Review: Black Panther is unlike any Marvel movie you’ve seen before

Get ready to learn a lot about Wakanda…

Black Panther is a big deal. This is a massive moment for black superheroes, and for the people who get to tell stories about superheroes. It’s already evident that this film is a phenomenon, just like Wonder Woman was last year, and it’s quickly proving it by cleaning up at the box office.

For Marvel, it’s a statement of intent. The studio is responding to criticism that its output has become repetitive and risk-averse by handing over more control to directors so that they can tell more diverse and distinctive stories. We can see this in how the Guardians of the Galaxy films are unabashedly James Gunn movies, Thor: Ragnarok has Taika Waititi’s distinctive humour all over it, and Black Panther is definitely a Ryan Coogler movie. If you watch 2013’s Fruitvale Station and 2015’s Creed, the journey the director has taken to reach this point is as clear as can be.

Here’s a quick plot teaser from IMDb:

T’Challa, the King of Wakanda, rises to the throne in the isolated, technologically advanced African nation, but his claim is challenged by a vengeful outsider who was a childhood victim of T’Challa’s father’s mistake. (IMDb)

Chadwick Boseman returns as T’Challa after first playing the character in Captain America: Civil War. At the start of the film, he’s on his way home to Wakanda — a secretive hidden African nation that houses a enormous supply of Vibranium, the world’s strongest metal — to bury his father, become the king and formally take on superpowers as the Black Panther, Wakanda’s protector.

Joining T’Challa in this movie are key characters Okoye (Danai Gurira), the most skilled warrior in Wakanda and the general of the all-female fighting force the Dora Milaje; Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), a spy working abroad and former romantic parter of T’Challa; and Shuri (Letitia Wright), T’Challa’s younger sister and the brains behind the innovative Wakandan technology that’s at the forefront of this film.

The villains of the piece are Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis), a deranged arms dealer we first saw in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Michael B Jordan as Erik Killmonger, a charismatic and ruthless warrior with a surprising connection to Wakanda that gives him a compelling reason to challenge T’Challa’s place on the throne.

Welcome to Wakanda

Coogler and his team have worked hard to make the nation of Wakanda feel like somewhere that could genuinely exist in the world. One of the director’s conditions in agreeing to helm the movie was that he’d get to visit Africa and then use that experience to inform the production design and feel of the film. Over 80% of the film is set in Wakanda, so it’s important that we can understand its tribal culture, feel the sense of history, and see its highly advanced technology. The start of Black Panther is a little slower, generally, than the rest of the film, but all that time spent developing and establishing Wakanda is incredibly worthwhile.

Representation matters

The most revolutionary and important things about Black Panther are all to do with representation. Never before has a team and a cast with African roots been in charge of such an enormous studio blockbuster like this with complete confidence and the huge budget that comes with all Marvel projects. The sheer impact of seeing black superheroes is evident both in how much cultural discussion the movie is generating and how much money it’s earning at the box office.

Audiences have been yearning for this, and now black kids have a hero to look up to that they can recognise themselves in too. This kind of representation has been missing from films for far too long. Its existence means enough on its own, but Coogler has also made a tremendously compelling film here. It’s one that deals with complex ideas about African identity in the modern world while also being a gripping action adventure and a thoughtful character-driven story that respects and honours the continent’s culture and traditions. We’ve never seen anything quite like this.

The women of Black Panther

While the ultimate conflict in this film is between T’Challa and Killmonger for the throne, it’s the women of Black Panther who absolutely steal the show. Okoye is the breakout character and clearly the strongest fighter in the film who doesn’t have superpowers. There’s also a lot of depth to her position when it comes to the importance of protecting the secrets of Wakanda, as she believes the nation should keep its borders closed and remain hidden. Nakia, on the other hand, believes its time for Wakanda to share its knowledge with the world, a stance informed by her life as a spy on the outside and her seeing how her country could help but doesn’t.

The other breakout star here is Letitia Wright, who you may recognise from the most recent season of Black Mirror. Shuri is one of the film’s best characters not only because she’s fun and the source of much of the movie’s humour, but also because her sibling relationship with T’Challa brings a lot of realism, nuance and interest to both of their characters. It feels like a genuine dynamic between a brother and sister, and shows us the less regal and restrained side of the Black Panther. She’s also terrific in the Q role to his James Bond, providing him with the great new gadgets she’s been developing in her lab.

Is this Marvel’s most political movie?

For many, Marvel has a reputation for playing things safe and not dealing with topical or political themes. This isn’t always true, though. Thor: Ragnarok explores the cost of empire-building in its look at what Asgard did to gain its splendour, while Civil War examines accountability and responsibility for superheroes. It’s in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, though, that the studio last really dug into political ideas as it looked at drone warfare, intelligence gathering, and government conspiracies. It’s no surprise that Winter Soldier is still regarded as one of the best Marvel films, a lot of that being due to its compelling storylines and rich thematic material.

Ryan Coogler has brought his specific ideas about immigration, colonialsim, isolationism and the black experience to Black Panther. It should come as no shock that a key moment in the film happens in Oakland, California, where Coogler grew up. But there’s so much more here too. The film doesn’t shy away from exploring what it means for Wakanda to be a place that escaped colonisation and how the responsibility the nation has for staying idle and avoiding conflicts for so many years. The central clash of the film is all about whether the country should reveal its power or remain hidden, and every character has a slightly different feeling about the issue. It’s easy to imagine a version of this film that’s unprepared to discuss issues surrounding race, culture, tradition and history. I’m glad that’s not the movie we’ve got.

One of Marvel’s best villains to date

It’s amazing how little you’d need to change about the character arc of Killmonger to make him the hero of this story. I can’t think of any film in which the villain occupies a position that the audience is meant to empathise with, and in which the hero learns from the perspective of his adversary. Where Killmonger takes things too far is in his brutal methods and violent approach. Michael B Jordan has loads of personality in this role, and makes a fascinating contrast to the exceptionally steady, thoughtful and patient portrayal of T’Challa from Boseman.

A celebration

There’s a lot that Black Panther has going for it as an engaging superhero film, a complex character drama and a story with deep themes on its mind. Above all, though, this feels like a triumphant celebration of black culture on a scale we’ve never seen before. It’s going to smash box office records, it’s already the biggest opening for a film in February and has earned more than Justice League in America. This is also so much more than the headlines, though. It’s simply a fantastic and entertaining movie that you shouldn’t miss at the cinema. The way it fuses tribalism, futurism and imagery from fantasy and science fiction films makes it the rare bold and different blockbuster. I can say with some certainty that you’ve never seen anything like this before.

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, and head here to follow me on Twitter.