The view from an old, intellectual white guy who isn't into Marvel comix or movies

Rating: 8/10 (1 March 2018)

Browsing user reviews, I see many jaded Marvel aficionados were not impressed by this offering. I would guess most of them are relatively young white guys. Being a relatively old white Star Wars guy, never having read a Black Panther comic and having seen only one X-Men movie (I did read X-Men comix in their early days), I'm looking at Black Panther, the movie, from a very different perspective, one shaped by the Vietnam War and Civil Rights struggles, the long view historical context (e.g., 18th Century colonialism, the self-destruction of four empires in WW1 and the undoing of the remnants of European dominance following WW2, the Cold War, Vietnam, the fall of the USSR, the wrong-headed adventures of US neo-conservatives leading to a destabilized Middle East, and the rise of China as the next superpower), 20th Century rock, cinema and literature, etc. Having found the media hype intriguing, I approached Black Panther with an open mind, viewing it as a standalone expression of pop culture. I would imagine the negative reviewers who panned the film or damned it with faint praise, will view my review as way out of touch. No problem, bring it.
From my vantage point, the film is a tour de force of fantasy action adventure and an audiovisual powerhouse. The costumes alone of the citizens of the small African kingdom of Wakanda are well worth the price of admission. The best of Star Wars has nothing on the special effects. The throbbing African rhythms alternating with hip hop beats and ranks of male and female warriors slamming their spears to the ground in unison keep the viewer in a prolonged state of excitement. The film features a full range of thrills- single combat between heroic African martial artists, armies clashing with primitive weaponry backed up by armored dragonfly air support and tank-like rhinos, high tech cars chasing a convoy of MRAP (mine resistant, ambush protected) SUVs and wreaking havoc on hapless civilian traffic through Seoul, South Korea, dramatic appearances of the superhero, Black Panther, in his transforming body suit that absorbs kinetic energy from various projectiles and channels it back toward criminal aggressors, ultra-high speed trains flashing along elevated tracks through the hidden, futuristic capital of Wakanda, to name a few. Reviewers who think some or all of this is ridiculous are forgetting something: magical realism.
However, the most compelling aspect of Black Panther is the thought-provoking script, brilliantly manifested cinematically though it is. The premise of Black Panther, a hidden paradise of scientifically advanced black Africans disguised as a poor third world backwater in order to prevent everyone else on the planet from realizing what they have and disrupting their idyllic way of life, is an extremely ingenious flipping of the contemporary geo-political reality, i.e., a small set of advanced countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas fending off incursions from the masses of disadvantaged and resentful descendants of oppressed minority groups and colonial subjects who would like to enjoy the health, wealth and opportunities of their current and former masters. In the movie, some of the elite of Wakanda, including a king's brother, are anguished by the plight of their black cousins in Africa as well as the USA. These Wakandans believe their country should use its vast but secret power to intervene on behalf of the oppressed of the world and create a more just global order. The king, a conservative traditionalist, considers this a betrayal and puts a stop to his brother's plans, setting off a generational revenge cycle that threatens to upend Wakanda's idyllically detached society and set their devastating technological power against the ruling princes and oligarchs of the Earth. Unbeknownst to those complacent elites, their fate hangs in the balance as the sons of the old king and his brother face off to determine whether Wakanda will remain a wary but hidden observer of their abuses and machinations or a stalking jungle predator coming to devour them in their sleep.
Perhaps many viewers of Black Panther who respond favorably will enjoy it for its dazzling surface of beauty, action and drama. I certainly did. Those who go a little deeper and consider the ironies and implications of the story it tells (for example, Wakanda's radical anti-immigration and isolationist policies vs. the social conscience of the antagonists), will find food for thought. Is the idealistic resolution of the core conflicts satisfying? You be the judge.