The absolute best of 2018: Black Panther

A review by Azzam Abdur-Rahman

I don’t wanna get racial in this piece but it’s hard not to when discussing what may be the best film in the MCU. Black Panther stands among films that have been dumb fun for my nerd brain for 10 years. They have taken me from a wide-eyed idiot to a man who is going to be married soon. Black Panther feels like the first film that had something really important to say. I know it’s hard to imagine how powerful it is with was with all of the memes and people showing up in full African regalia but it maybe the first time in many young African and African-Americans lives where they were shown on screen as more than just a church goer, a uneducated fixer-upper, or a token friend but as kings and leaders, as men and women of fault and as people beyond what skin tone has said we could be.

That’s a weight for a movie about a dude in a catsuit but director Ryan Coogler spoke from a place of truth. Yes, the action is great. Yes, the jokes are solid. Most of all Killmonger is a real villain, something Marvel has failed at time and time again, but he is great for the same reason this film has weight. Killmonger had a point. So, when we look back in a year where racial tensions in America where at their highest to me the best film of the year has to be film that shows that a nation in Africa can be the shining city on the hill.

Rating: MASTERPIECE

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