*SPOILERS AHEAD*

Black Panther, produced by Marvel Studios, is a game-changer in cinematography. It offers the first African superhero to have a featured film, provides amazing representation for women, and reveals the corruption in all societies and governments. The cast for this movie was absolutely perfect, the soundtrack was truly incredible, the story line could not have been made any better, and do not get me started on the second post-credits scene. For those of you who leave Marvel movies before the credits are done (idiots) will not understand this at all. For those of you who do stay for the post-credit scene and don’t know what I am talking about, jokes on you because there are always two post-credit scenes in Marvel movies.

How in the world is it 2018 and we have only managed to just now release a superhero movie that features and African hero? Yes, I know that there are black superheroes (like Sam in Captain America), but where are their featured films? The fact that they created this movie using a predominantly non-white cast makes this film especially unique. The only ‘featured’ white characters were played by Martin Freeman and Andy Serkis. Talk about Tolkien white characters (for those of you who do not understand the excellence of the pun you just read, ask your Lord of the Rings nerd friend because I can assure you they will find it hilarious). The main character, T’Challa, is played by Chadwick Boseman. Boseman was also the featured role in the film 42 about Jackie Robinson. Boseman plays the role of T’Challa, king of Wacanda and the Black Panther. He fights to protect his country and his people from the corruption and greed of the world. How ironic! (will explain irony later)
Finally, we have a movie with phenomenal female representation. Sure we have Black Widow in the Avengers series. But seriously, where is her featured film? Many people will have the answer that no one would go watch a movie with a female featured superhero. Wonder Women has a total domestic gross of $412,563,408 and a total world-wide gross of $821,847,012. And what do you know, it features a female superhero. People want to see strong female leads. Although the lead of this film is not female, it features many strong female characters. Nakia, played by Lupita Nyong’o, is the love interest of the prince, T’Challa. He desperately wants her to stay in Wacanda with him. However, she does not swoon at the thought of this man deciding that she will stay because he wants her to. Nakia stands up for what she believes. She believes that she has a higher calling, to help those less fortunate and unable to stand up for themselves due to lack of resources. She wants Wacanda to help supply those being oppressed with the resources to overthrow their oppressors. At the end of the film she does agree to stay with T’Challa in Wacanda only after he made a change and created a way for Nakia to help the oppressed. Okoye, played by Danai Gurira, is another strong, featured female. She is the leader of the all-female army of Wacanda. She is at the right hand of the T’Challa, the king, on all of his missions. She is 100% loyal to the throne of Wacanda and does not waver in her loyalty. She kicks butt in all her battles and throws herself in front of a charging rhino to save the leader of a nearby tribe. Shuri, played by Latitia Wright, is the sister of T’Challa. She is not only sassy and sarcastic, but also the lead engineer of Wacanda. She is the creator of the Black Panther suit, the insanely impressive train system in Wacanda, and the soundless sneakers (literally the best line of the whole movie). She shows young girls that women can engineer the socks off of anything they set their minds to. These women are not only super strong and empowering to young girls everywhere, they are the Black Panthers go to team for missions. Before any of his male soldiers and confidants, he chooses these three women to go to battle with him, and I think that is the coolest thing ever. Not only are these women stronger than any of the men in the country of Wacanda, it is recognized by their king without question or a need to prove themselves.

This movie takes place mainly in the utopian country of Wacanda, but like all utopian societies, they fall apart. The founder of Wacanda wanted to hide their great resource from the world for fear of the world fighting them for their precious vibranium. This proves almost detrimental for the country. When King T’Chaka’s brother, played by Sterling K Brown, betrays the country by stealing some vibranium to supply to the oppressed neighborhoods in California, King T’Chaka, played by John Kani, responds by going to California to get him and bring him home. When his brother pulls a gun, King T’Chaka is forced to kill his own brother. He lies to his people in an attempt to keep tranquility in his country and in order to keep up this lie, he must leave behind his brother’s son, who is royalty of Wacanda by blood. This comes back as major backfire for his son, T’Challa, when cousin of T’Challa, Eric Killmonger (played by Michael B Jordan), comes back to Wacanda and challenges for the throne. All of the lies of King T’Chaka about his brother and nephew and all of the lies of the kings before him about the riches and resources that Wacanda has to offer the world leads to the almost destruction of Wacanda by Eric Killmonger. How ironic is it that T’Challa and all the kings before him are 100% opposed the helping in foreign affairs for fear of corruption and greed when they already have that corruption within the royal family and society itself. But, like all good kings, T’Challa fixes the errors of his and his ancestors ways and reveals the vibranium to the world pledging to help the oppressed people. This action will ruin the utopian society that Wacanda has become, but is ultimately the best thing for the world and the country.

The acting in this film was absolutely amazing. The predominantly non-white cast really made the movie extra cool. The actors’ ability to create those authentic African accents was incredible. Chadwick Boseman was faced with a difficult challenge when he was cast for the role of T’Challa. The prince of Wacanda has to play the grieving son, strong king, fearless warrior, star struck lover, and joking older brother all in one film. The strength and range of motion Boseman was able to portray in the role of T’Challa put the movie over the edge from amazing to phenomenal. The intensity of both challenge fights, the car chase, and the battle scene at the end was all made possible by the incredible acting skills of all the actors. Also, Stan Lee’s cameo was perfection (if you missed the cameo, it was in the South Korean night club).

The modern pop music mixed with the African music really framed the movies action genre while including the ethnicity of Africa, where most of the movie was set. The score of this film is composed by Ludwig Goransson who also composed the scores of Creed, Everything Everything, We’re the Millers, Get Out, and Central Intelligence. His musical work in cinematography has gotten him 12 nominations for various awards and one win in 2016. He won the Seattle Film Critics Award in the category of Best Music/Original Song for his work for the movie Creed. His ability to combine two different styles of music into one cohesive movie is really highlighted in his work in Black Panther and takes the movie to the next level of enjoyment when watching the film.

The story line of this film is definitely one to remember. This movie was able to make my heart pound, tears to form, and make me laugh out loud. The fight scene between Eric and T’Challa was the most intense scene of the whole movie. It made me sit on the edge of my seat, stress to the point of a quickened heartbeat, and cry all in the span five minutes. The whole movie fit and provided so much character development. From the beginning of the movie when T’Challa wanted nothing to do with foreign affairs, Eric Killmonger wanted nothing but revenge, and M’Baku, leader of a neighboring tribe, wanted to take over the thrown of Wacanda to the end of the movie when T’Challa sees the error in his thinking and decides to engage in foreign affairs, Eric Killmonger sees the beauty in Wacanda, and M’Baku and his army come to the aid of T’Challa to take Wacanda back. The movie provides relevant side plots and creative obstacle for the protagonists to overcome.

Now, for possibly my favorite part of the whole film, the second post-credit scene. If you missed the scene and want to be surprised I suggest that you stop reading. My favorite character was brought into the scene. Bucky was being treated by Shuri in Wacanda. This perfectly brings Black Panther into the Avengers: Infinity War movie. I hope that this means we will be seeing more of the sass, puns, attitude and sarcasm of Shuri in Avengers: Infinity War. Also, did you hear the Avengers: Infinity War has a new release date? It will be released a whole week earlier than originally planned! Adding Bucky to the end of this film was truly a brilliant addition to an already fantastic film and added more insight to the future involvement of Black Panther in the upcoming Avengers movie.

This movie is a huge milestone for cinematography. It provides us with the first African superhero with his own feature film, gives great, strong female characters who don’t have to prove their worth to society, but rather are recognized and accepted for their talents and gifts, and it provides insight to the impossibility of a perfect, utopian society. Some may say, well plenty of movies have provided these important points. However, this films wraps it all into one cohesive and well-produced film and exceeds all, if any, films made before it that made these points. Although Wonder Women was a smashing success, the women of Black Panther were just as strong (arguably stronger) than the, essentially, one female figure of Wonder Woman. Yes there was a whole island of strong women that were in the film for a total of 15 minutes. But these three featured women in Black Panther were able to reach more girls in the audience because of the variety of talents, strengths, and interests that they were able to feature. The film truly has raised the bar for all future films. I sincerely hope that directors, producers, screenplay writers, and composers all embrace the challenge and step up to the plate when filming and creating all future movies.