Film Black Panther: One Of The Biggest Movie Releases Of 2018

Black Panther was one of the biggest movie releases of 2018 making around $700 million in the Us alone. It made approximately $647 million overseas to bring the total to a very impressive $1.3 billion. The fact that a majority of the cast was African-American garnered Black Panther a lot of attention from the media. This also encouraged people of African-American descent to go and watch the movie as for the first time the protagonist of a big budget Hollywood film was an Africa-American. Being a Marvel superhero movie, Black Panther was sure to do well as Marvel has had tremendous success with past movies and well, who doesn’t like a good old-fashioned superhero movie?

Most people would write off Black Panther as an action flick and would say that it has a somewhat decent story as a stand-alone film but serves a purpose for building up and filling in the gaps in the Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline. I find that a bit hard to believe. Yes, there have been many movies with really poor scripts and bad character building but I don’t think Black Panther has that issue. In fact, I feel it is quite the opposite. At first glance, it wouldn’t seem that Black Panther has a proper narrative hidden deep inside it but if you pay close attention to the story you will find that Black Panther is actually a story of redemption.

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Now, you must be wondering what I mean by that. Well, that is where the genius of Ryan Coogler comes in. Black Panther wasn’t Coogler’s first rodeo. He had previously directed and written Fruitvale Station and Creed (part of the Rocky series). The story of Black Panther takes quite a lot of inspiration from Creed.

In Creed, we see Apollo Creed’s son Adonis Johnson Creed training to become a professional boxer like his father before him. He is later challenged by the current light heavyweight champion, Ricky Conlan, to a fight where he has to prove himself to the world and redeem his father’s name as one of the greatest professional boxers in the sport. Although he doesn’t win the fight, he earns the respect of Ricky and the crowd and thus redeems his father’s name.

Black Panther is quite similar to Creed with respect to the story and its’s main theme. T’Challa is to be crowned king after his father T’Chaka is killed in a bombing during his speech at the UN. Being crowned king at such a young age, T’Challa must prove that he is ready to be king and lead the people of Wakanda. Later in the movie we learn that T’Challa’s father T’Chaka had killed his own brother N’Jobu after it had been revealed that he had helped Ulysses Klaue steal vibranium from Wakanda. T’Chaka ordered Zuri to leave N’Jobu’s son N’Jadaka (a.k.a. Erik “Killmonger” Stevens) behind in Oakland, California and tell the people that N’Jobu had disappeared.

Erik returns to Wakanda along with Klaue’s body and challenges T’Challa to the throne wherein he defeats T’Challa and is crowned the new king of Wakanda. In the battle, Erik throws T’Challa off the side of the waterfall but T’Challa survives the falls an is rescued by the Jabari tribe. When Ramonda, Shuri and agent Ross head to the Jabari seeking help, there they find T’Challa on the brink of death. T’Challa is given the heart-shaped herb and gains back the power of the Black Panther. Upon learning of his father’s past, T’Challa returns to Wakanda in the hope of stopping Erik and making peace with him. In the ensuing battle, T’Challa defeats Erik who is fatally wounded and offers to heal him.

Erik decides that he does not wan to be healed and would instead prefer to die a free man than be a prisoner of Wakanda. Towards the end of the movie, T’Challa reveals in speech to the UN that he plans to make Wakandan resources and technology available to the world. Later, we see him and Shuri standing outside the proposed headquarters of the new Wakanda outreach center. By doing so, T’Challa has redeem himself of his father’s past mistakes.

This story of the fall and rise of T’Challa written by Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole is almost lost amidst the sea of all the action sequences in the film. They should have made more of an effort to put this well written story at the forefront of the film.

Although most of the story is quite well written, there are a few plot holes. The movie doesn’t really touch the topic of Wakandan politics and how Wakanda functions. The only thing viewers can gather from the movie is that Wakanda has some sort of monarchy with the king at the center and elders of each tribe forming a council. I feel they missed the opportunity to explain to viewers how Wakanda really functions and how T’Challa being a young king affects Wakanda and its people.

I guess it’s not possible to fit everything into a movie that’s only 2 hours and 20 minutes long but as a whole package, Black Panther does everything right. With a good story, well-choreographed action sequences, amazing CGI and a good musical score, Black Panther has more than enough to captivate viewers. 

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