african-american directors series/revisiting the 9s: black panther (ryan coogler, 2018)

[This is the fifth in a series that will probably be VERY intermittent, if I remember to post at all. I've long known that while I have given my share of 10-out-of-10 ratings for movies over the years, in almost every case, those movies are fairly old. By rough count, I have only given the top rating to 17 non-documentaries from the 21st century. (For some reason, I don't have a problem giving tens to new documentaries.) So I got this idea to go back and revisit movies of relatively recent vintage that I gave a rating of 9, to see if time and perspective convinced me to bump that rating up to 10. Of course, it's always possible I'll drop the rating, but time will tell.]

Back in 2018, I wrote:

I would argue that Michael B. Jordan overcomes Boseman's excellence. I am a longtime fan of Jordan's, so I may be too biased. But he is so great as Killmonger that he breaks through the attempt to make the character into a villain. Yes, Killmonger is a sociopath, but ... OK, I know there is no "but" for some people, but like Nicholson's Joker, Jordan commands the screen with such intensity that I found myself rooting for him, despite the way in the end the film denounces Killmonger. It is like those 30s gangster movies, where the bad guy had to die in the last scene, but when you walked out of the theater you remembered the excitement of the film's first 85 minutes, not the required comeuppance.

The time around, the loss of Chadwick Boseman is deeply felt ... it's impossible not to see T'Challa and ignore the fact that Boseman was working so hard even as he knew he had cancer. Hindsight influences how we see the past, and in the final scenes of Black Panther, I thought he looked gaunt. But I didn't notice back in 2018, and I suspect I imagined it in 2022. Nonetheless, Boseman was suffering during the production of the film, and while that in itself isn't a guarantee of a great performance, the fact that Boseman gave a great performance while he had cancer is simply remarkable. Watching this time, I remained extremely impressed by Michael B. Jordan ... when am I not impressed by him? But I wouldn't say now that he was the dominant actor in the movie. In fact, it's a great thing we have, to see two dynamic performers going up against each other like Jordan and Boseman do here. I can't say it was robbery that Boseman didn't get the Best Actor Oscar ... oddly, I still haven't seen any of the five nominees. Nor have I yet seen any of the Supporting Actor nominees, so while I think Jordan was worthy, I can't make the proper comparisons.

I should note that I watched something of a special version this time. Originally, we saw it in IMAX in a theater. Recently, Disney Plus has begun offering a handful of Marvel films in what they call "IMAX Enhanced". Essentially, it changes the aspect ratio to match that of IMAX. In the case of Black Panther, this isn't true for the entire movie, but rather for specific scenes. The transition was seamless ... in fact, I barely noticed, which may or may not be an argument in its favor.

Black Panther remains the best of the Marvel movies. Of the ones that have been released since then, only Shang-Chi comes close. But, as good as it is, I don't think it quite makes it to the pantheon of greatest films. I am sticking with 9/10 in this case.

Comments

[Tomás]

He was so good in everything--even his SNL appearance.

[Steven Rubio]

I watched a pretty standard/uninteresting movie, 21 Bridges, solely because he was in it.