2/10

Rating: 2/10 (30 March 2018)

What needed work:
There are no accidents in the characters which the writers portrayed in this film. Once you see that each character in the film is illustrating a piece of the modern race conflict narrative, you can't unsee it, and for me---it soured the an otherwise great plot & movie.
Erik Killmonger's words near the end, "Throw me into the ocean with my ancestors" pointed to a lamentable world of self-pity that so many live in today, and demonstrated a great disrespect for the value of life. It made me sick to my stomach that the directors chose not to redeem his character in any substantial way in the denouement of the movie.
Take a moment and ask of the screenplay writers, "What message are you trying to communicate through Erik's despair of life itself?" Is the answer for the modern black male to simply "give up"?? Isn't it rather to rise up, and above one's situation? So----why not allow Erik to work through the issues, and see past the history, and into a brighter future?
Lastly, racially charged terms were an unfortunate addition to a superhero movie.
"Dumb farmers" "Colonizers" "Slaves". Just don't go there. It added *nothing* to the movie for me to hear these demeaning terms.
What I liked:
Extremely high quality acting throughout... AMAZING choice of talent.
I love how the underlying values of Enlightenment, Community and working together came through very strong in the film. I loved how the final scene back in Oakland, California with the boys playing hoops "bookended" the opening scene nicely.
Great character development throughout. Moments of imminent peril were grabbing, but glimmers of hope breaking through provided relief at every turn.