and Guardians 2 and came away thinking they were… fine, if underwhelming?
I maintain that Black Panther is better than Infinity War (which is still only half a movie, with an ending that doesn’t matter) but I completely agree about Ant-Man and the Wasp.
I didn’t know the 2nd Ant-Man had this many detractors. I actually thought the opposite that it was a reverse of Guardians were the 2nd one was more fun.
i really liked Black Panther, but I had two issues with it.1. I get the whole “We want a standalone movie” but not having a cameo from Chris Evans so we could make a joke about how both Johnny Storms were in the same MCU movie seemed like a missed joke. you can be above it, but admit it: part of you wanted to see it.2. The end fight CGI was bad. it just was. I wish they had played to Ryan Coogler’s strengths and had the fight elsewhere (he can stage cool action sequences: he’d been doing it all movie!)
The CG of the last fight was bad, and probably should’ve been more practical like the waterfall fight, but I did appreciate the cheek of having the fight take place in a literal Underground Railroad.
Ha! Good catch.
Nice catch!
At least we’ve gotten a movie with two Sherlocks out of the deal.
And both Watsons are in the MCU as well.
And Yon-Rogg & Everett Ross are both alive (unless they dusted), so we could still get a movie with two Watsons.
The MCU’s also got two Watsons now.And two Hannibals…
Three Watsons. John C. Reilly. And a fourth directed an episode of Luke Cage.
Oh shit!This franchise is ridiculous.
The world at large does not acknowledge the existence of Holmes and Watson.
Coogler directed Creed, right? T’Challa and Erik should have thrown a few haymakers at each other.
Exactly. :)Part of my point is that he knew how to use some good storytelling with his fight scenes, including that waterfall. But as soon as they were CGI Panthers who glowed the specific color we needed them to glow so we could tell who was who, I didn’t feel like we were watching one of the better Marvel fights.
Noooo we’re all caught up now! I do look forward to your yearly column now, but I’ll miss reading about the best superhero movie of the year every other week on Fridays. With that said, the feature article you mentioned about the highest grossing movie of the year sounds fascinating, so I’m glad we’ll get to see more of your work.
I was excited to see Black Panther, due to all the praise it was receiving. I was expecting something better, but it’s really just the same Grade B Marvel movie wearing a different outfit. None of the Marvel films are great films, including Black Panther and Infinity War.
Daniel Kaluuya’s W’Kabi, betraying his country and his wife for reasons that are never fully exploredW’Kabi wanted Klaue caught. T’Chaka couldn’t catch Klaue. T’Challa couldn’t catch Klaue. Killmonger killed Klaue and, by Wakanda law, had a rightful claim to the throne.
But T’Challa did catch Klaue, until Killmonger broke him out of prison. And Killmonger was working with Klaue. T’Challa knew all this, it should have been more relevant.
Good point. I suppose W’Kabi was just frustrated and didn’t realize all of what was going on. That’s why when he saw Klaue was dead, he decided to follow the leader he thought was the most effective.
But I can’t think of a good reason for T’Challa to not explain it. Killmonger’s whole “I’m great because I killed Klaue” plan completely falls apart if T’Challa mentions any of Killmonger’s crimes, which he has no reason not to do.
This was the worst plothole in the film to me. I really dislike when there are consequences when someone just decides not to make an obvious, relevant explanation. “I didn’t bring back Klaue because that man kidnapped him.” Like that’s all it should’ve taken. Still love the film though.
Killmonger is making a play based on the weakness of current leadership. Saying “I didn’t achieve my goals because Killmonger outplayed me” would be… a bad movie politically.
Killmonger was wearing the tribal mask when he kidnapped Klaue; would T’Challa have even recognized him?
Don’t they have a scene where they all sit around and explicitly say “hey, that guy who abducted Klaue was Killmonger” when they’re back in Wakanda?
I don’t 100% recall. Ross might’ve said something, but nobody except for T’Challa ever cared what Ross had to say until well after T’Challa’s revival, & by then W’Kabi was too drunk on the dark side to listen to reason until his own rhino refused to fight for him.
Isn’t he wearing the exact same body armor? Plus T’Challa saw the signet ring when Killmonger had the mask on, and he knows there’s only one other one of those.
Good point.
Yep. There’s a LOT of good character-writing in Black Panther, but the entire thing with W’Kabi is a classic example of a plot contrivance that only exists because two characters inexplicably refuse to actually talk to each other like normal people would in that situation.
I can’t think of one either, and it is an annoying part of the movie. I didn’t say W’Kabi had a good reason to side with Killmonger, just a reason.
Toast to Thor’s arc in Infinity War. All due respect to Chris Hemsworth, who played charmingly dim straight man in Ragnarok and then turned himself into a tragic hero for the next film.
Especially for the scene with him and Rocket, where he starts defiant—”You know, I’m 1500 years old. I’ve killed twice as many enemies as that. And every one of them would have rather killed me than not succeeded. I’m only alive because fate wants me alive. Thanos is just the latest of a long line of bastards, and he’ll be the latest to feel my vengeance – fate wills it so”—and ends it almost despondent.Please tell me I wasn’t the only one who got goosebumps when he shows up as the cavalry in Wakanda.
more than goosebumps: saw it on opening weekend, and the entire cinema went nuts at that scene.
My sister gets visibly rowdy whenever Hemsworth appears onscreen in ANY movie, MCU or not, and she quite visibly lost her shit at that scene. That gorgeous shot where he’s flying in wielding Stormbreaker and bristling with lightning is fucking amazing. Straight out of a comic.
The only thing his arrival at Wakanda was missing was The Immigrant Song
I know there are people that don’t like that it was used twice in Ragnarok but I also would have loved a third time in Infinity War.
It’s as much his theme as AC/DC’s ‘Shoot To Thrill’ is Tony Stark’s.
They need to work No Quarter into the Thor/Zeppelin crossover thing at some point.
Finally, somebody who suggests another song about Norse mythology, instead of saying they should use Black Dog or Communication Breakdown or something.
I’m watching it for like the fourth or fifth time on Netflix right now and I sang it to myself when he came down.
It would have been literal perfection if they did that!
buddy i screamed out loud it was the best and i fucking hate thor!
Considering how thoroughly Ragnarok absolutely trashed the characterization of every character to appear in it, most heinously by dropping Thor’s IQ fully 30 points below what it is in literally any other MCU movie, it’s extremely impressive how the Russos managed to restore a level of intelligence more in line with his other appearances while still retaining the attitude he gained in Ragnarok.Civil War is what it is because the Russos had to do so much cleaning up after the disaster that is Age of Ultron, and Civil War is still a pretty damn good movie. These guys can pull some pretty disparate threads together with a lot of success.
That, Banner’s reaction to it, and (earlier) T’Challa’s “dust and blood” — whoooooooooo…….oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Might’ve been my favorite moment in the movie.
Thor’s entrance into Wakanda was indeed an incredible show stopping moment. Thor has about 2-3 amazing scenes and make no mistake this was by far the best version of the character after the overly comedic tone of Thor Ragnarok.
That speech, and its movement from bravado to a kind of baffled, rueful pride, shows just what a terrific actor Hemsworth can be.
It also connects so well to how his arc in Thor 3 ended.
Agreed. That moment was amazing. Hemsworth’s stretch from Ragnarok to Endgame was so much fun that I almost ignored all of the warnings and went to see MIB international.
Someone recently starred an old comment I made on an article about Black Panther from just before its release, about how the usual alt-right losers were trying to tank its Rotten Tomatoes score. Which gave me a good chuckle, especially when I was reminded how one of the aforementioned alt-right losers had replied to me about how when this movies fails blah blah blah (I don’t remember what his point even was, and also who cares). How’d that work out, little-n nazis?
not everyone who doesn’t think Black Panther is that good of a movie is a “Nazi”Grow the fuck up
They’re literally only talking about alt-right people who trashed the movie before it even came out, not people who actually saw it and didn’t like it
ACTUALLY, they literally labeled anyone who didn’t think the movie would be that good as Nazi or Alt-Right… they’re not talking about Alt-Right or Nazi. They’re talking about their inability to accept that people with differing opinions may just have differing opinions, and aren’t necessarily Alt-Right or Nazi. Not every movie looks good to everyone. You do know this, right?
That is not even remotely what I said, as evidenced by the fact that I didn’t say it.
Learn how to fucking read.
Some people don’t think movies look good. You literally labeled everyone who didn’t think Black Panther would be good as Alt Right or Nazi. You stupid, childish, idiotic fuck.Again, grow the fuck up.
Nah. I said people who were attempting to manipulate the film’s score without having seen it, based solely on the fact that it had a primarily black cast and that hurt their little nazi fee-fees, and who admitted as much in their dumb little message boards, were alt-right losers.If this describes you, you’re an alt-right loser. If it doesn’t, you’re not, but you have a problem with both projection and reading comprehension. Okay, this conversation is boring and you seem really disturbed, so I’m done. I’m sure it’s very, very important to you to have the last word, so help yourself, and please remember to take your meds.
especially when I was reminded how one of the aforementioned alt-right losers had replied to me about how when this movies fails blah blah blah Did said person tell you they were Alt Right? Did said person state that they were downrating the movie in advance on RT? No, they didn’t… to either one. But you still assumed they were Alt Right because they didn’t think the movie would be any good.So yeah, you fucking lying sack of shit, that IS what you said.Okay, this conversation is boringI’m sure it is when you blatantly lie about the things you said. The person who lies and considers anyone who doesn’t think like them as Nazis is the disturbed one.
Potatodick is a troll.
Clearly. He was greyed and I was just going to ignore him, but some twit starred his first comment. He’s also very, very, very upset that he thinks I called him a nazi, which says more about him than it does about me.
You literally labeled everyone who didn’t think Black Panther would be good as Alt Right or Nazi You need a borrow a few bucks and buy a good cheap dictionary so you can learn what the word “literally” means.
At no point did Sarah say that.
he wasn’t talking about those other people, he was talking about specific people.
The ones that were review-bombing it before it released were, though.Learn to fucking read 🙂
After so many unsuccessful attempts (Captain Marvel seems to be doing okay as we speak), you’d think they’d hang that up.
My issue with the Deadpool movies: It mocks virtually every superhero convention except for the damsel in distress and fridging love interest. I enjoyed both, but it feels odd to have Vanessa getting kidnapped in 1 and then killed at the start of 2 without commenting on the tropes being used.
Did they comment on it in the PG-13 version with the Fred Savage framing elements?
If they didn’t, they should’ve. It would have been the perfect opportunity.
Yes they do, and it’s glorious. Seriously, I enjoyed Once Upon a Deadpool more than Deadpool 2.
And then in the ending they just casually undid said “fridging” to mock how silly the entire enterprise is.
I was also bummed by that but I felt better about it when it was undone by the end. I feel like that took the piss out of it a bit and I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that it was knowingly so.
The credits sequence actually DOES shit on the writers for the fridging. I don’t think that excuses them for doing it, and it kinda seems like they were unsatisfied BY doing it, since they explicitly close off the plot thread in the end credits.
“That’s it! We’re all caught up now!”
I’m so sad. This has been a ton of fun. Looking forward to the next series – is it going to be year-by-year also, or (given the broader scope) more of an era-by-era thing?
Tom this column has been a great read and I’m really excited that we’re getting a new one in the weeks to come. Thanks for doing these, great job!
Just watched Aquaman the other day and it was absolute nonsense. Absolute entertaining nonsense.
Amber Heard. Would hug.
then she’d falsely claim you raped her to make herself more famous…
kill yourself
Easy, Biden
I loved this take and everything about Black Panther, but I think the best part of this is my anticipation of your new column.
“The San Francisco car chase is an all-timer”Whoa whoa whoa. It’s a lot of fun, sure, but it is not even the best miniature car chase through the streets of San Francisco.
Oh my god, that’s amazing. Bonus: It’s from the Dirty Harry movie The Dead Pool, which gives an extra (indirect) superhero connection.
Yup! A movie that early on has a young Jim Carrey cosplaying Axl Rose and then keeps upping the ante. Extremely fun watch and that chase scene is just bonkers, it’s both a parody of car chases and a fantastic chase in its own right.
“But two weeks from now, I’m launching a new column, in which I’ll go through the highest-grossing movie of every year, tracing the evolution of blockbuster-level film and watching popular tastes”YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Looks like we’ll get a piece on Infinity War this way at least!
Ha ha, you might as well just say the movie for 2019 is Avengers: Endgame, since that’s basically the most significant one by default, no matter how it actually turns out.
Who knows, maybe the superhero/body-swap mashup of Shazam will prove to be more influential?
I hear you, but at this point last year, I did not expect Spider-Verse to turn out to be as transcendant as it was; or for Aquaman to become THAT popular. (I agree with Tom’s choice of BP here, but if he had chosen S-V, that would have made sense too.)
As much as Spider-verse made waves I’m not sure how important it was. To me the only other possible choice for 2018 is IW.
I mean, I guess there’s a nonzero chance that Shazam or Joker or New Mutants proves more important, but just because something is mathematically possible doesn’t mean I would bet on it.
Despite it only being good not great I could see Tom going with the 1st female lead MCU movie. Endgame certainly is the pre-season favorite. As others have pointed out, there’s still room to be surprised.
I am one of those who was not a fan of Michael B. Jordan’s stilted delivery in Black Panther. I was so excited because there was a lot of hype, and he honestly felt like he was in a different movie. I didn’t feel any charisma from him except very occasionally. Obviously I could tell that the *writing* was great, I just didn’t think Mike was bringing it like he usually does.Also Killmonger threw away any claims to being a hero or “right” when he burned the Wakandan magical plant supply. He showed that he didn’t care about the legacy or culture of his own/new people, and that all of his goals were selfish. He didn’t want to make the world a *better* place; he just wanted to burn it all down.
I’m right there with you. I’ve liked Jordan’s performance in just about everything I’ve seen him but BP. I don’t know what he was going for but his delivery came across as “first time actor in a high school play.” I just didn’t get it. I’m also not that high on the film altogether. I under stand and appreciate its cultural significance but it falls into the middle of the pack as far as MCU movies go, for me. The pacing drags, the action is middling and the CGI is downright bad at times. Also, for the issues and themes it tries to engage with, it never sufficiently grapples with the reality that Wakanda is a rather backwards monarchy that uses ritual combat as a replacement for democracy. For such a culturally advanced society a “whoever is the best fighter should be leader” system of government just seems bizarre.
If/when the ritual combat is for the mantle of Black Panther it makes some sense. Control of the country is a different story.
I have friends and family who think BP was racist becuse Killmonger wanted to kill white people, and Wakanda had closed itself off from the world and didn’t help other black people. I reminded than that the STAR who is BLACK was willing to sacrifice everything to stop him and then realized they’d not done enough and set out to change their ways. They hated BP and found it racist becuse of where it started, ignoring where it ended. I think that speaks to their prejudices more than anyone else’s.
Killmonger is a great example of how real world race can blind audiences. At the end of the day he’s nothing but a bigoted sociopath fulfilling a violent ideology— ultimately not much different than Ronan the Accuser. Seeing so many people romanticize him is weird.Similarly, I’m at a loss as to how or why “don’t scare me like that, colonizer” is some amazing (or even particularly interesting) line, either in construction or in context. But again, ideology can blind people.
Look I know it’s more appropriate to be snarky and ridiculous on this site, but I just want to say how much I’ve really enjoyed this series. For real. All of it. Really looking forward to your next series.
[Feel free to enter requisite poop joke or lame pun – or both – in the replies to keep this thread more on topic.]
I have never seen Black Panther, so when I read the name “Killmonger”, it sounded to me like the name of a character in a Rankin-Bass holiday special.
“He’s Mister Death-Bringer,He’s Mister Fun!He’s Mister Life-Stealer,His body count is 101!”
“They call me Kill-monger,‘Cause whatever I touchExplodes with blood in my clutch.I’m too much.”
“T’Challa is not a masked underdog fighting to balance superpowered exploits with a normal life.”That doesn’t distinguish it from most modern non-Spiderman superhero movies. Iron Man and Captain America don’t have much interest in maintaining secret civilian identities either.Black Panther’s ‘secret kingdom’ setting is fairly similar to Wonder Woman, Thor… probably Aquaman but I haven’t seen that. Comics are full of Atlantis / Savage Land / Nandar Parbat / Asgard / Paradise Island / Wakanda type places. Mostly they’re weirdly violent utopian monarchies that get casually destroyed and rebuilt in the comics.
BP was a decent enough movie, but the entire time I watching it, the sound track to The Lion King kept popping up in my head.
Black Panther has some problems – the CGI is shockingly bad (as pretty much everyone acknowledges), the third act is pretty much a generic Everyone Punches Each Other For A While And Then It Ends affair and I’m always kind of annoyed at how Daniel Kaluuya and Danai Gurira’s marriage feels like a last-minute scribbled-in addition to the script to explain why Kaluuya’s character surrenders at the end of the movie.But it still works really, really well. I remember being stunned when they let Killmonger’s last words be, “Just bury me in the ocean with my ancestors that jumped from the ships ‘cuz they knew death was better than bondage.” Apparently Coogler wrote that line in the first draft fully expecting it to be cut, and then Kevin Feige told him not just to keep it but to make the entire movie about that line, which goes a long way toward demonstrating why Feige is so good at this.
I kinda feel like there’s a difference between being kidnapping slaves & imprisoning mass-murderers, & that, as right as Killmonger is about why those ancestors jumped off the ships, it really doesn’t apply to his specific circumstances.
That line bothered me. For his last line to be about his mother’s side of the family, when she hasn’t appeared, was briefly mentioned only once, and it wasn’t even established she was black felt like a swerve for Killmonger.
That line didn’t make any sense. Killmonger’s Wakandan ancestors didn’t care about the slaves & did nothing to stop it. Killmonger African slave ancestors obviously stayed on the boat, or else they would have died and Killmonger wouldn’t have been born.Killmonger came off as an ignorant Pan-African racist nut. He might lump all Africans into one bucket, but the Africans themselves certainly don’t (especially Wakandans, who deliberately kept themselves separate from their neighbors). Namibians and Sudanese have about as much in common as Spanish and Finnish. Lumping the respective people into two groups as “black” and “white” respectively only makes sense in the US context.Vulture was a much better villain than Killmonger.
“Julie Andrews voices a giant sea monster! It’s great! I was high for this, and that was the right way to be.”
When my friends asked what I thought of Aquaman, my response was that while I’ve never done drugs and couldn’t confirm it, high would likely be the best way to watch a movie in which a de-aged Willem Dafoe trains Khal Drogo in staff-fighting so he can battle nightmare-fueled fish monsters, reconnect with his shell-armor adorned mother, and overthrow his brother who rides into battle on a shark. Seriously, this movie is like watching a Rush album and made me want to do drugs. Don’t let D.A.R.E. know it exists.
One thing that I think this (otherwise very good) article – and many of the comments – hasn’t addressed is that this is arguably the first major piece of Afrofuturist entertainment to be released in a popular medium.
That’s a big piece of the reason the film is so celebrated. The idea and imagery of an uncolonized Africa in important and powerful to a lot of folks.
Well, the first in awhile, maybe. But George Clinton was doing it in the 1970s, and I’m sure there are prior examples.
Well, that’s a good point that I had not considered. At least the first major film to feature the concept?
But I also wondered how much of the sci-fi elements of the Parliament-Funkadelic complex (or, more recently, Janelle Monae) actually filtered out in a cohesive way to the greater public consciousness?
yay so glad you found a way to keep the spirit of the column going in another series. av club used to have like 10 of these i’d follow regularly and this is now basically the last one 🙁
I was thinking today about A.V. Club doing a “run the series” treatment on 007, but, considering there’s, what, 25+ now, that a bi-weekly column covering each one would be better.
would just love to see more long-form, themed, regular columns in general
Way ahead of youhttp://tolerabilityindex.freeforums.net/thread/5152/prole-hole-james-bond
From its shaky CGI to its exceptionally shitty politics…
“None of this sits well with Killmonger. He’s not operating out of greed, or out of a longing for chaos. He has political objectives.”“Killmonger is so sympathetic that Coogler has to show him choking old ladies and murdering his own girlfriend so that we, the audience, don’t get the idea that he’s really the hero.”————“The sun will never set on the Wakandan empire” -Killmonger
It’s always surprising to me how little people talk about Killmonger’s reference to trying to create a colonial system.
Didn’t killmonger want to commit genocide and enslave people? I’d say it’s a stretch to say he and T’Challa have a similar goal at the end, unless you mean specifically “using technology outside of Wakanda”. In fairness, it’s been a while so I could be remembering wrong.
BP or IW are probably the most significant comic book films of the year. (I don’t think enough can be said about the totally unprecedented tight-rope walk Infinity War had to do, being the infinitely-hyped culmination of 20 previous blockbusters that have dominated theaters for a decade, and how elegantly the Russos managed it.)Spiderverse may be the best of the year. It’s a pretty flawless movie, whereas the others (especially BP) got a little clunky at times.
But, for me, Teen Titans Go To The Movies! is hands down my favorite comic book film of 2018. I must have watched that movie 10 times. My partner and I had never seen the show before and just laughed our asses off through the whole thing, astonished at how good and hilarious it was. The next morning we both woke up, looked at each other, and said “let’s watch it again.” We still sing all the songs. If you haven’t seen it I can’t recommend it enough.
YOU DOWN WITH TEEN TITANS? YES INDEED
This won’t be popular, but here’s how 2018’s offerings ranked for me:1. Into the Spider-Verse (A). Takes full advantage of the medium of animation, with vibrant style and energy and thrilling fight scenes. All characters are pitch perfect. And the story has stakes and surprisingly heavy moments. Bonus for the excellent soundtrack. Seriously, no notes.2. Black Panther (A-). I don’t love the parts where it evokes Star Wars or James Bond (be your own movie), the spotty CGI takes me out of some scenes, and the answer to everything is “because vibranium.” But Wakanda is brilliantly realized, Boseman as T’Challa is magnetic, the suporting cast shines, and Killmonger is handled masterfully.3. Infinity War (B). Joyous team combinations, and powers are used to great effect. Thanos impresses and was worth the wait. But I admit Captain America felt underused compared to the other characters. And except for Spiderman, most of the “deaths” didn’t have impact for me. They also nerfed Hulk in the dumbest way yet.4. Deadpool 2 (B). It’s slow to start, and even gets weirdly mushy, but it has a heftier story this time. The skydive sequence is an all-timer, and I marked out pretty hard for Juggernaut!5. The Incredibles 2 (B). Jack Jack seriously steals the show. The role reversal is interesting to explore and ElastiGirl gets some cool action scenes. But it comes at the detriment of Mr. Incredible, who feels sidelined for too long. (There’s not enough Dash either) and the movie kind of feels like a sitcom. It repeats all the same beats as the first film, like the characters didn’t learn anything. The villain was pretty meh too.6. Venom (C-). Hardy is entertaining. And it pulls off the Venom duality well (better than Spidey 3, at least). Even has a solid motorcycle chase. But Michelle Williams looks lost in this movie, the villain is completely lame, and I can’t shake the ickyness of how this exists as nothing but a Spiderman-less cash grab. 7. Aquaman (D+). As stupid as Venom, but with a less compelling central performance. Sorry, I just can’t get on board with meathead Aquaman. Paper thin character. Atlantis is the opposite of Wakanda- it’s poorly realized, with politics we care less about, and an undefined sense of culture or its people. What this movie has going for it is some cool costume designs (Black Manta!) and Nichole Kidman being great as usual. Honestly it would have been better if it just focused on her plot.8. Ant-Man & the Wasp (D). The only plot worse than Aquaman’s this year was this hot-potatoe whateverthefuck mess of a movie. People give this a pass for coming after Infinity War, but I wonder if they are even looking at it on its own merits. I loved, LOVED the first Ant-Man, but none of that charm returns. It’s painfully unfunny, and it lost its heist film flare. (Stealing something this time doesn’t have the clever mechanations of a heist film, so much as it has lazier plot conveniences that fall into place.) Walton Goggins is embarassing. Michelle Pfiefer is embarassing. The FBI is embarassing. Scott is more of an idiot this time, and takes a backseat. Ghost doesn’t work. The Quantum realm doesn’t work. Nothing about this movie works. Except Luis’ motormouth.
Great summary of the problems in Antman & Wasp. I’m surprised that it has been well received. To me, it’s the worst MCU movie by a significant margin.
I just couldn’t quite get fully into Deadpool 2 for some reason. Granted, I haven’t watched it since close to opening weekend so maybe it will have grown on me when I get around to watching it again but I’m guessing not.Not to say it was bad in any way, but I think it’s a function of, at its core, being the same movie as the first one. The first one was just so different than almost anything else at the time but it feels like 2 didn’t really move the needle any. It’s like the Austin Powers movies now that I think about it. The first one was an excellent spy parody, but 2 and, especially, 3 were just retreading the same path and telling the same jokes. If you’re going to make a sequel to a movie, move it in at least a somewhat different direction, don’t just make the same movie again
I’m looking forward to the new column, even if it means some titles will have to be revisited. But at least it will be in a different context — films seen more in the light of general tastes than a genre’s evolution.
Black Panther was a lot of fun. And it did have a nicely complex villain. But… no it really didn’t elevate these types of movies. Sorry but it simply didn’t.The villain was complex and the hero was complex. The villain wanted to do the right thing for the wrong reasons (Open up Wakanda… to lead it in conquest of others) and the hero wanted to do the wrong thing for the right reasons (Keep Wakanda closed to prevent it’s tech from spreading). That was a great setup for a movie that could have honestly been a movie even better than Winter Soldier.Problem is… beyond setting that up the movie didn’t do much with it. The complex characterization was simply there so that the movie could have a conflict. And about the time the armored rhinos appeared for the big battle scene, the movie sunk back to the “Above Average” norm for a MCU movie.It was a fine movie. It had the foundation for being an excellent movie. The problem is they didn’t exploit that foundation.
1. 2018 was the best year for superhero movies ever. I saw every film listed here (except Aquaman, sorry DC), and adored every single one. Just an absurd bounty of riches in 2018.2. Spider Verse was my favorite movie I saw this year, period. I saw it multiple times in the theater. I think the last movie I saw more than once before it was available at home was the Matrix in 1999. Fantastic movie.3. Mr. Breihan, thank you for the fantastic column! Looking forward to the next one!
But two weeks from now, I’m launching a new column, in which I’ll go through the highest-grossing movie of every year, tracing the evolution of blockbuster-level film and watching popular tastes—and Hollywood’s ideas about how to serve those popular tastes—change from decade to decade. For no particular reason, we’re kicking things off with 1960, which means the first entry will be on Stanley Kubrick’s gladiator-rebellion epic Spartacus.Since the new column will be all about the box-office, I think 1965 would have been a better starting point. That year saw The Sound of Music become the all-time box-office champ, wresting the title away from Gone with the Wind.Though I admit, I am curious to know what the box-office champs were in the early 60’s. I have little idea about which movies were huge prior to the dawn of the blockbuster in 1975 (Jaws). Except of course for the obvious ones, like Gone With the Wind, Sound of Music, The Godfather and The Exorcist. I was a bit surprised that Spartacus was the champ for 1960. Mainly because I wasn’t sure what year it came out. If I had to hazard a guess for 1960, I would have said Psycho.
That’s a really good point about the side characters in BP. While the final fight/act was kind of a drag in it but I’ve never really thought about how well thought out all the characters were in the first hour and a half or so. Like, I can’t recall all their names but if you’d show me a pic of the BP actors I could explain their personalities and POVs, which is a huge achievement. Outside of the Captain America movies I couldn’t tell you anything about the side characters’ POVs (let alone names) in any of the Phase 1 MCU films.
Killing Klaue was a mistake.
Such a waste of an awesome Serkis.
Teen Titans go to the movies was way better than it should have been. The whole movie is just solid silliness
“He’s not operating out of greed, or out of a longing for chaos”Actually, he’s operating out of a childish need for revenge against Wakanda for taking his father from him, and for keeping him out. He’s JUSTIFYING his actions based on Wakanda’s non-interventionist policies which his father was working to subvert, and which were debatably wrong-headed. But the REASON he’s doing it is not at all noble or just. He’s just an angry little boy trying to get revenge.Which is fine. That’s really all Magento is, too. But it gets worrisome when people suggest that Killmonger is a sympathetic villain. His ostensible GOALS are (arguably) sympathetic, but you don’t need to see him kill his girlfriend to understand that he’s a bad guy. You just need to know his backstory, which the film does a fine job of showing us.
I don’t think Jordan is a particularly skilled actor; I like that reading of how his acting style fits Killmonger, but if you don’t subscribe to that view, his acting is noticeably clunkier than anyone else in the cast (though decidedly less hammy than the Master of Pork, Forrest Whittaker). He’s good in this for the same reason he’s good in Fruitvale Station: the films themselves are so good they elevate him (I think he gives a better performance in Creed than he does in Black Panther). He is charismatic as FUCK though, and achingly beautiful, and that combination can take you a long way in Hollywood.
I’ll always resent (and categorically deny) the underlying implication that Black Panther is “above” the rest of the MCU because it’s “more than a superhero film”. Many of the Marvel films have wrapped capes and masks around real-world issues as meaty and sober as the ones dealt with in Black Panther, but they succeed the way that Black Panther succeeds: not DESPITE being a superhero film, but by BEING a GREAT superhero film. The whole reason that Stan Lee (AND Jack Kirby, don’t @ me, Jesus Christ) set the Marvel Universe in New York City was so that their superheroes could deal with real life problems in addition to mad scientists and alien hordes. From Iron Man on, the MCU has tackled real-life concerns and circumstances, and nearly always done them justice. Singling out Black Panther for special praise in this regard smacks of patronizing to me, though I’ll admit that the issues of African colonization and oppression are nearly completely new territory for a superhero film, and Black Panther is certainly unique in this regard. But all that would mean nothing if it didn’t succeed at what it was created to be: an immensely entertaining action movie with super powers. which is a legitimate artistic genre, however silly some may find it.
I’d agree that Black Panther was the most important movie CULTURALLY of 2018 (superhero or otherwise), and it deserves to be discussed in depth here, but as a sheer achievement, nothing was (or, I suspect, will be) more impressive than Infinity War, the nearly flawless culmination of ten years of good-to-great film-making, which surpassed the highest bar imaginable and made it look easy. I am confident that I’ll find Endgame deeply satisfying (if terribly tragic), but it will not astound me as an achievement in its own right, as I’ve already seen the Russos pull off the impossible.
Tom, I enjoyed following this column every bit as much as “A History of Violence”, so thank you for that! And I’ve been wondering what you might do next — I love the idea of looking at the highest-grossing pics of each year, no matter what film that turns out to have been. Can’t wait for the new series!
I just hope that in Endgame, they have Thanos go loopy trying to deal with what he’s done and hallucinate (or IS it a hallucination?) an anthropomorphic avatar of death that he then falls in love with, so he tries to wipe out the other 50% of life as a gift to her.
THIS IS THE THANOS WE DESERVE.
Stop with this “Complex villain” shit. Killmonger is Whiplash. And we all know everyone’s feelings on Whiplash. They are the exact same character, except one is an old white Russian and one is a young black dude. Here, let’s break it down:Villain’s and hero’s fathers were closeBoth villain’s fathers were betrayed by the hero’s fatherBoth on a lifelong, very complicated mission to avenge fatherBoth have similar skillsets to the hero (Whiplash is a genius inventor, Killmonger is a hand-to-hand fighter, or edged weapon specialist, despite being in the modern American military…)Both infiltrate and use the hero’s tech to try to overthrow/kill the heroBoth had lackluster final fights with the heroBoth died at the hands of the hero using the very tech they thought they were entitled toBoth have stupid accentsSo, if you like Killmonger, you like Whiplash. Unless your entire argument is Whiplash’s obsession with a bird.
I LOL’d on both had stupid accents.
I’ll go through the highest-grossing movie of every yearThis is a fantastic idea, and I for one can’t wait for your column on 1895’s smash hit film, Eight Seconds of Footage Featuring a Man Putting on a Hat.we’re kicking things off with 1960FINE, BREIHAN, JUST MURDER MY DREAMS.
Jesus christ on the cross….yes BP was a pretty good movie, but the amount of wanking that goes on for it just comes off as disingenuous.It’s not a new or nuanced take that BP is liked. It didn’t change “Movies” as we know them. It didn’t turn the world on its axis. Its a fucking superhero movie, act accordingly.
calm down
entatively and furtively looks back over both shouldersDidn’t think the movie was all that.
I think Loki—his first two movies—is the best MCU villain. He was more complex in Thor, but more menacing in The Avengers. Killmonger would be second. I think Guy Pearce did an underrated job in Iron Man 3, even though he wasn’t particularly complex. “Tony Stark was mean to me & Pepper doesn’t want me & won’t give me money” isn’t complexity. Maya Hansen was a fuller character.
I’d put Vulture as second, behind Loki.
You tryna tell me all that time Wakanda had tech and gadgets and shit and they just sat there and watched us be slaves. Yo fuck T’challa and his lineage. Past and Present. Im talkin down with Wakanda and anybody who fuck with it. Team Killmonger all day.
COWARDS.
Whoever thinks modern superhero movies have real intrinsic value, except for a very few, (Dark Knight, 2/3 of Ironman 1, Captain America Civil War), and writes THIS MUCH about them is a delayed adolescent idiot wit no sense of cultural value whatsoever.And that goes for that bastard franchise Star Wars as well.
kill yourself
For all it’s significance and impact and yes Black Panther achieved a lot of that. I still feel Infinity War made the greater impression. After the movie’s climax the whole movie community has been speculating all year round as to what comes next.The sheer anticipation for Endgame is unparalleled in this modern era – I’m almost certain it will be at least the 2nd biggest grossing movie of all time, and that’s all down to Infinity War. The movie itself was on the same grand filmaking scale as Return of the King. How it manage to juggle all the hero characters yet still devoting time to make Thanos a fully developed villain was an incredible achievement.As good as Black Panther was i just feel Infinity War was an even better film as well as a bigger achievement.
Fun thing about 2018 superhero movies, given how many of them we had:Only some of them were great/flawless: Black Panther, Infinity War and especially SpiderVerse (I would argue it’s AS IMPORTANT as Panther because of how it opens up the entire superhero origin to everyone – “Anyone can wear the mask” – through the use of Miles AND Gwen as co-equals of the Peter Parker legend. It is also IMHO the best damn screenplay in YEARS (why did it not even get nominated?!)).A lot of them were really good: Incredibles 2, Aquaman, Ant-Man and the Wasp, that are only overshadowed because of the more important movies in the great column.And even the ones that were messes were still enjoyable, acceptable pieces of fun that people won’t mind seeing on FX or TNT in another year: Venom, Titans, Deadpool 2 (I liked D2, but thought it got *too* self-indulgent for its own damn good. Plus it needed more Domino).Thing is: there is not a *dud* in the whole bunch.
I’d put “Ant-Man and Wasp” in the dud category. Storywise, it was an absolute mess.
Jason Momoa, a man who clearly enjoys his own sexy lunacy I wish my own lunacy was sexier…
One minor qualm, and I may be wrong, but wasn’t Wakanda in the end credit scene of Iron Man 2, where Fury hands Stark the evaluation Black Widow did of him, and there is a global map in the back with certain areas lit up?
The first time we see Wakanda in a Marvel movie—the physical location, not a blip on a map or a word spoken in hushed tones—it’s in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War
I completely misread that. My bad.
The person you are talking to is a violent evil troll. Look at this comment history. Be careful. He’s a sex offender with a record.
You can’t make an accusation like that without some corroboration.
It’s a line from Big Lebowski dork.
lol You are such an incel loser. Marvel comics expert huh? lol Such a fucking loser. Nothing more boring than a dork than can only talk about children’s movies.
I wish you would have named Hannah Beachler and Ruth E. Carter, whose achievements are central to the film’s power. You mention the production design and costumes but not the artisans responsible for them!
Its so amazing to see how from conception, Coogler and team were making sure every aspect of the film would be ground-breaking.
Don’t forget Stan Lee also cameos in the Teen Titans Go movie as well. I will miss him so much he had such a great sense of humor about his Stanressance.
Looking forward to your next column! Keep up the great work.
I really enjoyed your conversation on The Infinite Inning and it served as kind of a teaser for this but I still disagree with you.
I didn’t care for BP. I thought Killmonger’s exploration of imperialism and paternalism was interesting but his plan boiled down to 1) Arm Black people; 2) ?????; 3) Utopia. Beyond that, the plot was very generic and so overall the film felt replacement level Marvel to me.
Also didn’t like Infinity War very much. Thor and Rocket had some great scenes but they were about the only ones. The film didn’t give you a reason to care about the characters if you hadn’t seen their movies. Characters who didn’t have solo films (like Vision and Scarlet Witch) wanted you to care about their plots but didn’t have enough time to do so. New characters (Thanos’ minions) were just generic bad guys. Also, it made the really questionable decision of undoing most of the character changes in Thor by giving him a new eye and a new weapon. Having the bad guy win was pretty novel but that was about all the film had going for it.
Really enjoyed Spider-Verse and thought it was the best and most novel superhero film of the year. Hopefully we can get some spin-offs out of it.
I didn’t really like most of Infinity War. Nothing had any emotional weight to it. You know how in movies or TV, when a dream sequence starts, but seems normal at first? You don’t realize it’s a dream sequence, then something super-inconsistent or strange happens and you clue in? Killing off Asgard at the beginning of Infinity War acted that way for me. It’s not that it would be so inconceivable that Marvel would get rid of a group of characters and settings that they are probably done with. It’s more that killing Loki and Heimdall and every other Asgardian except Thor didn’t feel believable, and made the whole movie after it seem like some sort of fan fiction.Especially when most of the heroes spend the movie fighting some CGI randos that we’ve never met before. Thanos’ team (his children? bodyguards? close personal friends?) felt incredibly generic and pointless, especially the army of whoevers that just gives an excuse for our heroes to punch something until Thanos shows up. The only fight I really liked was Iron Man and Friends vs. Thanos on Titan, because it had actual characters on both sides of the fight and people reacted based on who they’d been in past movies, instead of just “welp, let’s all fight things”. (“Hey, War Machine! Remember when you got crippled fighting us? Anyways, let’s go fight monsters in Wakanda!”)There is one thing I really liked about the movie, and I feel like it’s part of something that doesn’t get enough credit in the MCU overall: Thanos. For a fully CGI character (yeah, motion-captured, but so was Justice League’s Steppenwolf, and look how that turned out), his emotions and reactions are fucking incredible. He feels like a real character, and throughout the film, Brolin’s performance and the CGI work together to make his motivations and journey believable. A lot of people shit on MCU CGI for fight scenes, but their work on Thanos, and Rocket, make them wholly believable characters that we care about. Watching the scene in Guardians 2 where Rocket and Yondu try and get Baby Groot to get the control fin out of the pirate captain’s chambers , I remember thinking how weird it must be for Rocket and Yondu to look down and interact with a a CGI character. Then I remembered Rocket wasn’t real either. Rocket and Thanos feel real to us, and that’s the best part about Infinity War to me.
It’s more that killing Loki and Heimdall and every other Asgardian except Thor didn’t feel believable I don’t believe it either. ‘Cause that didn’t happen.
Half of the Asgardian refugees* are alive, being led by Valkyrie.*well, half of half, thanks to the Snapture
Are they, though? Thanos had already reduced Asgard’s population by half, as was his modus operandi even before he got the Infinity Stones. Are we assuming he doesn’t have conscious control over who gets dusted and who doesn’t? Because the Stones make him omniscient, and all powerful, so I took it for granted that each dusting was deliberate, in which case, it feels like he would have left the remaining Asgardians alone, as he’d already effectively “dusted” half of them previously.
He’s also insane, so there’s that.
If he actually cared about the exact half-itude of his little experiment; he would’ve just nabbed Loki/the Tesseract & left the Asgardian refugees alone, since they had already been decimated by the events of Ragnarok.
Good point.
I thought Infinity War was fine, but I agree with almost every word you said. Thanos is well-realized and impressive, and the best thing about the movie- a film that is filled with a lot of fun isolated moments, but I had trouble connecting to emotionally. Right at the start, killing Loki created an immediate dissonance for me, that made the whole movie feel like a “What if” scenario. To add to your dreamlike comparisons, The Snap even ‘killed’ characters in a soft, pixie dust dream-like way, that made me unsure the characters were even dying. (They) I think a lot of my feeling this way is the outside knowledge that so many of these characters are getting sequels and Disney Streaming shows, so I know what I’m watching doesn’t matter. Peter doesn’t want to die, Thanos kills Gamora, but GotG 3 and a Homecoming sequel are slated to come out soon. Marvel’s tendency to overshare what’s on their production plate spoiled a lot of my investment in Infinity War, and I can’t help wondering how much more impactful this movie might have felt, if we went into it completely unsure if this was the final MCU movie or not. Of course, this gets into my issues with movie marketing today, so perhaps that’s not fair to hold against Infinity War.But it is a little more fair to call out that MCU deaths in general don’t often feel powerful. Quicksilver died. Wanda hardly gives him a second thought. Thor lost his father, and his friends in Ragnarok, but was still as quippy as ever with the nonstop jokes. He even loses an eye, but gets it restored in this movie. The MCU has a tendency to undermine serious events all the time, and have effectively conditioned me to not be too concerned with stakes or consequences, because they will likely be undone later, or they’re something we don’t have to worry about in the long run. Yondu got a decent funeral in GOtG 2, at least.
“The MCU has a tendency to undermine serious events all the time, and
have effectively conditioned me to not be too concerned with stakes or
consequences, because they will likely be undone later, or they’re
something we don’t have to worry about in the long run”This is basically what a comic book universe IS.I’m always a little amused by the people who claim that there are no “stakes” in Infinity War. There are no “stakes” in Raiders of the Lost Ark, or Die Hard, or Star Wars, or The Matrix, or pretty much any other action movie. You know that the hero will ultimately win. You’re not in it to see if he lives or dies. You’re in it to see HOW he lives.
WE, the movie-going public, know that most of what’s been done will be undone, just like it usually is in an action movie. The CHARACTERS don’t, and they’re the ones for whom there are stakes; we’re invested in THEM, in seeing how THEY overcome their trials and tribulations.
As the cliche goes, it’s the journey, not the destination.
You know that the hero will ultimately win. You’re not in it to see if he lives or dies. You’re in it to see HOW he lives. Yes. The CHARACTERS don’t, and they’re the ones for whom there are stakes; we’re invested in THEM, in seeing how THEY overcome their trials and tribulations. Yes! it’s the journey, not the destination.YES!!!“It’s not what a film is about; it’s how it’s about it.” ~Roger Ebert
I’ve actually lately been avoiding what movies and whatnot are slated so it doesn’t color what I think I know.
‘Black Panther’ may have a lot less of the quipping that the MCU is known for, but it does have, in my opinion, the best villain one-liner in the whole damn series, when Killmonger looks over at the Queen Mother of Wakanda and says, “Hey auntie!” with a shit-eating grin.
“Dramatically complex” is right. So few MCU movies have true depth, and with the exception Civil War, I can’t think of another Marvel film that is actually about something, using opposing philosophy to challenge the hero on a moral level. Black Panther is exceptional in this regard, and imo, it was the best movie of 2018. Even having seen all the other nominees, I gladly embraced their Best Picture nomination.
But I admit to bias because it hit me on a personal level; Born a 1st generation American, with Nigerian parents, there were often discussions in my household when I was young about going back/losing my connection with where I came from. Even around members of my extended family, there was a separatist attitude in distinguishing themselves from American blacks. These were…complicated times for me growing up.
I can’t remember identifying with a movie as strongly as I did with Black Panther- on both sides of that debate. When people trash this movie I do take it somewhat personally, but I’m still thrilled with its success. I wasn’t expecting much (I’m growing tired of Marvel movies) and although it has some dodgy effects, and other comic booky faults, story-wise they totally surprised me, and knocked it out of the park.
I have loved both Age of Heroes and History of violence so looking forward to the blockbuster one!
2017 and 18 had a lot of good choices for the column but you picked the ones that had to win it. Can’t imagine anything but Endgame for 2019.