Movie Review: Black Panther, the Africa of our Dreams?

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Movie Review: Black Panther, the Africa of our Dreams?

The just-released movie Black Panther hit the cinemas recently, and the movie, since its premiere has generated lots of reviews, lots of comments, and of course, lots of criticisms. The Marvel movie since its release has beaten every single Billboard record, with an estimated opening value of $235 Million, the movie is looking like a big success for Walt Disney’s Marvel Studio Films.

Black Panther is a 2018 American superhero film based on the comic character of the same name. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the eighteenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). It is directed by Ryan Coogler, written by Coogler and Joe Robert Cole, and stars Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa / Black Panther, alongside Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, and Andy Serkis. In Black Panther, T’Challa returns home as king of Wakanda but finds his sovereignty challenged by a long-time adversary, in a conflict with global consequences.

The plot

The movie generally is seen as many as the utopian African, the Wakanda was referred to many as the Africa of our dreams. The movie for the first time in history has a superhero of Black Origin, this certainly is a defining moment for black America and the black Africa originals. Superhero films starring black actors are not unprecedented before now, like Wesley Snipes’ Blade and Will Smith’s Hancock, along with several others, have been lauded in their own right, but when looked at closely, one could easily find their heroes’ race as “incidental” in contrast to Black Panther’s being “steeped very specifically and purposefully in its blackness.

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This singular act of showcasing blackness according to socio-political pundits will go a long way in shaping the mentality of the average African who is used to a white superhero. Young blacks will finally see heroes that look like them, and this will certainly go a long way in the emancipation of Africa from post-imperialistic tendencies.

Moreover, the Black Panther was a king of a mythical African country where black people were visible in every position in society, soldier, doctor, philosopher, street sweeper, ambassador—suddenly everything was possible. In the space of 2hrs 15mins, black success moved from invisible to inevitable. Black Panther” upholds the same tradition of celebrating strong, assertive black women. At the end of a big rhinoceros battle, a male character submits to Gurira in the film’s single most iconic shot, while an earlier scene in which she tosses aside a bad wig ranks as the most gay-friendly Marvel moment to date.

The film, then, doesn’t shy away from the comic’s political undertones, as Vann Newkirk in The Atlantic deftly draws out in an essay that connects the anti-colonial spirit of Wakanda to pan-African icons like Haile Selassie and Marcus Garvey. Lee and Kirby’s germ of an idea—a highly advanced African world power, so counterintuitive to their Eurocentric, Cold War-era point of view.

Going by the present political scheme of things in the United States, with a president who has been labeled Racist by some group of people, one will wonder why this movie is making so much of a buzz, with the likes of Obama and family trooping out to see the movie and tweeting in support of the movie. One thing is clear Africans have seen renewed hope in their heritage, a new spirit of Pan-Africanism has been automatically triggered by this movie.

Some critics have come out to label the movie as a trailer load of racism. According to them, a movie portraying black culture, black people, and black technology is racist in orientation. The critics are against the too much hype placed on the movie which they say wasn’t close to Avengers. Black Panther’s critics, it must be noted, tend to enjoy politics more than mythology and this looks a bit worrisome. In a nutshell the movie will certainly inspire young Africans to go out there and become heroes of their own stories no matter how dark the people think the story is. There is always a light at the end of the tunnel.