Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the next post in my series covering the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This time, we are looking at the final movie released before “Avengers: Infinity War”: “Black Panther”. Directed by Ryan Coogler, this movie stars Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa/Black Panther, Michael B. Jordan as Erik Killmonger, Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia, Andy Serkis as Klaue, Danai Gurira as Okyoe, Letitia Wright as Shuri, Angela Bassett as Queen Ramonda, Winston Duke as M’Baku, Daniel Kaluuya as W’Kabi, and Martin Freeman as Everett Ross. Let’s get into detail on how this movie went down.
The movie starts with how Wakanda was born. A meteor containing Vibranium hit the continent of Africa centuries ago. After we see the origins of the Black Panther and some more narration on why Wakanda keeps itself from the rest of the world, we cut to the year 1992 in Oakland, California. We see a young version of T’Chaka visit his brother there while some young boys play basketball outside. The brother and a friend of his are planning some bad things with Vibranium before T’Chaka and two of the Dora Milaje enter the apartment that the two are in. It’s a peaceful meeting at first before T’Chaka accuses his brother of helping Klaue steal Vibranium and kill a lot of people with a bomb. The brother named N’Jobu (Sterling K. Brown) gets to an argument with his partner, who turned out to be another Wakandan named Zuri. T’Chaka tells his brother to return to Wakanda where he will face the council. The scene then cuts to the boys at the outside basketball court looking upward as the ship that T’Chaka arrived from travels back to Wakanda. After the Marvel Studios logo, we cut to present day (a week after T’Chaka’s death), where T’Challa and Okoye fly to the Sambisa Forest in Nigeria. Black Panther lands there, disables a few cars with some little disks, and takes care of the bad guys easily, with the help of Nakia and Okoye. After the three of them make it back to Wakanda, T’Challa reunites with his mom and his sister. We cut to London, England, where we see Killmonger at a museum. At the museum, he corrects a lady about an artifact. He says that a weapon is from Wakanda and he steals it, with the help of Klaue and a couple of other people. As a bonus, he steals a mask from the museum as well. We then see a unique ceremony involving different Wakandan tribes at a waterfall where T’Challa drinks a liquid that strips him of his powers. He is then challenged by M’Baku (also known as Man-Ape in the comics) for the throne. T’Challa struggles for a bit, but he wins against M’Baku and is crowned the king of Wakanda. As he drinks from a special plant that gives him the power of the Black Panther, T’Challa sees a vision of his father in the Ancestral Plane. During this vision, he and his father T’Chaka hug each other. T’Chaka tells his son that he needs to surround himself with people that he trusts during hard times. After he wakes up from the vision, he walks along the streets with Nakia. She tells him that it would be a good idea to help other countries with Wakanda’s technology and potential programs. T’Challa is then told by Okoye that Klaue plans to sell Vibranium to an American buyer in South Korea. W’Kabi wants T’Challa to bring Klaue to justice for his parents being killed. T’Challa then meets with Shuri, where she shows him some stuff needed for the trip to South Korea, including communication devices that are unlimited in range. Shuri then yells out “What are those” at T’Challa’s sandals and then shows him some new shoes that are like sneakers. He is then given an upgrade to his Black Panther suit that glows purple every time that it is hit. With enough kinetic energy at the same spot, the suit hits him right back.
We then cut to Busan, South Korea, where T’Challa, Nakia, and Okoye enter an undercover casino where the sale is supposed to happen. It turns out that the buyer is Everett Ross. Stan Lee also has a cameo in his casino scene. Klaue then enters the casino with his entourage, and a shootout then occurs. T’Challa, Nakia, Okoye, and Ross escape from the casino with their lives. T’Challa gets to Klaue for a moment before Klaue shoots him with his arm cannon, which knocks him out for a second. A car chase then ensues with Shuri helping drive virtually. Black Panther jumps from car to car in his search of Klaue. Okoye jumps out of a bulletproof car and throws her spear to another car. Black Panther’s suit is built up with enough energy to flip a van upside down. Klaue shoots at the bulletproof car and destroys it, but Nakia and Okoye are unharmed before hopping in to Ross’s car. Meanwhile, Shuri’s virtual car gets destroyed by Klaue. T’Challa gets to Klaue anyway and almost kills him. Because of a lot of people with phones looking at it, Klaue is sent to be in custody of the CIA. While being interrogated by Ross, Klaue tells Ross that a whole bunch of Vibranium is hidden in Wakanda. Klaue then gets rescued by Killmonger and his entourage. T’Challa tries to get to them, but is stopped by Killmonger. Ross gets severely wounded trying to protect Nakia and is brought back to Wakanda with the three of them. While Ross is being healed by Shuri, we see Killmonger kill his girlfriend and Klaue before he heads to Wakanda with Klaue’s body. T’Challa talks to Zuri (Forest Whitaker) and forces him to tell him about what happened with his father’s brother N’Jobu. We then have another flashback to 1992 in Oakland where we see Zuri reveal that N’Jobu wanted to share Wakandan technology around the world for weaponry. N’Jobu is killed by his brother before he was able to shoot Zuri. The two of them leave for home while a young Killmonger grew up without a father. Killmonger shows the body of Klaue to W’Kabi before we cut to Ross all healed up in Shuri’s lab. Shuri explains that the technology healed Ross’s wounds from the previous day. Ross then sees the fast trains carrying Vibranium underground. Shuri is then told that someone killed Klaue. We then cut to T’Challa talking with Nakia about his father killing his own brother. Nakia tells him that his ancestors can’t define who T’Challa is before the two of them return to Shuri’s lab. Ross tells T’Challa about Killmonger during this small scene. At the throne room, we see Killmonger arrive and challenge T’Challa in ritual combat for the throne. During this, he reveals his real name to be N’Jadaka and he wants Vibranium to be used for weapons. T’Challa accepts the challenge and fights him at a ceremony. After he drinks the liquid that strips him of his power, T’Challa fights N’Jadaka valiantly, but is presumed to be killed after he is thrown down a waterfall. During the fight, Zuri is killed by N’Jadaka. N’Jadaka takes the throne while Shuri and Ramonda escape with Nakia. N’Jadaka gets the power of the Black Panther and sees a vision of his old apartment building where he sees his father. After this vision, he orders all of the heart-shaped plants burned as he desires to be king forever. Luckily, Nakia takes one before they get burned. N’Jadaka enacts his father’s old plan to bring Wakandan weapons to operatives around the world.
Ross, Nakia, Shuri, and Ramonda go to the Jabari mountain range. They are brought to M’Baku, who is shown the heart-shaped plant and leads the four of them to where T’Challa is lying down in a coma. The plant is mixed and fed to T’Challa to wake him up from the coma. During his vision, he asks his father why his brother’s son wasn’t brought to Wakanda. After his father says that he didn’t do it to keep Wakanda isolated, he yells that all of his ancestors are wrong to turn their back on the rest of the world. Shuri then gives him his suit via the necklace. M’Baku refuses to help T’Challa, even though the world could be in danger. Back on Wakanda, we see planes being shipped with weapons. One of those planes gets destroyed as T’Challa makes his way to face N’Jadaka. N’Jadaka then reveals that he has a Panther suit himself. An all-out civil war happens with some casualties during it. One of the Dora Milaje gets slit in the throat, but no blood spills out of her. Meanwhile, Black Panther has no issue taking care of some guys and throwing a spear at another plane. Some Rhinos show up to cause more chaos. Shuri and Nakia help with the fight while Ross is told to fly a plane remotely. He figures out a way to pilot it and shoot down the planes carrying the weapons to various places around the world. T’Challa fights off some more guys before rescuing Shuri from N’Jadaka. The two Panthers then fall down to the underground Vibranium area where they fight each other. The sonic beams that are activated by Shuri mess up with the Vibranium suits, which gives T’Challa a chance to stab N’Jadaka. The planes eventually get destroyed while the Jabari tribe shows up to help with the fight outside, which calms down. The Panthers fight some more until T’Challa stabs N’Jadaka. The two of them walk outside to take in the views of Wakanda. T’Challa wants N’Jadaka to get healed, but that doesn’t happen. The dagger is taken out and N’Jadada succumbs to death. N’Jadaka says something about death being better than bondage, referencing slavery. After a brief chat with Nakia in which T’Challa kisses her a few times, he and Shuri head to Oakland near N’Jobu’s apartment complex, which was purchased by him. Shuri and Nakia are tasked to run the embassy there before the name montage rolls with “All the Stars” by Kendrick Lamar and SZA plays in the background. After the montage is over, we see T’Challa speak before the UN in Vienna where he reveals the resources of Wakanda to the rest of the world. After the credits, we see Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) free from being cryogenically frozen. Shuri meets with him and gets him recuperated from the mental programming that he received from Hydra. The movie ends with the teaser that “Black Panther will return in Avengers: Infinity War.”
“Black Panther” is a really good film with plenty of emotional moments. The non-fight scenes that I enjoyed the most were the visions that both T’Challa and Killmonger see after drinking the special juice that gives them the power of the Black Panther. Those scenes were emotional, and that was partly thanks to the musical score by Ludwig Goransson, which was fantastic for the movie. In addition to the orchestral score (which had some great African influences), the music soundtrack by Kendrick Lamar and his friends at Top Dawg Entertainment was great as well. Only a couple of the songs from the Top Dawg soundtrack were used, including “All the Stars” by Kendrick Lamar and SZA and “Pray for Me” by Kendrick Lamar and The Weeknd. The portrayals of the different tribes of Wakanda were really well done. That was shown in the prelude to the combat ceremony. Those fight scenes were the most intense to me. There are some funny moments in this movie as well, including the interaction with T’Challa and Shuri before the casino scene and everything involving Andy Serkis as Klaue. All of the actors played their parts well, especially Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa and Michael B. Jordan as Killmonger. I felt a bit of sadness when Killmonger died at the end, especially when he said something that mentioned slavery before he pulled out the dagger. I also enjoyed Winston Duke as M'Baku in this movie. The ladies were great as well, including Angela Bassett, Letitia Wright, Danai Gurira, and Lupita Nyong’o. Ryan Coogler did a great job directing this movie. The way the people involved brought the very first black comic book superhero (the character was created in July 1966 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby) and the nation of Wakanda to life in a brilliant way.
Overall, I thought that this movie was really good. It’s not perfect by any means, but it brought Black Panther and Wakanda to the big screen in a very respectable way. Wakanda will be a big part in the next movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That movie is one part of the culmination of 10+ years of work done by Marvel Studios since the first Iron Man movie came out in 2008. “Avengers: Infinity War” is that movie, and I’ll take more time with this one (and Endgame) to make sure it’s full of every detail covering the past 10 years of the MCU. In the meantime, I hope you all have a safe week.
(Here is the video from How It Should Have Ended on this movie. All credit goes to them.)
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