I’ve long come undone in my quest to keep abreast of the Marvel cinematic universe. I’ve seen the Iron Mans and two Avengers films, and out of those five, we got two terrific movies and three duds. So I’ve opted out mostly, peeking in occasionally when something interesting or new comes along. Last year, Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok was a welcome escape from the self-seriousness that the rest of the Avengers were hurdling toward, and allowing the film to have the personal touch of a talented director really showed that these movies can be clever tapestries if the studios allow it. Black Panther was given to Ryan Coogler, a 31-year-old filmmaker with Fruitvale Station and Creed to his name. Coogler is immensely talented, and furthermore, he seems to have an incredible grasp on the value and power that good commercial filmmaking can have. He is more than the future of what a studio director should be, he’s the present.

Fruitvale Station was a somber, yet enraging indie about the tragic death of Oscar Grant in Coogler’s hometown of Oakland. Creed was a miracle of a movie, that gave us the Rocky lifeline we didn’t know that we wanted. Both proved Coogler’s chops, as well as the chops of his preferred lead actor, Michael B. Jordan. Coogler isn’t a subtle storyteller and he doesn’t have to be. One of his strengths is the verbosity of his message. In Black Panther, Coogler uses Jordan again, but this time as the antagonist, aptly-named Killmonger. Jordan and Coogler seem to be having a great time placing the beloved actor as a brutal villain, but it’s the way Coogler contextualizes that villainy, and the way Jordan performs it, that shows once again how powerful a duo these two artists are, and how different Black Panther will be from the rest of our superhero films.

Of course, our superhero is the titular Black Panther, played by Chadwick Boseman. Boseman – who in his early 40’s has found himself in an unparalleled stretch of starmaking roles these last few years – gives our hero some strong pathos, but he also strategically stands aside when necessary. Which is generous and clever, considering the talented people he has around him. Black Panther is the hero, but the actual man is T’Challa, a prince from the African country of Wakanda. After the death of his father T’Chaka (John Kani), T’Challa must return home to receive the throne. Heading there, he is escorted by Okoye (Danai Gurira), the head of the Dora Milaje, Wakanda’s main security force, and Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), a Wakandan spy who used to be T’Challa’s lover. In Wakanda, they are welcomed by T’Challa’s mother, Ramonda (Angela Bassett), and sister, Shuri (Leticia Wright), before T’Challa is coronated and named the new Black Panther.

It’s probably important to talk about the country of Wakanda, a fictional East African nation in the Black Panther universe that looks like a third-world country to the rest of the world, but in secret is an El Dorado-like paradise empowered by Vibranium, a natural resource within the land that empowers their incredible technology and enormous wealth. Wakanda fears making their good fortune known, hoping to avoid conflict with the rest of the planet and bypass the rest of the continent’s history of colonization by white empires. The title of Black Panther is an honorary one, which goes to the sitting king of Wakanda, and while the Black Panther is imbued with superhuman abilities, the power behind those abilities comes from Wakanda and the Vibranium that it houses.

So this is the kingdom that T’Challa inherits, but he isn’t able to celebrate for long. Wakanda learns of an ancient Wakandan artifact stolen from a London museum. The theft is pulled off by Klaue (a ferocious, jacked Andy Serkis), a South African arms dealer and smuggler with a bloody history in Wakanda. What T’Challa doesn’t know is that Klaue pulled off the heist with the help of Killmonger, whose main motive is reaching Wakanda to settle some unfinished business. Born Eric Stevens, Killmonger grew up in Oakland after losing his father as a young child. A hard life in America and a bloodthirsty tour with the military has given him a taste for violence. When he learns of Wakanda’s wealth, he shames them for not using it to help other Africans, both on the continent and off. Killmonger’s methods are bruising and dangerous, but his reasoning makes sense to T’Challa, creating a inner conflict for the new king that he was not prepared for.

The film’s script is written by Cooger along with Joe Robert Cole. Like Creed, Black Panther is a deft piece of racial commentary within the box of a Hollywood franchise, crafting rollicking entertainment within the context of blackness. In Creed, Coogler was snatching back a franchise that has never been very sensitive with its racial dynamics. Black Panther, on the other hand, is a flag planted on the face of the moon. It pushes past blaxploitation and goes straight for black excellence. Not since Eddie Murphy’s 1988 film Coming to America has a studio movie made such an opulent display of black luxury. Coogler pulls this off while still making a broad, competent action film, equipped with stirring action sequences in various parts of the world. With Cinematographer Rachel Morrison, Coogler makes Black Panther heroic, flashy and cool, equipped with stirring action sequences on the streets of South Korea as well as a waterfall in Africa, among other locales. This is, flatly, unlike any other super hero film I’ve seen, and its because it has the singular vision of its filmmaker.

Which brings me to the cast. I can spend a good amount of time praising Boseman and Jordan, or even Forrest Whitaker or Martin Freeman (who has the movie’s biggest white role and is very generous in how he allows the story to develop both around and without him), but instead I’d like to talk about the women, who are intentionally the film’s most vital part. Danai Gurira’s Okoye is fierce and proud, and is often made to choose her loyalties throughout Black Panther; while Lupita Nyong’o’s Nakia is warm, empathetic and eager to share Wakanda’s wealth even if that goes against the will of her country’s government. Angela Bassett’s Ramonda could probably have more lines and screen time, but that doesn’t stop Bassett from giving a fully realized performance of a proud mother and a grieving wife. Leticia Wright, as T’Challa’s precocious 16-year-old sister Shuri, is funny, charming and literally the smartest person in the entire movie (maybe the Marvel Universe) – it’s a star-making performance. Black Panther makes its women the lifeblood of its story, which is an incredibly radical thing to do in a superhero movie in 2018.

The degree to which Black Panther is “review proof” is both obvious and irrelevant. The film is well on its way to being one of the ten highest grossing American films of all time, and the critical feedback has been euphoric. There are, though, no reviews or box office statistics that can accurately measure the revolution that Black Panther is. There is no form of film criticism that could measure that. Coogler’s film is an astonishing, audacious achievement because it has the freedom to break free of the anchor that is Marvel, be individualistic and still be fun as hell. In a lot of ways, this is just another Coogler-Jordan collaboration, another part of an oeuvre that will hopefully go on for decades more. Sure, Black Panther falls victim to the over-plotting that all these comic book movies do, but that bothers me a lot less when it isn’t the same ol’ plot we’ve been seeing for years on end.

 

Directed by Ryan Coogler