The Magic of 'The Black Panther'

You don't have to be an athlete to enjoy a movie about sports but when you are, you feel a special connection to the storyline. You don't have to be a scientist to enjoy a film rooted in science, innovation, and exploration but when you are, you can relate. You don't have to be African or African-American to thoroughly enjoy Black Panther but when you are, the movie speaks to you at a louder volume.

It's not just another Marvel superhero, trust me.

When superhero movies were getting their start in the early 2000s I was barely old enough to understand that the stunts in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movies weren't real. But that didn't stop me from grabbing the Spider-Man gloves and hopping from chair to chair, promising to stop any evil that came my way.

There was only one problem—I wasn't Peter Parker.

While white kids had the privilege of being more in-tune and in-touch with the heroes we often saw onscreen, black kids had to settle for animated sidekick depictions, Tyler Perry's movies and plays, and the overplayed glorification of basketball.

Yes, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has black actors who play hero roles but they are not on the same platform as Black Panther. The characters we've seen so far are either supporting roles (Nick Fury, Falcon, War Machine) or were deemed only okay enough for a Netflix series (Luke Cage).

With Black Panther, we see something incredibly different. A movie where the main character is a dark-skinned heir to the throne and his biggest character flaw is described as being "too perfect." When we see this, this display of strength and hope embodied in our skin color, we start to imagine ourselves as this character. This king. This perfection...

... and then so do our children.

It's not just a 'good movie.'

When director, Ryan Coogler, sat down with CBS: This Morning, he told the hosts of the show that his first priority when diving into this project was to simply to "make a good movie."

From the modern-tribal typography that we're graced with when we move from place to place and time to time on the Earth to the action-packed but silent scenes that we experience with cautious nerves to the Afrofuturist visuals that captivate our eyes and take us from out of our $12 movie theater seats to being in the passenger seat of the most advanced stealth jet that the world knows, the movie is definitely a visual feat.

The technology in the film is so advanced but believable that we can't help but drop our jaws when we realize that the creator of the most advanced innovations in the world is teenage princess and sister to the throne, Shuri.

The Avenger-sized superhero isn't without his weaknesses, and to help with those weaknesses are the best warriors in the African Panther's homeland, Wakanda, the Dora Milaje.

... and you can bet on the missing soul stone that this elite team is fully made up of women.

But why does this movie work?

From never shying away from real world issues to perfectly answering questions about the first scene that we didn't know we had to incorporating a cast so great that at times we forget who this movie is supposed to be focused around, there are a number of contributors to the question but this movie has two big reasons why it works.

... And the first reason's name is Killmonger.

Michael B. Jordan perfectly portrays Marvel's best MCU supervillain to date: Erik Killmonger, or N'Jadaka.

It isn't just because of his vicious and deceitful acts early on in the movie that gives Killmonger the perfect villain complex. It's the fact that we don't view him as a villain at times, that we feel for him. It's the fact that at a point in the movie we, as the audience, sit and ponder if what he's proposing isn't all that villainous. If that maybe he's right.

... and the second reason this movie works?

... Hope

"There's only one thing stronger than fear.. and that's hope," -President Snow, The Hunger Games.

Superhero movies have a bad reputation of falling into the superhero stereotype. Lucky for us, Black Panther, doesn't fall entirely into the genre trap.

At times during the movie, you genuinely wonder if there will be a happy, normal superhero ending. You wonder if our main character will even stay alive long enough to see the ending. You wonder why things are being done to throw us off guard.

And there it is.

The unexpectedness of the film draws in the hope from the audience and leaves us on the peaceful edge of our seats until we see a conflict becoming resolved in the distance..

... and then back to the anxious edge of our seats we go as another conflict is announced.

Give the audience hope, a perfect villain, a beautiful and diverse cast for the ages, someone to root for, and a healthy comic book adaptation and you have yourself one of the best movies ever made to date.