Feel free to review Black Panther as we are in the window. If you’ll be using spoilers, perhaps take precautions such as blacking then out or at the very least, put a disclaimer at the top so people can skim past as needed

Plot spoilers then.

I'd give it a solid 7/10 but this is a first impression. The characters were great, pretty much all of them. I actually think the weakest one was T'Challa himself and then his love interest but they grew over the film while Killmonger was one dimensional sadly and didn't grow from the film. Klaue was the better villain, with more believable simple motivation (greed and grudge, even if he wasn't much like Klaw from the comics), while Killmonger's plot turned to modern American racism issues and not his motivation of revenge against T'Chaka and Wakanda and to me those parts were far more interesting because they helped T'Challa grow and defined T'Chaka.

Oh and Killmonger flew from wherever they were after saving Klaue which they drove to in a van, to the middle of Africa in a plane that has a range of about 500 miles. :P

Just got home from the theater. 

So, when I first saw the Black Panther trailer, I guessed that the final product would be a decent, middle-of-the-road MCU movie.

Then I saw the critical consensus and figured, hey, maybe it's one of the better MCU flicks.

I should have trusted my gut.

Black Panther is an uneven, sporadically-entertaining superhero movie that ends up wasting a lot of potential. I'll start with the good stuff. The cast. This is a rock-solid cast which turns in a great collection of performances. The characters are good too: sympathetic, grounded, engaging. Serkis is amazingly slimy as Klaue. The costume design is extraordinary. Some of the action is good, particularly the Korean shoot-out and the one-on battle between BP and Killmonger. The latter is personal and violent, and the stakes are super high. The mechanical structure of the plot was nice. Lots of set-ups and pay-offs. That's mechanically though, not thematically. More on that below. Finally, the soundtrack was excellent.

So, what's the bad? This movie doesn't exactly know what it is. For the first hour or so, it feels kind of like a Bond movie. Sinister villain. Globe-trotting adventure. Car chases and fire fights. Then we get more of a family drama and political thriller in the back half. As a result, many of the themes the movie introduces (which are rich and relevant, mind you) don't get enough time to develop. I absolutely love the idea of a monarch loyal to his nation and an interloper loyal to his racial identity clashing over the throne. Whenever there's a struggle between two people that's informed by ideological differences, the struggle tends to be a lot more interesting -- see The Dark Knight. Yet the screenplay doesn't let that idea breathe. Another theme -- the notion that kingship doesn't suit a good man -- is likewise left unpacked.

In addition, some of the action is clumsy and unconvincing, due in large part to the movie's biggest sin: compositing. As the credits were rolling, I was tempted to jot down the names of the compositing team to write them personally and tell them all they ways they disappointed me over the last 120 minutes. Most of these MCU movies look really good. In terms of VFX, green screen, and compositing, Black Panther looked bad. I was constantly thrown out of the fantasy of the movie by seeing real-life actors in what looked at times like a cartoon. Seriously, this is unacceptable in a major Hollywood production. It wasn't X-Men: Apocalypse awful, but it was pretty darn bad.

Gonna go with a 6/10 for this one. 

Critics are adoring it, doesn't mean it's a great film. Just look at The Last Jedi, it got overall good reviews but was filed with issues, missed opportunities and didn't conform to what fans wanted. That said this is not a bad film, far from it, it's a good film, very entertaining, well worth the watch and your time. Mainly thanks for the characters and their protrayal of their roles.

I think some people just hate 'SJW' films.

"What was that? a movie that has something of importance to say about diversity/sexism/etc? this is a personal attack on traditional values! I MUST DOWNVOTE IT!"

Or, you know, critics know what they're talking about and the public are comprised of fools. I mean, Trump was elected democratically, there must be a lot of stupid people out there.

Critics are smarter than you. You're entitled to your opinion, but it's sort of their JOB to identify good filmmaking. It's their job to spot originality and good storytelling. It's their job to reward unique story structure.

Fans didn't like a lot about that movie - and some of the complaints were valid - but I trust a film critic before joe shmoe transformers lover any day of the week. 

Having issues editing spoilers out on phone. Will re-post it tomorrow

Oh god. I just realized, upon reading Doc's review, that the one-on-one fight I reference in my review could be misinterpreted as the final CGI-heavy fight. I meant the BP/Killmonger fight on the waterfall -- NOT the battle on the train tracks that looks like a PS3 cut-scene.

Heh, I can't wait to get my hands on my PC to write a review of Black Panther and why I still think it was fucking amazing. Like The Last Jedi, by the way (sorry, I couldn't resist to talk about it once I've read some negative comments about it xD).

I'm in the professional reviewers' bandwagon with both of them.

Or Hilary wasn't elected, so there must be a lot of smart people out there. Both sides and all.

OT - BP was awesome!