Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Sterling K. Brown, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, Andy Serkis, Florence Kasumba, John Kani, Stan Lee.
It has taken time to get the film right, to put into place a mainstream film in which, not with-standing the excellent Wesley Snipes led Blade trilogy of films, has cast a superhero in which the cinematic experience is one of overwhelming joy, of learning the lessons shared with positive enlightenment and one that does not bow to the demands of absolute anger, Black Panther is a film in which the rise of the proud and the noble who have fought every inch of the way for such a moment will relish, and quite rightly so.
It is a welcome also for Michael B. Jordan to be able to have a role that is as meaty as it is relishing in its anger as Erik Killmonger, a role that brings out the very best in the actor, style, substance and elegance, and one that might make some, if not all cinema goers and fans of the superhero franchises forget the travesty that embroiled itself in the reckless and dismal Fantastic Four reboot.
In Marvel’s Black Panther, he squares off with dynamic ferocity against the traditions of his past and the anger in which his character has become accustomed to, his sense of self divided but sincere loyalty is tested to both his fellow man and the hatred towards a system that has abused people of colour for generations. To capture this raw emotion, to place it against the gentle but powerful feeling emanating from Chadwick Boseman’s King T’Challa/Black Panther, is to hopefully understand the resentment the west has caused but also the hope that building bridges between societies and different backgrounds can achieve.
One does not right the wrongs of the past by causing further disharmony, by waging war on those who had no say in the ways of the past, one can only hope that education, friendship, can lead to a greater and mutual understanding in which the sins, whilst not forgotten, can at least be forgiven.
With outstanding contributions by Martin Freeman as Everett K. Ross, the versatile Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klaue, Letitia Wright as the King’s younger but tech-savvy sister and the ever superb Forest Whittaker, to whom there is no boundaries to his acting prowess, Black Panther is not just a superhero film in which to enjoy, it is a message that comes out of the very ideals of Martin Luther King, of the determination of Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin, of activists in equality everywhere that the film is as delightful as it is important to have got right, to have struck the tone of the argument with ferocity and kindness in place.
A film that goes beyond impact, which reaches out past the superhero genre and delivers keenly the passion for all life, which does not shy away from showing that colour is no bar to what is right and what is wrong, a phenomenon.
Ian D. Hall