Black Panther (2018)

At this point – a week after its release and eighteen films deep into the reliable Marvel Cinematic Universe – you probably don’t need me to tell you that Black Panther is great. I can’t say it’s the best superhero film ever, and indeed it’s hard to say if it’s the best film of Phase Three, which includes first-rate features like Captain America: Civil War and Spider-Man: Homecoming. But I will go out on a limb and say that it’s the best first entry in a Marvel sub-franchise since Iron Man, doing the work of building out the larger franchise’s world, distinguishing itself as a story in its own right, and managing to entertain the dickens out of a diverse audience who are helping it to shatter records.

After the death of his father, T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) assumes the mantle of King of Wakanda, a secretive nation in Africa guarding technological advances and a massive cache of vibranium, a rare indestructible metal. T’Challa also takes on the identity of his nation’s defender, the Black Panther, who is called to action when Erik Stevens – the Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) – and arms dealer Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis, upping the mania from Age of Ultron) steal a vibranium artifact from a London museum. All the while, T’Challa wrestles with his father’s legacy, wondering whether Wakanda should remain hidden from the world.

Marvel has not really made a bad movie since the inception of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2008. Your mileage may vary, as in the case of The Incredible Hulk and Thor: The Dark World (which I liked but have never felt compelled to rewatch), but by and large the MCU has been a case study in crowdpleasing. When introducing new characters to the universe, though, Marvel has struggled to break out of the mold set by Iron Man. With its scientific macguffin, Ant-Man is largely (no pun intended) “Tiny Iron Man”; when Doctor Strange has to set his ego aside to embrace a higher calling, it’s difficult not to see him as “Magic Iron Man.”

Black Panther is not, however, the story of a Tony Stark type who takes the throne and learns humility; it’s about a prince coming into his own, grappling with the weight of history and some very compelling arguments from his enemies. It might be Marvel’s most philosophical movie, and it’s certainly the most political (such is bound to happen when your protagonist is a king), but moreover it’s one of the more unique, giving audiences something we’ve truly never seen before in a superhero movie – a fully-realized alternate world which is entirely plausible and rousingly engaging. Wakanda is unlike anything in recent memory (though parts do feel as though it’s a pilot launch for a new Disney theme park, which I’d happily attend), and director Ryan Coogler is wise to give us Wakanda such as it is without the crutch of a point-of-view character; we’re dropped into the world, which displays a consistent internal logic without being overly explained. Even the film’s introductory history lesson, though expositional, gives weight to the film as we begin to wonder to whom the story was being told.

After seeing the film twice, I was glad to see that Black Panther really holds up, and that two different audiences had a consistent baseline of reactions to the film’s twists, punchlines, and triumphs. Black Panther contains a number of surprising reveals, each well-executed without the need for an explanatory pause. Perhaps the greatest surprise, though, is that the film’s ostensible villain, Killmonger, actually makes a lot of sense (surprising, I know, for a man whose name might as well be Murderman). “Where were you?” he asks of the isolationist Wakanda after recounting a litany of history’s horrors. Killmonger is a welcome relief from the generic world-conquerors Marvel has been known to give us, distinctive and fantastically performed by Jordan (proving that Marvel continues to be the rehabilitation clinic for former Human Torches). That he poses both a physical and philosophical challenge to T’Challa is one of the film’s greatest strengths.

Really, though, Black Panther is so full of good performances that it’s tough to single one out. Jordan has rightly gotten his fair share of critical accolades, and we knew from Civil War that Boseman had the kingly presence required for the Black Panther. As T’Challa’s sister Shuri, Letitia Wright steals her every scene; whether it’s playing Q to T’Challa’s 007 or testing out her sonic wrist cannons, with her infectious charm and rebellious streak, Wright is the next face to watch in the Marvel movies because she ought to be in every one of them going forward. (Can you imagine her bonding with Rocket Raccoon or Peter Parker?) I would say she steals nearly every scene because Winston Duke, as rival tribe leader M’Baku the Man-Ape, is an unexpected hoot, with an intimidating presence and a gregarious sense of humor to match. Lupita Nyong’o and Danai Gurira are just two of the many badass women in T’Challa’s life and by his side, and it’s remarkably refreshing to see a film so full of women who are always working together, never devalued by the male protagonist or by each other. (And yes, the film passes the Bechdel test.)

Look, I could go on and on, running down the cast list and finding something to praise. There’s not a bad performance in the bunch, and there’s not a single sequence that wastes time in the film’s 130+-minute runtime. I had worried that Black Panther might feel like a holding pattern before May’s Infinity War (to which, we’re told, this whole universe has been building), but instead it feels heroically fresh, such that I’m almost more excited to hear about Black Panther II. It’s equally gratifying that, as Marvel approaches their ostensible endgame, they’re loosening the reins on their house style and letting some fresh voices like Taika Waititi, James Gunn, and Ryan Coogler do their thing in the Marvel sandbox. It gives one the idea that Infinity War might not be an ending but rather a beginning, a prismatic expansion point from which the Marvel Cinematic Universe can spread out, diversify, and challenge our ideas of what a superhero movie can be. Wakanda forever, indeed.

Black Panther is rated PG-13 for “prolonged sequences of action violence, and a brief rude gesture.” Directed by Ryan Coogler. Written by Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole. Based on the Marvel Comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Starring Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Forest Whitaker, and Andy Serkis.

Fant4stic (2015)

By now, the critical consensus is in – hovering in the high single digits on Rotten Tomatoes, Fant4stic is a fantastic flop (or, in a pun I wish I’d thought up, a fantastic bore). Entering the critical conversation on a Monday puts me in a weird position, with the benefit of hindsight beside my keyboard. I’ll try to nuance my stance on Fant4stic, but I’m closer to the 90% who didn’t like it than the ten or so who did; it’s an uneven and occasionally bizarre experience that seems to want its audience held at arm’s length.

Look, you know the story – super genius Reed Richards (Miles Teller), his pal Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell), and polar opposite siblings Sue and Johnny Storm (Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan) find themselves the bearers of incredible abilities after a teleportation to another dimension goes awry. In this version of the story, the abrasive Victor von Doom (Toby Kebbell), their future nemesis, joins them in the experiment but with only his own interests in mind.

Here’s the biggest problem with Fant4stic (and it’s not the clunky stylization of the title): there are the beginnings of enough good ideas in here to power what should have been a very engaging and unique superhero film. Instead, we have a movie that is substantially less than the sum of its parts, a collision of half-baked notions assaulted by an apparent disdain for the very existence of the superhero genre. The traditional superheroics comprise maybe eight minutes of the film, played off unconvincingly when the characters decide to become heroes purely out of generic conventions. That is, the characters only decide to become superheroes because they’re in a superhero film; in any other genre, I can’t believe these characters would have made that choice.

The thing is, I don’t think these characters are actually The Fantastic Four, as much as the movie hopes to convince us that they are by the time the credits roll. Teller is quite good at conveying the awkwardness that comes with Reed’s immense intellect, but I don’t sense the leadership skills that Reed ought to possess. Perhaps the best casting decision is Jordan’s Human Torch, whose natural showmanship suits the character quite well, and perhaps his confidence would have been played up more in the sequel that now may never come to pass.

The other two, Mara and Bell, are actually quite dull, which is really disappointing considering that the orange rock monster ought to be the most interesting part of any Fantastic Four film. (Michael Chiklis, we hardly knew ye.) And let’s not say much about the film’s handling of Doctor Doom because, again, this isn’t Doctor Doom. This Doom is a petulant demi-hacker who only nails the character’s signature ego after a bizarre attempt to explain away the fact that the comic book character wears a head-to-toe metallic suit.

There are, in fact, a few moments that induce whiplash in the audience as our heads collectively boggle at the inexplicable narrative shifts Fant4stic takes. The film actually gets off to a great start, getting it note-perfect when it introduces Reed as a boy genius who’s proud to be labeled “insane” by those who don’t understand him. But the film drags its feet en route to the superpowers, and once the team has acquired their dysmorphic abilities the movie jumps forward a year, presumably so director Josh Trank didn’t have to show us how the four mastered their abilities – in short, what makes them fantastic in the first place.

Even setting aside Trank’s peculiar tweet-then-delete casting shade on Fant4stic, one senses that he really wanted to make a different film here. I detect no passion in the film’s obligatory climactic battle (which seems ripped straight from the vastly superior Big Hero 6), but there’s a wonderful invocation of David Cronenberg’s The Fly during the moments of physical transformation. Kudos to Reg E. Cathey as Franklin Storm for conveying that blend of wonder and revulsion so central to the subgenre of body horror.

The film is at its most content – and most compelling – when it’s focusing on the horrible things that happen to these reclusive scientists. But when it comes to the superhero aspects of the story, the film absolutely fails to introduce Mister Fantastic, The Invisible Woman, The Human Torch, and The Thing. In fact, the final scene of the film is a real groaner in which the characters propose their superhero codenames with a perplexing self-loathing, as if Trank and company are legitimately embarrassed to have made a superhero film. If you want to do a body horror superhero film, I say fantastic! The best superhero films seem to be the ones that mash-up preexisting genres with the conventions of a superhero tale. Just don’t pull your punches and then cave in to the genre while wearing your utter contempt on your sleeve. Everyone comes out disappointed there.

In other words, make mine Marvel.

Fant4stic is rated PG-13 for “sci-fi action violence, and language.” Some of the displays of the team’s respective superpowers are played first for fear, but audiences quickly become acclimated to them. Doom telekinetically explodes several heads, with surprisingly bloody results for a PG-13. Language consists mostly of a few uses of “the brown word.”