Grade: B
Director Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station, Creed) has assembled an impressive and energetic moviegoing experience with Black Panther, now nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It is an enjoyable watch, with action sequences that I could not only follow, but looked forward to, and possible Shakespearean and political undertones that were subtle enough and didn’t beat you over the head with them. Any way I can think of to say it sounds so cliched and pandering, but I say in all sincerity that this is a wonderful refreshing celebration of ethnic diversity, and I loved looking at and hearing all the beautiful accents come from the majority of the actors here.
Chadwick Boseman stars as the title character, also known as T’Challa. He is heir to the hidden kingdom of Wakanda. You know you are a Wakandan if you pull down your bottom lip and see – on the inside – something that looks like a code lit up in blue. It reminded me of an Arnold Schwarzenegger film from 2000 called The 6th Day, that had to do with cloning. If you put your thumb at your eyebrow and pulled up, and saw on the inside of your eyelid a dot-like thing that looked like a miniature zit, that meant you were a clone and not the original you. The cast also includes Michael B. Jordan, who is a regular in Coogler’s movies – this time as a villain, and quite affecting and effective. Also we have Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave), Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out), Martin Freeman, Angela Bassett, and Forest Whitaker. It is great fun to see this as a top Oscar contender. And has anyone else looked at themselves in a mirror and done the Wakanda test to see if they are in the tribe? I am not, in case anybody was wondering.
Grade: B
Film Reviews by Mark 
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