![]() Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia and Letitia Wright as ShuriĮach of Coogler’s three films has been concerned with the legacy of fathers. These words instead become an indictment of the seemingly gracious former king. He is noble, almost to a fault, and in fact one of the film’s few flaws is that he almost never betrays any semblance of moral complexity. A ruthless fighter, Erik sets his sights on the throne, determined to avenge his father and save, in his mind, the oppressed peoples the Wakandans could easily aid but choose to ignore.Įarlier in the film, as part of the coronation ritual, T’Challa visits his dead father in the ‘ancestral plane’ and the dead king tells his son, “It is hard for a good man to be a king.” This pronouncement does not – at least in the current instalment – foreshadow T’Challa’s internal character arc. Erik, like T’Challa, has lost a beloved father, but unlike T’Challa, he grew up poor on the streets of Oakland (a nod to the film’s Oakland-born director). Jordan), who harbours a secret connection to Wakanda. Klaue absconded with a portion of vibranium years ago and murdered the parents of T’Challa’s best friend W’Kabi ( Daniel Kaluuya), but their plans to bring him to justice are thwarted by American black-ops soldier Erik ‘Killmonger’ Stevens ( Michael B. When black-market arms dealer Ulysses Klaue ( Andy Serkis) crosses his radar, T’Challa enlists the help of old flame Nakia ( Lupita Nyong’o), a Wakandan spy, and Okoye ( Danai Gurira), the head of the Dora Milaje, Wakanda’s elite all-female royal guard. With their support, he ascends to the throne as Wakanda’s king and warrior-protector Black Panther, and immediately finds himself at the centre of an age-old battle between tradition and modernity, and more pressingly, between justice and revenge. Still mourning his father, T’Challa returns home to his mother Ramonda (a regal Angela Bassett) and his witty, engineer-savant sister Shuri (Letitia Wright), whose innovative weapon and gadget designs protect her brother and her country. And to their credit, Coogler and Cole embrace these politics wholeheartedly.īlack Panther follows the events of Captain America: Civil War (2016) after the sudden death of King T’Chaka ( John Kani). ![]() It is nearly impossible to divorce Wakanda from its very real neighbours, ripped apart by colonisation and plundered of their natural resources. ![]() The birth of Black Panther in 1966 (created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby) predated the official formation of the American Black Panther Party, but coincided with an era of independence for many African countries. But so much of that heart, so much of what will likely resonate with audiences, cannot be extricated from the immovable politics and inherent implications of a black superhero (though he has been preceded by the Blade trilogy and 2004’s Catwoman, among others). It’s a dynamic, electrifying ride of a film, with balanced measures of comedy, action and heart. To be sure, Black Panther is very much a product of its genre. Thus Black Panther diverges from the tradition of the superhero films that have come before it, films that by their very nature strive to appease, not to offend. ![]() All at once lush and bucolic, urban and futuristic, with gargantuan rhinos and flying spacecraft and, perhaps most importantly, populated by a people of rich tradition, Wakanda soon becomes emblematic of the film’s loftier themes: it’s a tale of home, and so a tale of history, and so a tale that begs for cultural specificity even in its fantastical framework. ![]() In fact, the entirely self-sufficient Wakanda has never been conquered by outside forces and is the most technologically advanced nation in the world thanks to vibranium, a rare sound-absorbent metal, desperately coveted by those aware of its more violent effects. T’Challa / Black Panther Chadwick Boseman ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |