I feel like all of my thoughts on Ryan Coogler's Black Panther can be summarized in one line: excellent story and politics, but needs better fight scenes. Why, oh why, must all fight scenes be captured in medium close up with shaky-cams? That's ridiculous nitpicking, of course. Otherwise Black Panther is damn near perfect. The central struggle between T'Challa and Killmonger is downright Shakespearean; the screenplay crackles with great lines and confrontations; each scene is drowning in resonant themes and symbolism--the final fight scene takes place on a literal Underground Railroad! But man, I hope they get their fight choreography in check in time for the sequel.
8/10
I thought some of the action scenes were cut too quick and hard to follow, but I have that problem with most of the Marvel movies and it's worse in others. They seems to hire actors who can't fake fight then edit around it with lots of quick cuts that make it hard to follow the action. There's a clip making the rounds on the internet from Marvel's Iron Fist is only 35 seconds long but features an astounding 56 cuts. I was re-watching Civil War and in the first action scene they deliberately don't show Black Widow's face. I guess it was to get around this but obvious it's a body double. But hey, at least Scar-Jo's body double can fight! Marvel fixed their scores all sounding the same and generic with the last two, hope they fix their action/fight scenes as well.
ReplyDeleteI hope they do. Those movies DESPERATELY need better soundtracks and fight scenes.
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