BLAH PANTHER

Image Courtesy- IMDb

Archie (WhatsApp friend ;)) is very serious about films. Besides Bob, she is my other source of information on the latest movie releases. My movie plans revolve around Archie’s seasoned critique. She is the ‘recommender of movies’, ‘maker of plans’ and ‘booker of tickets’ (sometimes gets the theatre wrong but you can’t hold that against the Maker) and despite all this, I went ahead and watched the Black Panther even when Archie said that the movie was just average. Could she be wrong? The movie has been setting milestones and is apparently the highest grossing superhero movie.

Though I like the DC comic superheroes better, I prefer watching the Marvel movies. So when Shugz and Hershey asked me if I wanted to watch the movie, I tagged along.

30 minutes into the movie, I looked at Hershey who looked super engrossed. I waited for 5 more minutes and then hesitatingly asked her if she could understand what was happening. “Not a clue (or should I say Klaue :D)”she said.

(NO SPOILERS) Here is the storyline of the movie (I shall refrain from calling it the Plot because the movie lacks one!): The film begins with the ‘birth’ (figuratively) of the Black Panther and the coming together of the Jabari Tribe to form ‘Wakanda’- a nation that portrays itself as a Third World Country to the world, that irrationally refuses foreign aid but is in fact years ahead of its counterparts in technology and refrains from aiding other countries despite having the capacity to do so.

The source of this technological advancement is Vibranium, a metal available exclusively in Wakanda, that is used in almost everything – fidget spinner like flying saucer, kinetic energy absorbing ‘panthersuit’, running trains to healing broken vertebrae and turning otherwise gentle rhinos to beasts of war.

The vibranium falls into the wrong hands, an illegal arms-dealer, Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis) and  King T’Chaka’s brother (Sterling Brown) is accused of having helped him steal it.  

Post T’Chaka’s death, his son T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) inherits the throne. He is accompanied by his side-kicks, Okoye (Danai Gurira), the leader of his army of bodyguards and his ex-lover, Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o).

Klaue steals a Wakandan artefact made of Vibranium from a museum with help from Erik Stevens (Michael Jordan) and plans on selling it to a CIA operative, Everett Ross (Martin Freeman). T’Challa along with Okoye and Nakia head to South Korea to extract the Vibranium before it’s sold and also bring back Klaue to Wakanda for justice. The plan goes awry with Klaue escaping, only to be killed later by Erik Stevens.

Erik goes to Wakanda with Klaue’s corpse and gains the support of a tribe there and defeats T’Challa in the ritualistic fight for the throne. Skipping the why’s and the how’s as that would reveal the “plot” (for lack of a better word), the story follows with attempts made to restore the rightful heir to the throne.

Here is why I was disappointed with the movie:

1.      Did you see Forest Whitaker mentioned in the storyline above? Well, guess what, he’s there in the movie. The movie has an ensemble of brilliant actors but unfortunately they either lack sufficient screen time (Brown and Whitaker) or they aren’t ideally suited for the characters being portrayed by them (Freeman and Nyong’o).

2.      Many may disagree but Boseman hasn’t done complete justice to the role of Black Panther. The character just seems so ‘ordinary’, there are no quirks that set him apart.

3.      The movie is a hotchpotch of plots. The story seems to have been written along the way, in an attempt to include all that is required to make a Blockbuster Superhero film and then some more.

4.      While the actor (Jordan) portraying the role of the villain has made a good attempt, the character of the villain itself is not well-etched. All superhero movies need a Super Villain and Eric Stevens is not intimidating enough.

5.      The dialogues lack in creative ingenuity.

The only time the audience hooted was when Stan Lee made his cameo appearance.

Thankfully I hear it’s a non-sequel movie. It goes to show that the makers of the film too didn’t have much confidence in it.