I really ended up loving this movie, to the point where I think I would rank it among my all-time favorite Marvel movies, which is honestly a little harder to determine than you’d think!
Still, Top 5 ain’t nothing to be ashamed of in the MCU, as far as I’m concerned… 😉
A few of my own personal highlights:
- Seeing Randall from This is Us as King T’Chaka’s brother was a bit of a surprise!
- Having T’Challa’s sister in the Q from James Bond role was a little odd at first, but by the end surprisingly satisfying.
- …and the Back to the Future reference was wonderful. 😉
- Having to get stripped of the powers of the Black Panther every time someone challenges you for the throne seems like it would be a big pain in the ass…
- And lastly, I ended up liking Agent Ross a lot more by the end of this movie … because I don’t know about you, but I really hated him by the end of Civil War.
It was kind of funny because I knew going into this movie that there were somehow multiple Black Panthers because I had seen a photo of the Erik Killmonger Funko Pop where he’s wearing the gold bedazzled panther suit and I was pretty sure that Killmonger wasn’t the name of the good version!
So it was certainly painful to see him reappear and steal the throne away from T’Challa, but of course deep down we knew that one way or another the real Black Panther would one day rise again. 😉
Another thing that I really liked about this movie was just how many inferences could be made to modern day politics if you wanted to look at it in that light, from debates about whether Wakanda’s resources should be used to help the rest of the world versus just keeping them for themselves to later wanting to weaponize those same resources to conquer the world. One quote stood out to me as more relevant than any – “In times of crisis, the wise build bridges while the foolish build barriers…”
…remind you of any wall-loving presidential figure in particular???
I wasn’t sure where this one was going to fall and we ended up going to see it very much on a whim when my visiting sister-in-law offered to stay home after the kids went to bed so we could sneak out – it ended up being a very well done film with plenty of emotion, rich characters who put a new spin on the usual agents and soldiers that we typically see in superhero movies, and I think it did a great job of filling us in on the backstory for Black Panther so we’ve got a little more to go by next month when we see him and the rest of the gang team up against Thanos in Infinity War!
Granted, that’s one thing I would’ve liked to see – even if just in the end credits scene – was another teaser for Infinity War, aside from the quick vignette with Bucky. I was kind of disappointed that the actual trailer didn’t run before this movie because we seemed to get lots of other great superhero and generic action movies in the mix.
Great movie. It’s definitely earned all of its box office records, including more than $1 BILLION in gross worldwide ticket sales?! Wakanda Forever. 😀