Black Panther

Spoilers!

After a stellar introduction in Civil War, Chadwick Boseman gets his time in the spotlight as T'Challa, the king of the secretive country of Wakanda, and the legendary Black Panther. But his solo outing is a character downgrade from his brief but compelling turn in the Captain America movie.

Maybe I'm just tired of Marvel movies. I mean, I am tired of Marvel movies. But I don't think that's the only problem here.

I guess the Russo Brothers are to blame. They did too good a job giving T'Challa an outstanding arc, and developing him into a king worthy of his throne. And where do you go from there? Well the movie backtracks a bit, deciding that he's not officially king yet, and the way Wakanda works is basically any Wakandan can challenge his kingship. They do battle, and the winner gets to be king. (Yes, Wakanda is meant to be an advanced civilization hundreds of years ahead of the rest of the world, and yes, whoever is physically strongest gets to be king.)

So T'Challa is challenged, and he wins. Alright, he's king. Then suddenly it's a James Bond movie and T'Challa's upbeat and charming sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) is Q, the tech girl. She outfits the confirmed Black Panther, and he goes out with his love interest Nakia (the incredibly gorgeous Lupita Nyong'o) and his bodyguard Okoye (Danai Gurira) to capture Klaue (Andy Serkis) who just popped up on their radar. But Agent Ross (Martin Freeman) is also there and also wants Klaue. After a pretty cool chase scene T'Challa gets him, but instead of blowing the joint with the prize, he hands Klaue over to Ross, and inevitably, he escapes.

Obviously this is from the 007 portion of the film.

Then the real bad guy Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) starts his play, and the movie transitions into the plot of The Lion King. Erik is a citizen of Wakanda, the son of T'Challa's uncle, who was killed by T'Challa's father when he turned bad and tried to kill Forest Whitaker. They left Erik behind to grow up American, so now he wants revenge and to be king to prevent other children from having to grow up as he did. He's also stronger than T'Challa. So he challenges, T'Challa accepts because that's what's done -- though he knows who he is and what his intentions are -- and he loses the fight, and gets thrown over a cliff to his apparent death.

Everyone's devastated but they can't do anything about it -- Killmonger is now king fair and square, and no one does anything about it because this is an advanced civilization, and the tradition of kingship revered and respected. Nah, forget that. The Queen Mother (Angela Bassett), Nakia, Shuri, and Ross steal a magic flower that gives the Black Panther powers, and take it to the guy who challenged T'Challa at the beginning of the movie, hoping that he will use the power to overthrow their rightful king. But surprise! T'Challa is there! Some fishermen pulled him out of the river, and he's in a coma but alive. They give him the flower, he gets his power back, they go do battle, he defeats Erik, the end.

Thus Erik is decidedly more compelling than T'Challa. So good for him, but I kinda wanted the film's hero to be compelling too, or else why would we care if he wins?

Cool, so -- what's the problem with this? Look at all the choices T'Challa makes. He accepts all challenges to his throne; to save face he doesn't keep Klaue for himself; he's unconscious for the entire portion of his "exile," and then he's saved by other characters. His character isn't changed when he fights Killmonger the second time, but somehow he still beats him. Basically, he's a doormat, and spends the whole movie being upstaged by more interesting characters. He does skirt round the issue of whether Wakanda should share their technology with the rest of the world, and finally decides that they should, but I was never convinced of his belief in the argument against it. So that message comes across, but it doesn't do much for the character.

Now, I don't have anything against a movie plotting itself after The Lion King. I like The Lion King. The problem I have is that the plot plays out in a way that diminishes the lead character instead of highlighting him as it should. I keep thinking that only if we had followed him over that cliff and if he had been forced to survive, empower himself, and return, all on his own volition, then he would have been so much more compelling. Also, other characters blame him for mistakes that are debatably not his fault, but if he ever blames himself for anything, we never get to know. He never has an inner struggle with himself. This method of character development is extremely ineffective and lazy to me.

SIIIIMBAAA. REMEMBER WHO YOU AAARE.

Practically all the other characters are more compelling than T'Challa, which is as amazing as it is sad, but I'm just going to talk about Erik. See, we feel for him because he was abandoned to a hard life, but he did still murder... well, at least one person. And he wasn't a very nice king. But he's sympathetic, so when he's dying and T'Challa has the technology to save him, he declares that he wants to die, and T'Challa lets him. In order for T'Challa to show strength in that scene he would have saved him no matter what he wanted, but he made an understandable choice because it was compassionate and we feel for Erik. But as a result, the scene -- the movie's most powerfully effective -- serves Erik, not T'Challa. Scene by scene, throughout the film, T'Challa always comes out the least developed, least characterized character.

It seems like the worst criticism you can possibly give this movie is that it's an average Marvel movie, but unfortunately, that's what it is. Wakanda is a visually unusual place with a neat culture, and there are some great design elements, but that's just frosting; something with which every Marvel film differs. The cake underneath is still the same Marvel-flavored production-line vanilla. The CGI is passable if you don't look too close. Action sequences are typical with one or two memorable moments each. Black Panther lacks any distinct fighting style, and doesn't even run fast in the entire movie. Again, Civil War set the bar too high with action sequences that required an amount of effort this film wasn't willing to put in.

Fight scenes in water are automatically cool. Better choreography and filming could have made it amazing.

The dialogue is uninspired. Brought back from the dead, all T'Challa can think to say is "Can I have a blanket?" There are a few solid jokes and I especially liked Shuri's sharp, lighthearted bantering attitude. But, there are at least two dramatic/powerful moments that are ruined by inserting mood-killing dumb jokes. Worst was when a rhino licks Okoye's face. That isn't even funny, and it killed the coolness of that moment for her. Whoever decided that that these moments of bathos should be the Marvel standard of hilarious needs to wake up and smell the audience disengaging from the scene. It works as in-the-moment entertainment every time, but keeps any kind of emotion from having staying power beyond five seconds. 

Black Panther has its entertaining times as it strolls along in a predictable direction. It gets its themes across with admirable subtlety, and boasts a memorable and talented cast. It goes through the motions of ups and downs with fight scenes in the correct places, drama in the correct places, jokes in the "correct" places. It's got cool tech that's convenient to the plot, and world-building that does a fantastic job distracting from a surprisingly lackluster style. There's nothing really wrong with it, except that it's not at all exceptional, as it claims to be. It's average. This is exactly what Marvel is now; well-manufactured, generic entertainment.

I really don't hate this film at all. I'm just bored of Marvel's movie-by-committee shenanigans.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm crazy or heartless, when I don't love well-loved movies like this, but then I watch a film that does engage me, and the quality difference is clear. For whoever this movie does work for, I say good on you; relish it. As for me, I'm not disappointed, and I'm not impressed. I was hoping T'Challa's previously established character of quiet, powerful authority and sleek fighting techniques could be recreated for his solo rein, but the result falls short. Just another competently entertaining superhero blockbuster, Black Panther fits in perfectly with its Marvel peers, exploring another new corner of the broad universe; but has left me about as indifferent as a hunk of Vibranium.

Arrival

Spoiler-free.

Based on the novella The Story of Your Life, Arrival asks the question, "if aliens made contact with Earth, how would we respond, really, and how might it change us?" Amy Adams is Louise, an exceptionally talented linguist who lives a sad and lonely life. When mysterious alien ships appear around the globe, she is hired by the US military to figure out how to communicate with them, in order to learn their intentions.

Directed by the subtly stylish Denis Villeneuve.

Jeremy Renner is Ian, a scientist hired to work with her, and their handler is Forest Whitaker, but the story belongs to Louise. The story is two-fold: a realistic and politically influenced speculation into how an extraterrestrial crisis would be handled, and a character drama, exploring Louise's personal makeup, her relationship with the aliens, and how they affect her journey as she struggles to understand them. Both sides have their points of appeal, and elements that stand on shaky ground.

On the technical side, the appeal lies in the obstacles to overcome in order to understand a species with which humans have almost nothing in common. Where would you even begin that kind of endeavor? Arrival presents a lot of realistic and impressive solutions that fans of real-science science fiction would appreciate. The promise of this was what interested me in the film in the first place. The downside comes from the politics embedded within. It would have been impossible to go completely without politics with the direction the story took; only, in a handful of moments, the film itself offered opinions, instead of simply relaying those of the characters who inhabit it. I was taken out of the immersion of the film a handful of times as a result.

There's a subtle difference between a movie having an opinion and a movie portraying an opinion. I always prefer the latter.

On the side of personal drama came a lot of unexpected enjoyment since the trailers never gave anything away on the subject. But the film itself starts with it -- full force. Amy Adams does a good job in the dramatic role, keeping her downtrodden and anxious character engaging in spite of depressing attributes. My sympathy towards Louise, however, was much stronger in the scenes that lean toward science, as she solves problems using smarts in the style of Mark Watney. Each new discovery and well-earned step forward sparked significantly more satisfaction in me than watching her in the emotional moments in between.

Her emotional journey is, however, equally as important to the film as the more apparent obstacle. The two eventually tie together significantly, as we know it will from the beginning, and the film is completed. The mysteries are twisty but not too complex, revealed in gradual stages; the three in my group all "figured it out" at different points in the film. The slow reveal of the truth worked well with the film's tone which constantly loomed depressed and sluggish. The mystery, the muted suspense, and the steady supply of mind-bending half-twists kept the film from becoming boring, although I did wish it would hurry up once or twice.

Watching this film is like having your mind blown in slow motion.

Jeremy Renner's natural energy also did a lot to help boost the film, and was constantly glad he was there. Ian also gets his due moments of impressive intellect, and the most involving pure-character aspect of the film was the slowly developing dynamic between him and Louise. The extraterrestrials themselves, their culture, and the human's learning of it were by far the most creative and compelling aspects the film had to offer. When they connect, this is the side of the story that informs the emotional, human journey, and in the places where they intersect the film hits a sweet spot of cerebral sci-fi that is thoroughly mesmerizing.

Then things get complicated, but at the same time, very simple; the story informed itself, essentially building a prison around itself with its own story. There were aspects I thought changes would have improved, but those were things that were impossible to change because their existence allowed for the story's existence, which in turn dictated their existence. It created a loop impossible to escape from. I don't see it as flaw, since the self-constrained story does work and make sense within the space it allows itself to occupy; only it didn't satisfy me as much as it was meant to. Its theme, its message, as finished and complete as they could possibly be, was still limited.

I think this movie is an actual paradox...

Arrival asks big questions, and thinks up creative answers for them. It's a thinking man's science fiction, but still understandable for novices to the genre. Its premise is wholly new, and the direction taken with it is certainly down a path less worn. The story is complete and well-rounded, filmed with dull, gritty beauty, acted with feeling, written with intelligence; simply, it is proficiently and artistically built. What exists within those well-built walls is more open for interpretation.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Major Spoilers.

In the first non-Episode Star Wars film, we jump back in time to just before the legendary events of Episode 4, where Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) an every-girl with a tragic childhood and a cold attitude shaped by it becomes a key piece in the Rebellion's increasingly desperate attempts to fight back against the evil Empire.

Directed by Godzilla's Gareth Edwards

Testing the waters outside of the lines that have been in place for so long, there's bound to be a misstep or two. Rogue One hits all the checkpoints of a successful, entertaining film, but going deeper, it gets more complicated. There are some undeniably great aspects, and some arguably bad ones, and it's all mixed together.

As I see it, the foundation of the movie's main problems is this: it's an emotional and personal story, but is told too much like it's an action blockbuster. For comparison, that was the appropriate way to tell The Force Awakens. Even though it had many important, personal aspects to it, it was, at heart, a space epic, and was told as such. Rogue One is at heart an intimate story; a character journey. On a larger scale we already know what will happen; what we need to see is Jyn, her emotional journey and the things that she cares for.

...the people she cares for.

And when the film does focus small, it's exactly what it should be, inherently darker, but never less than the Star Wars level of engaging. But it doesn't always do that, getting distracted, giving in to the temptation to be big, and epic, and then using the characters only to drive the plot. Then useless things start to fill the run time. Like cameos and winking references. Some of them fun additions, but narratively they gunked up the works. Even Darth Vader, who I enjoyed seeing again in spite of apprehensions. CGI Leia and Tarkin could have been cut completely, and not only because the effects (impressive as they were) were distracting. Even the excellent battle scenes could've been cut back, when not relating directly to the individual characters.

And unfortunately, when the film forgets about its heroine, she doesn't come across well. When we don't get to focus on understanding her, she comes across as one-dimensional; just a tough girl in a bad mood. I loved the brief glimpses we got of her vulnerabilities -- her nightmares of being abandoned, her cynical resistance to feel anything, or the scene where her father dies. But those things weren't developed to complete her arc. The framework was all there, especially in her fear on abandonment, but it wasn't explored and filled in enough for us to feel the full impact when her friends never abandon her. To show her issues resolve.

Forget the action; I want to see some relationships growing.

I'm being hard on character with this movie because all the characters die. It would have been different if they had lived. Even without a sequel, we would know that they continue to grow and change. At the very least Jyn's death needed to be the final piece of closure for her arc. In retrospect I can see that her journey was completed technically, if you fill in some gaps with assumption, but it felt unresolved at the time. I should be able to go back a second time and experience everything properly, but that doesn't mean it's not a flaw.

Normally, I'll guard myself from emotion in films, but I expected the deaths going in, and was constantly preparing myself to embrace the sadness; ready to be moved. I wanted this film to break my heart but, busy and distracted, it didn't linger in the sadness long enough to fully affect me. Every time I'd start to tear up the scene changed to something not sad. That being said, the sadness that was there didn't feel manipulative, but natural, and easy to fall into. It is a sad movie, and I can't fault it for not going as far as I was willing to go.

It is much sadder now, thinking about it with my own filter in my head.

And I don't want to fault it either. There a quite a few details about the way this film was done that I wish had been different, but at its core it got everything right. You can see a good story there. A story that maybe wasn't told as clearly as it could have been, but was told nonetheless, with dedication, a lot of heart, and a great sense of darkness and gritty beauty. My biggest question going into the movie was "will the story be truly worth telling?" and I felt that the answer and my opinion of the film would coincide. Well I was right, and the answer is undoubtedly yes.

I knew it going in and I was happy with my choice coming out: Cassian (Diego Luna) was my favorite. I definitely think he could have used more development, like almost all the characters, but my initial impression was a pleasant surprise at how developed he was... fairly quickly followed by a wish for even more. He was very compelling to me; a worn soldier who follows his orders, knowing that the end will justify the means. And I could have watched a full two hours of just him and Jyn having heated arguments. Their relationship was built up really well for a while before speeding along to the conclusion, and had a lot of great potential; if I could reorganize the film's focus, I'd put the spotlight directly on them.

I love that he has to suppress emotion in order to work for the rebellion, and Jyn does the same to keep herself out of it. 

Nothing but love for K-2SO -- he was the best comic relief (basically the only comic relief) as a droid with no verbal filter. Nothing but an endless supply of excellently unique humor, delivered in the perfect way that only Alan Tudyk can supply. (He also performed motion-capture for the character on set.) But of course, that led to an equally great amount of heart from him as well... and a surprising amount of badassery. His death scene was the best and maybe the most affecting of them all.

The other three rebels of the group (pilot Bhodi (Riz Ahmed), blind guy Chirrut (Donnie Yen) and blind guy's friend Baze (Wen Jiang)) sadly didn't have time to make a huge impression before the end, but I was attached enough to them to feel significance at their deaths. They all were good for the screen time they received, and I'm sure the future will see me more familiar with and attached to them. Mads Mikkelsen as Jyn's father Galen is very cool, and his character expertly done. No complaints at all -- he got everything done with limited time and drama and style to spare. Forest Whitaker was good too, but in the end, unimportant.

This scene was so beautiful...

The film's villain Krennic was overshadowed by the bigger, arguably unnecessary villains above him, which was too bad, because Ben Mendelsohn made him a great, stylish, and easy to hate villain, and he could have owned the screen alone. I really wanted the climax to be more just him and Jyn in an epic personal struggle instead of the whole epic-in-scale one we got instead. That moment on the tower lasted a mere fraction of the time it could have.

I get the feeling that Rogue One was a little... disconnected. Or misinformed. I don't think it understood what we wanted out of a Star Wars spinoff film. All the things I didn't care for seemed like the stuff they thought was fan service, and where I wanted to go deeper was often casually glazed over or cut short. Maybe that's only me though. I know they wanted to cater to the broadest audience possible here, and to do that the movie had to find a balance between its inherit personal nature and a widely appealing blockbuster one. The balance is awkward, but it may be the most ideal, considering the circumstances.

Not a perfect film... but a great story.

I don't mean to cut this movie any slack where it doesn't deserve it, but, in the end, my view of it can't help but be overwhelmingly positive -- in spite of my complaining and wishing for more out of the characters. I wouldn't wish for more if I hadn't loved them, after all. A little misguided perhaps, but Rogue One's Star Wars story is a story worth telling, and a brave and beautiful plunge into the ever-expanding reaches of a galaxy far, far away.