Black Panther (2018)

I listened to and read a few reviews that were very light on spoilers but I avoided spoilers and podcasts that went in to spoilers about this movie as much as I could before seeing it tonight.

The movie picks up a little while after the end of Captain America: Civil War. It isn't clear exactly how much time has passed but it can't be more than a few months at most. 

- Flashback to Oakland, CA 1992: T'Chaka and his brother

- Coronation ceremony by the waterfall, T'Challa drinks the potion and is challenged by M'Baku

- Klaw and Killmonger steal the Vibranium artifact from the museum

- T'Challa, Okoye (head of the Dora Milaje), and Nakia (T'Challa's ex) travel to South Korea to recover the Vibranium artifact which Klaw is planning to sell; they run into Everett K. Ross of the CIA who is there to take it

- Chase on the streets of South Korea (probably my favorite scene), virtual car driving by Shuri (T'Challa's sister)

- They capture Klaw, but Killmonger shows up and busts him out

- Return to Wakanda, Ross was seriously injured in the fight, they take him back to Wakanda to heal him

- Ross reveals that T'Chaka killed his brother (T'Challa's uncle) and that Killmonger is his son (T'Challa's cousin)

- Klaw and Killmonger get into a fight; Killmonger kills Klaw, hands his body over to W'Kabi thus earning his support

- Killmonger challenges T'Challa for the throne of Wakanda, T'Challa accepts the challenge but then loses and is knocked off the waterfall

- Everyone thinks T'Challa is dead

- Ramonda (T'Challa's mother), Shuri, and Nakia head to the mountains to the Jabari tribe, M'Baku's people; there they discover that T'Challa is still alive but in a coma; they use the only remaining magic flower to bring him back from the brink of death

- T'Challa returns to challenge Killmonger; big fight with (among other things) armored rhinos; T'Challa and Killmonger fight again, this time T'Challa wins, Killmonger dies, refuses the offer to heal him

- Mid credits scene: T'Challa at the UN and then in Oakland with Shuri

- After credits scene: Bucky and Shuri

Killmonger showing up to challenge T'Challa, just rubbed me the wrong way; I think it just happened a little too quickly for me; I was stoked to see another fight along the waterfall, I was kind of disappointed when no one went over the waterfall the first time out.

W'Kabi WTF? first he's on T'Challa's side, then he sides with Killmonger, then he switches back on a dime when Okoye (his wife or lover?) challengers him; not the strongest role but he wasn't given any real quality moments; I assume the actor was just working with what he was given.

I got a bit choked up at a few moments: (1) T'Challa seeing his father while in a dream state just before the coronation ceremony, (2) the reactions to T'Challa's death even though I was positive he would be back, (3) the death of Killmonger

I liked how Killmonger helped to add context to this movie and place it in the midst of the real world. What does Wakanda owe to the rest of the world? Should it open it's borders or reach out to help those in need. T'Challa thinks no but Killmonger, whose intentions seem good even if his methods do not, thinks yes. I wasn't happy that they killed him off. Death seems much more final in these MCU films than it does in the comic books. Maybe it won't be in the case of Erik Killmonger. I hope that is true. Similarly, I wonder if Klaw will return from the dead in some other form. In the comic books he was a creature of sound.

In some ways this movie felt more like a Wakanda movie than it did a Black Panther movie. There are a lot of characters introduced, most if not all of them are from Wakanda. At the very least I think it would have been appropriate to title it Black Panther: Wakanda.

There was a lot in this movie. I thought they did an excellent job mixing it all together. I will admit that I couldn't remember most of the names. I used IMDB to help me find the ones that I could not remember. I look forward to seeing how it fits in with subsequent MCU movies. I wasn't a big fan of Captain America: The Winter Soldier the first time I watched it. I was able to appreciate it much more after seeing some of the movies that followed it. I hope that the same will be true of Black Panther.

Excellent effort for the first in what will hopefully be a trilogy of films (just as they did with Iron Man, Captain America, Thor); hopefully the next movie will be a little more focused than this one was and a little less rushed than this one felt at times.