Hello, and welcome once again to another edition of my Review series. If you read the title, you should already know this article in on Black Panther, which released in the United States last Friday, February 16th. The 2-hour-and-14-minute movie stars Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa/ Black Panther, Danai Gurira as Okoye, Martin Freeman as Everett Ross, Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klaue, Michael B. Jordan as Erik Stevens/ Killmonger, Lupita N’yongo as Nakia, Letitia Wright as Shuri, Forrest Whittaker as Zuri, Daniel Kaluuya as W’Kabi, Winston Duke as M’Baku, Angela Bassett as Ramonda, and Sterling K. Brown as N’Jobu. Remember, there will be MAJOR SPOILERS for Black Panther. Anyways, let’s get into it.
Now, this is where I would typically talk about my favorite character from the movie, but honestly, I just can’t pick one. T’Challa, of course, was the star of the show. Killmonger was one of the few Marvel Movie villains that I haven’t thought was two-dimensional because both his backstory and references back to his backstory were very well executed. Okoye, Shuri, Queen Ramonda, and Nakia were fantastic female leads and will hopefully inspire a whole generation of young African-American women. The two white characters, Klaue and Ross, were used in very interesting analogies for how many nationalistic white people treat people of color. Even two of the minor supporting characters, Zuri and M’Baku, played very important roles to the end of the movie; Zuri’s death is a catalyst for T’Challa’s motivation to defeat Killmonger, and M’Baku’s army ends up turning the tide in favor of T’Challa.
However, my least favorite character has to be W’Kabi. As much as I liked Daniel Kaluuya in Get Out, I really wasn’t a fan of the direction W’Kabi went in this movie. In the comics, W’Kabi was always the incredibly loyal best friend of T’Challa. In the movie, he started out as the level-headed confidant, but once Killmonger took the Wakandan throne, he very surprisingly switched to Killmonger’s side. It seemed like a very out-of-character move, even though we hadn’t seen much of him. Eventually, though, he saw the light and rejoined T’Challa by the end of the film after Killmonger had died, with surprisingly no consequences.
Even with the few faults it had, Black Panther was a truly fantastic movie, with an entertaining hero and a formidable villain. I give Black Panther 4.6 out of 5 stars.
Alright, thank you so much for reading. If you want to see more of these guys, you can find them in Black Panther, which is in theatres near you now. Please, remember to tune in on Friday for my Character of the Month for January on Jessica Jones. Thank you again for reading, and remember, have a nerdy day.
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