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Steph Freeman (26 KP) rated Black Panther (2018) in Movies

Feb 21, 2018 (Updated Feb 21, 2018)

Black Panther (2018)

2018 | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi

8.3

(282 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Excellent character development within the movie. (3 more)

No need to be a comic book "nerd", this story has something for everyone.

Accuracy in the culture (as much as can be expected for the genre).

Cinematography and costumes were superb.

The creators pandered to the 3D audience, which resulted in a dizzying experience in 2D. (0 more)

Not Just Another Origin Story

As someone who knew nothing about comic books, their stories, and their characters prior to the last 15 year influx of Marvel and DC movies, I love the origin stories. It allows me to learn about the character, the world, and the connections between them without having to figure it out between punches or laser beams. This story delivered all of the above, with a fair amount of ass kicking in the meantime.

Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong'o, and Danai Gurira were an amazing protagonist team, with Martin Freeman and Michael B. Jordan rounding out the character archetypes beautifully. The costumes, make up, and cinematography were gorgeous, but the real star of the movie for me was Letitia Wright. Her comedic timing and her elegance made Shuri the best supporting role I have watched in a long time.

I don't know a lot about the culture in Africa, a terrible oversight of my American education, but I do have friends from Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Togo who were very excited to see their culture represented in such a blockbuster film. It was refreshing to see something so beautiful that will hopefully inspire young Americans to learn about a culture outside of our borders.

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ClareR (6037 KP) rated New Boy in Books

Jul 16, 2018

New Boy

Tracy Chevalier | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry

8.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

An intriguing retelling.

A modern reimagining of Shakespeare's Othello, this sees a Ghanaian diplomats son, Osei, on his first day at a new school in an American suburb of Washington DC in the 1970's. Dee quickly befriends him, and Ian decides that he doesn't like this. He decides to undermine this friendship and dispose of O. Yes, racism comes in to play here. Both the learnt racism of the children (from their parents), and that of the teachers.
This is all squeezed in to a very Shakespearian time frame of a day: we all know that in a Shakespearian play, people fall in and out of love, get marries and murder one another within 24 hours. For this reason, I can forgive the more mature behaviour and plotting of the 11 year old children. It seems unlikely to me as a mother of an 11 year old, that real 11 year olds would necessarily behave in this way; but this is literature and an author can bend their story and their characters to however they want them to behave. The changeability of the children's affections ARE more realistic, however.
I think this would probably be a great book for students to read at school before they access the original Othello. It would have made a great 'compare and contrast' exercise for me when I studied Othello (many years ago!).
Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and the ending is a real 'heart in mouth' moment!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Hogarth for my copy of this book.

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Kevin Wilson (179 KP) rated Black Panther (2018) in Movies

Jul 19, 2018

Black Panther (2018)

2018 | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi

8.3

(282 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Great cast (2 more)

Lots of action

Interesting story

The typical marvel formula (2 more)

Too many characters to develop each one

Boring villain

Are we finally feeling marvel fatigue?

I do feel this movie is very overrated. It was good sure but not as good as what people have made it out to be.

This could just be superhero fatigue. Or maybe it's just marvel fatigue because I'm still interesyed in what DC will offer. This just didn't feel very unique to me. Marvel seems to focus a lot on action, set pieces, CGI than its characters. The villain was boring and underdeveloped. It did have strong female characters, I'll give it that but was very underused. Black panther is well cast.

There were parts of this movie that felt very ironman and other parts that felt very James bond weirldy enough. There were times the CGI was distracting and when they tried to be too funny it didn't work. I'm talking about the car chase scene.

I knew nothing about black panther going in except was was in civil war and I'm not sure where they are going to go with the character.

I know I'm talking negatively but don't get me wrong the action was fun. The fight scenes were well choreographed, I live Martin Freeman in everything and it was interesting to see wakanda with all the technological advances. It's nots a bad movie, it was just overrated and just didn't live up to expectations. They falled flat in many areas.

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Lee (2222 KP) Jul 19, 2018

This one was a really pleasant surprise for me. I wasn't sold on the trailer at all - it just looked far too busy and messy, whereas every other Marvel trailer tends to blow me away. I even waited a couple of weeks before seeing it at the cinema (which is NOT like me at all!). I actually really loved it though, and it's right up there as one of my favourite Marvel movies. But then, I seem to be one of the few people that was disappointed with Spider-Man: Homecoming, so my opinion does seem to differ from others! I feel you do make some valid points in your review though.

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