Black Panther

‘I’m not racist, but . . .’ is probably one of the most dangerous opening lines to ever start a blog. Unfortunately it usually it prefaces a diatribe of racist arseholery, whereby said person goes on to tell everyone exactly why everyone thought they were in the first place. “I’m not a cannibal, but there was this time I ran out of Cornflakes and had to eat my next-door neighbour”
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And so it’s with a heavy heart that I confess to thinking that Black Panther isn’t very good. Is it ok to not like a movie simply because it isn’t very good? Well, I would think so, but in the days of ultra-offence by anything, I thought I’d write about. I mean, I really wanted to like it, and perhaps it’s the expectations that ‘this was the best marvel movie ever!’ that eventually let it down. It did call into question my penchant for other Marvel Movies - are any of them actually very good? I enjoyed many of them yet that doesn’t make them good movies, on a side-note, John Wick is such a movie. It’s not that great, but fantastic fun! For every Avenger movie where my expectations were extremely low yet the film turned out to be thoroughly entertaining, there are two Spiderman’s and a Thor movie to balance out the crapola. And as for Captain America, that first instalment was utterly atrocious, which probably pushes the franchise into debt. 

Marvel Movies

So what am I saying then, that I feel I need to defend myself because I didn’t like Black Panther and the world has come to a point where you can’t even say you don’t like a film because you’re worried for a racist backlash? Well, yeah, actually <Cue – And that’s wrong with the world, people like you, Reed . . .> It’s the same reason that if a child runs up to me with all giggles and smiles, I’ll turn tale and run the other direction, simply because it only takes one adult to say ‘hey, what are you doing with my kid?’ to be exiled from the human race. 

Black Panther - Needed a Montage

Back to the film. The political messaging was excellent - anything that gives colonialists a bit of a kicking deserves some praise, as too is helping the human race as a whole rather than being so self-serving. And yet I found the supporting cast (actually only the General and the Princess) better than the main protagonist and antagonist: essentially those leading chaps were just dullards. I like my final fight scenes, the build-up, the war of words, the snatching victory from the grasp of defeat, and that’s where this movie failed to deliver once again. This one felt like Rocky 3 but without the Training Montage, and who doesn’t like a montage?
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In contrast, The Shape of Water, was an excellent movie which I liked a lot. And I’m not saying I was easily impressed by dancing-alien-fishy-underwater-god type things that can’t speak, but . . .
 
https://www.verdict.co.uk/black-panther-already-turning-huge-profits-marvel/
http://movies.disney.com.au/marvel-studios-black-panther