Finally found time to watch this with my kids last night. Good movie and enjoyable, but it fell a little flat with me and not up to its reputation and hype.
Clearly, the novelty of a big budget blockbuster black movie was a large driver of the over-the-top praise. I like the notion of the (almost) all-black cast (although Claw stole every seen he was in and didn't get a worthwhile death) which was necessary for the world-building. And I liked many aspects of the world it built, but also found it to be over-the-top in size, technology, and a mixmatch of dirt floor huts and super-advanced tech which made little sense. And that kind of goes hand in hand with the movie itself, which seemed overstuffed.
The costumes and visuals were really good. I don't think the action scenes, especially the climactic battle, were among the better Marvel action scenes.
The plot was very predictable, and I found the main bad guy's motivations (as well as the angst over killing the uncle in necessary defense of younger Forest Whitaker) to be unconvincing. I also didn't find the rejection of the bad guy's goals by the royal family to be very powerful: "that is not our way" instead of "that's psycho and evil," an appeal to tradition vs morality.
The several drop in SJW lines were mildly off-putting, but not bad enough to be bothersome. The worst was probably in the death scene for killmonger, which wasn't that strong of a death scene IMO. I didn't believe in Killmonger as a soldier, partly because Hollywood keeps delivering these Will Smith (and Harry Connick, from the same movie) type soldiers who act nothing like soldiers.
This was maybe the weakest marvel movie from a humor standpoint as well.
Good movie overall. Definitely a solid marvel movie, Not one of the very best, and definitely hyped beyond its accomplishments as a movie because of its accomplishments as a black movie.
