Black Panther is a very modern blockbuster movie with all the special effects you’d expect from any modern Marvel Studios movie.
The combat scenes are rapidly flickering between cameras, while being saturated with special effects depicting impossible things, on top of stuntmen doing fancy tricking moves. This is probably to mask the fact the actors themselves don’t have any real martial arts skills. The special effects are occasionally impressive, but the moves generally lack realistic efficiency which makes for a less impressive experience to the trained eye, and brings headaches to anyone suffering from epilepsy or heightened stress levels.
The dialogue and mannerisms displayed in this movie are clearly attempting to push unintelligent, even belligerent forms of communication as an example for our kids to follow. I would even say much of it is childish, while coming from adult actors, but that would be disrespectful to well raised kids. I don’t think this is a racial thing, because all similar modern high-budget movies and TV shows targeting kids and young adults are doing a similar thing – dumbing down and warping the attitude of our next generation.
Chadwick Boseman does a mediocre job as T’Challa, the lead character in this movie. He’s no Wesley Snipes, but that’s not the end of the world, it’s just a missed opportunity. He has a face for friendly mid-level leadership, but he comes across too demure, too emasculated for a major action hero leadership role. Add this to having an all-female crew of bald-headed warrior guards, and it’s clear the Marvel bosses are enamoured with some kind of gender bender fantasy.
Michael B Jordan (of Creed) does a pretty good job as Erik Stevens aka Killmonger, the main antagonist in this movie – the main rival of T’Challa.
Supporting cast members include Letitia Wright who does a pretty good job as Shuri, the younger sister of T’Challa. Winston Duke does a fair job as the leader of a rival tribe, who eventually joins forces with T’Challa in an effort to overthrow the nasty new leader, Erik Killmonger. Andy Serkis is quite convincing in his role as one of the bad guys – he’s just a bit cheesy with his over-acting, it’s borderline satirical, but that’s probably what this movie calls for considering how the lead character has such dry and disconnected humour, and other characters are often childishly bickering. Danai Gurira puts in a dry yet aggressive performance as Okoye, the main royal guard – she’s about as good as Chadwick Boseman (T’Challa) in this movie – in some scenes they do very well but for the most part they fail to foster an appealing vibe. Danai’s best moment is when she decides to turn on the bad new king, she delivers that performance spot on. Lupita Nyong’o does a decent job as Nakia, the female warrior spy who’s set to marry T’Challa. Daniel Kaluuya does a basic job as the royal right-hand man, leader of the male warrior group and commander of the strange robotic rhinos who appear when he blows his special horn. Martin Freeman does a fair job, as a CIA agent familiar with Wakanda – he brings decent acting but with a face made for juvenile drama, not action heroics – this is perfectly in-keeping with the common flaw of this movie, which is accentuated at the very end when the energetic climax morphs into a bratty pop song as the credits begin to roll. It’s good to see Forest Whitaker (the black FBI agent from Bloodsport) playing a supporting role here – he does a decent job as the tribal elder who officiates the leadership duels and associated rituals. That’s all the significant cast members covered. Overall they range from mediocre to pretty good. Nothing too desperate, but no stunning performances either.