Black Panther

Direction-wise a solidly crafted Marvel movie with literally amazing action scenes, but with an average main character. The existence of the comic book character doesn’t help him and neither does the fact that Marvel is attempting to balance the representation of genders of the human race. Maybe it wasn’t intended in that way, but it definitely looks like it; Wakanda is so boring and unfunny that it’s hard to find anything positive about it. But yeah, I realize that Black Panther has a place in the universe. He for sure won’t be my favorite hero, though. (19.10.2018)

Last year, Marvel decided to try and make us laugh in theaters, which it did quite well, but I'm very glad that Black Panther isn't afraid to play on a more serious note. Again, there's some humor, but this time we get a Marvel movie that's much more personal, serious, and earnest. And it works brilliantly. Ryan Coogler manages to work cleverly with the characters, their traumas and motives, and as a result we have perhaps the best Marvel villain, one whose actions we can understand, relate to and respect. And then there's Wakanda itself, a visually stunning world full of colourful costumes, masks, music and a stylish combination of modern technology and African traditions. There are several "wow" moments here, and they appear both during the ordinary macho machismo of the unglamorous world, and in the elaborate action scenes. Towards the end, though, it all gets a little out of hand and we get a perhaps unnecessary wildness. But the result is still an excellent Marvel film that attempts to test whether audiences would be able to stomach a comic book movie that's a little more serious in addition to the already slightly corny antics. Personally, I appreciate this approach much more than the goofing around in Thor. (27.07.2018)

Es ist definitiv nicht das beste Stück aus dem Hause Marvel, wobei in diesem Hype die Politik eine große Rolle spielt, die mir übrigens vollends gut vorkommt, als ob Ihnen ein schwarzer Junge aus dem Ghetto ein Märchen erzählt, das er als Kind gehört hat. T'Challa ist für MCU-Verhältnisse ein bewundernswert bescheidener MCU-Charakter. Tony Stark wurde von Lastern befreit und mit einer Mischung an Shakespeare und dem König der Löwen infiziert. Dieser Streifen wirkt bezaubernd naiv und erfrischend, denn im Gegensatz zu anderen Marvel-Kreationen widmet sich Black Panther tatsächlich den Charakteren, und zum Beispiel der charismatische Jordan als Bösewicht ist hier besser dargestellt als die meisten seiner Konkurrenten. Black Panther wiederum minimiert die MCU-Welt und kürzt ihre kosmische Dimension weg. Eigentlich geht es hier lediglich um sehr vertraute und aktuelle Probleme und im Zuge dessen klingt dies als umso größeres Märchen und als Flucht aus. In gewisser Hinsicht hat hier Coogler seine schwarze Trilogie abgeschlossen, in welcher die Charaktere der schwarzen Heiligen entstehen. In Fruitvale wurden seine Bemühungen durch den sozialen Realismus untergraben, in Creed durch viele Klischees, wobei Black Panther trotz all diesen Problemen mit dem Tempo und Tricks als sein überzeugendster Film ausfällt. Es ist schade, dass die Schnittarbeit hier nicht etwas scharfkantiger ausfällt und der Hip-Hop-Soundtrack nicht effizienter genutzt wird. Ansonsten ist dieser fibelähnliche Afrofutourismus ein in der Tat sehr angenehmer Begleiter. Ein Film, der an eine bessere Welt glaubt, und dass manchmal derjenige ein Superheld ist, der einfach selbstlos etwas für die Gemeinschaft tut. Politische Korrektheit? Ich sage nur gesunder Menschenverstand. (13.02.2018)

Six visits to the cinema and the first full score. I may be going against the tide, but for me, Black Panther is the most interesting and best Marvel movie since Winter Soldier. I haven't been a fan of Marvel movies much lately (Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy or the new childish Thor, which I downright suffered through), but Black Panther set my favorite serious, dark thriller tone and took away more or less everything that bothered me so far. There's no CGI Mess, just the gorgeous and impressive Wakanda, the villain is not an alien or mutant but a human, and right off the bat we have the best villain in the entire Marvel Universe, who also has a different plan than everyone else so far (Michael B. Jordan was incredible), and I can actually praise Andy Serkis, who was reminiscent of the Joker in his awesomeness. It's not fought in space or on an alien planet or dimension, but in Korea or Africa and it immediately feels not only more real, but more intense. The R&B and Hip Hop soundtrack is a big plus and the new track by The Weeknd, which was played in a local bar, was a real treat. I have only minor reservations about the action, and that's the faster editing, but it's intense and effective enough that I was able to enjoy it to the fullest. The finale is decently epic and tense, the characters are all great, the female cast also excels, the Rihanna-lookalike sister of the Panther was very funny, cute and technologically gifted, M'Baku provided funny interludes that were totally apt and appropriate and I really liked the African rituals, costumes and traditions. After a second viewing, the enthusiasm has waned. (16.02.2018)

I hope I won’t be called a racist if I express my contentment with a film where the only white guys are two Hobbits ;). The rather serious and the comment-on-world-problems style suits the Panther, it is clear that the roots lie in the Civil War which reemerges here. Coogler knows how to take the right stance and Michael Jordan’s Killmonger cashes in on this in an interesting variation on the anti-hero. Boseman just reinforces his position after his great debut in the third Captain and his T’Challa scores him points at his home (the great storyline about his sister). A leisurely start up with an excellent chase in South Korea easily beats the opulent fight in the finale, which maybe unnecessarily relies on the tried and tested. It certainly won’t disappoint – it just won’t surprise. The visuals are fantastic. Wakanda is fantastic and I can’t wait to take another look at her. The music by Ludwig Göranssonon is a chapter in itself, bristling with Africa and beating to modern black rhythms. Luckily there is just a bare minimum of rap and generally don’t disturb. WAKANDA FOREVER! (15.02.2018)

Sie kennen die Rhetorik. Marvel-Fanboy schreit DC-Fanboy an, dass seine Helden in der Realität verankert sind. Es ist unmöglich, jemandem die Daumen zu drücken, der so reich ist wie Bruce Wayne, so göttlich wie Diana von Themyscira oder wie Mirek Dušín als Superman. Und dann hat der Marvel-Fanboy plötzlich ein afrikanisches Atlantis mit einem Kronprinzen in der Hauptrolle. Hm. (29.12.2018)

Black hasn't been this cool in a long time. The boys and girls at Marvel seem to have understood that a watered-down save-the-world story with a ton of visual effects best applied to the destruction of a major American city wouldn’t hold up again, or at least not until the next Avengers (who imho pull a slightly different strand of entertainment). So they decided to be smart about it and use the current geopolitical issue of refugees to their advantage, and crammed national and racial disparities into a cool heroic story full of moral values and fine ideas, spiced it up with a healthily ambitious plot. It might not be the best Marvel flick, because Avengers, with Captain America will pummel it with all those cool dudes and a plethora of TOP figures on one set, but it is certainly one of the smartest comic book movies. Plus, with heroes who, strangely enough, don't want to destroy the world, but to liberate it. (19.02.2018)

Wieder eine sehr erfrischende Comicshow. Der Hauptschauplatz ist Afrika. Die Ausstattung entspricht den Erwartungen und ist wunderschön. Dem Publikum werden viele super Ideen präsentiert, wie man Folklore mit Science-Fiction verbinden kann. Außerdem hilft dem Film die perfekte Musik von Ludwig Göransson – es ist vielleicht der einfallsreichste Soundtrack von allen Marvel-Filmen. T’Challa hat uns ausreichend Civil War vorgestellt. Deshalb kann dort die Geschichte reibungslos anknüpfen. Und obwohl sie eigentlich über die Geburt eines weiteren Superhelden erzählt, macht sie das wenigstens ziemlich originell, auf ihre eigene Art und Weise und mit tollen Schauspieler*innen. (16.02.2018)

Black Panther surprised me. I was worried it would be a scruffy hybrid of the Avenger's colourfulness and mandatory ethnic lecturing to a wider (two billion-strong) audience, but it ended up being one of the MCU's most accomplished entries. The story has a brisk pace, the viewer is thoughtfully introduced to the new world and its possibilities, the balance between serious approach and momentary lightness works perfectly, and above all there is a great and reasonably motivated villain, whose gradual involvement in the game, when he gets to speak at the expense of the previous numero ono villain, is flawless and unparalleled in the Marvel universe. Two hours flowed like water and if there's anything I didn't like (and I did), it's rather small things – namely a few plot holes (the heavy simplification of the capture of Ulysses, who had been on the run for about 30 years; the implausible psychological transformation of W'Kabi; the transparency of the plot despite a narrative based on explanatory flashbacks). Otherwise, though, high blockbuster quality with a couple of witty James Bond references, good actors (especially Serkis, Jordan and, again, the entertaining Freeman), clear action often in long takes and a likeable script that presents Wakanda not as a sexy bimbo introduced for a brief appearance in Infinity War, but as an immersive backdrop to a self-contained plot whose rules the viewer willingly accepts and is swept along by (the duel for the throne is the most emotionally powerful in a long time). Bring in the sequel. 80% (07.09.2018)

If Captain America was the first avenger, then Black Panther is the first avenger without a pinch of charisma. (31.05.2018)

All the blackness aside, it's actually a pretty typical Marvel creation with all the slow waxing of boredom and laziness over generic visuals and impassioned speeches. I guess it's understandable, since young black folks would also like to have a hero they can identify with in the Marvel universe, so they really only had to do the same thing they did before, except in inverted colors. Fine, but it's still a chore and I can't stop marveling at how little it takes to satisfy people. Namely, the protagonist has no character, he functions like a hero in FPS video games so that as many people as possible can project themselves into him. It pretends to be a humanistic story, but the whole thing is an elitist quest where members of the nobility solve their problems somewhere in a country we know nothing about because the film has no interest in telling us about it. This detachment from reality is probably already just a projection of the real detachment of the filmmakers, who only know the outside world from Facebook, so we can at least entertain the fact that whenever the camera decides to go somewhere down among the working people, there are always farmers' markets on that street, whether we're in the US, South Korea, or Wakanda. It's great how this builds up the illusion after the fact that while the main characters, who never eat and always look worried, have to worry about the big problems for all of us, while the everyday people down below are actually doing nothing but shopping and idling. And these are things that I might not have needed to think about if, at least in my eyes, the expectations of a comic book blockbuster had been met and there hadn't been only two and a half action scenes (of which only one is actually any fun anyway) for 134 minutes of running time. But the five white swans always fly reliably between the buildings in the panoramic scenes. So my advice: watch the first two installments of Blade and instead of the third, which sucks, watch Django Unchained, and then you'll understand what a properly fearless African-American should look like. And I'm advising you from the proven position of a European white guy with mixed Jewish blood and a not-so-bad salary, so you can't go wrong. If you have a problem with that, I can hire a black man to say it for me. Nudge nudge wink wink wink. (17.05.2018)

Ich habe mit Erfolg alle für einen Oscar als bester Film nominierten Streifen gesehen, die zwei obligatorischen afroamerikanischen Quotenfilme habe ich mir für den Schluss aufgehoben. Bei Aufstieg des schwarzen Panthers habe ich mich dreißig Minuten lang schwer gelangweilt und gebarmt, ob ich es wohl über die gesamte Länge aushalte, doch zum Glück entwickelte sich der Film dann auf interessante Weise, und von den schwarzen Schönheiten war mehr zu sehen als bei BlacKkKlansman. Trotzdem aber bin ich der Ansicht, dass es nicht abwegig wäre, das Drehbuch zusammenzustreichen, schöne Landschaften kann man auch in naturwissenschaftlichen Dokumentarfilmen genießen. (24.02.2019)

This is a film that definitely manages to attract attention with its concept of focusing on Africa, on a black hero, and it has its own specifics and it doesn't cram other superheroes in unnecessarily, which might break the continuity a bit, but it actually doesn't really matter. The actors were well chosen and there are some excellent action scenes. (06.03.2018)