An action-packed slog

Rating: 5/10 (16 February 2018)

Much as Wonder Woman is unlikely to significantly improve gender equality, I also doubt Black Panther will have a long-term impact on racial equality. Maybe each showing for Black Panther could be pre-empted by a showing of I am Not Your Negro, although that documentary is miserably lacking in the explosions and stabbings which fill Black Panther.
There are a lot of fights in Black Panther, a lot of them where light is lacking, making the whirlwind attacks difficult to parse, confusing to discern, and baffling to ingest. There are calls to action coupled with critiques of isolationism, a couple of astral projections, and several Black Panthers. With the Q-like Shuri helping improve tech gadgetry, a better title might have been Vibraniumfinger.
Black Panther lacks the fun of other Marvel fare like Deadpool or Spider-Man: Homecoming, maybe intentionally so, with awkward jokes peppered in a just the wrong moments, trying to bring light-heartedness into dire situations and uncomfortable realities. If the world outside is one of unjustly oppressed people, the world inside is only as just as the strongest, most enlightened, and physically fittest autocrat.
We learn that bad power leads to oppression, and good power leads to good oppression, but only if used properly and respectfully. Blind loyalty to a power structure keeps the system intact, and there are definitely things They do not want Us to know.