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| Source: Imdb |
Yet another flick from the Marvel-verse. I’m
so fed up with that, but what can you do if you want to keep up with pop
culture? This film about the ruler of Wakanda and his enemies was an average
piece of sifi. The characters were silly and like superficial caricatures. If I
were a black person (I don’t even know what the politically correct term is
anymore), I would probably be annoyed by all the clichés about tribes and
accents and attitudes etc. and be quite insulted. T’Chala failed to inspire any
loyalty in me with his superficial personality. Andy Serkis was comically
deranged as a villain (he clearly enjoyed himself, though, playing the role
with abandon) and the rival nephew had some really strange ideas about world
dominion and retribution. Funny thing: after all the complaining that is heard
about lack of ethnical diversity in movies – as you know, you have to have at
least one black person in the cast, no matter if they stick out like a sore
thumb – I was asking myself: Where is the obligatory white person? And then
came Martin Freeman. I don't know what to say, except that, incidentally, I loved him in this role. He is adorable and
cuddly, heroic and shows the kind of integrity that most other characters are
lacking (I suspect he may be the next agent Coulson). It was a joy to watch him
and I’m glad he didn’t just fill the ‚obligatory white person‘ slot in some
boring way. Anyway, what I am trying to say is that I think it would have been perfectly acceptable to have an all-black cast here, just as I think it is acceptable to have an all-white cast in other movies.
The plot
was dumb. I’m not sure how contemporary it is to have a villain motivated by
paying back the ‚white‘ population of Earth for slavery by basically enslaving
them in return. Seemed to be a very lazy agenda. All the racial debate and
forced social critique fell completely flat. This movie genre is just not made
for that sort of discussion. What added to the ridiculous impression was the
incongruous use of language: why would Wakandans, who speak their own language,
elect to speak English amongst themselves in studied, comically stereotypical
‚black‘ accents? You could even hear the actors struggle with having to put on
the fake enunciation. The film also failed to strike the balance between
light-hearted action/comedy, providing boring battles and awkward innuendo, and
the more serious themes it is clearly aiming at, such as racial inequality.
Unbearable silliness and shallow humour reigned with a surprising lack of tact:
casually running over a person is not funny. Jeez.
On the
technical side, this was a mess. The first thing I noticed was the bad lighting
and horrible greenscreen work. The digital artists and lighting crew really
fucked up with this one. The animations were dated and lifeless, and the
designs will not win any visual awards (unless they did? Not sure what happened
at the Oscars). The score and soundtrack had potential but were not properly
utilised.
Ok, I’m
tiring now. I would give this a 3/5 at maximum, by virtue of not having bored
me, despite everything.
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