A surprisingly monotonous, unambitious, and boring film, even by Marvel standards. Less of a review, here are some random thoughts which I had while watching this movie which is only notable for being the first all-black production from the current iteration of Marvel Studios.

This film has an overflowing abundance of tell-don't-show exposition, which breaks the #1 rule of filmmaking: Show-don't-tell. For at least the first 30 minutes I had no idea what motivates the main character, what the previous king was like, what their relationship was like, or why I should care about anyone on screen except for their being the main characters in a Marvel movie.

The main character's first self-directed act of the film was to jump into the middle of the jungle, murder a bunch of conscripted child soldiers (!!!), and knowingly ruin an undercover investigation into human trafficking (I think..maybe? It's not clear). He did this so that he could invite his girlfriend to a party the next day (???). I actually laughed out loud--for the only time in the film--when he said this. Is this man a psychopath?

The film is introducing a completely new nation--apparently the most advanced on the planet--and all that the audience is shown of it is 2 or 3 largely empty rooms. They really brought the Imagineers to bear in creating this new world, didn't they? This grand nation of Wakanda feels extremely small and unimportant.

The most advanced nation on Earth--with many terrible weapons of mass destruction on hand--chooses its leaders by seeing who can beat the crap out of each other the hardest? What the hell?!?! Actually.. that seems about standard by Marvel logic.

The main character is told (not shown) that he will have a difficult time as king because he has a kind heart. At this point in the film his kindest action seems to have been in killing child soldiers.. His first morally conflicted kind act does not seem to happen until over an hour into the runtime and it has no ill effects whatsoever--in fact, it helps him! Great follow-up on that plot point, ey?

The entire first hour of the film is wasted time and does not effectively develop any of the characters to a point which other films would manage to accomplish in 10 minutes. They run around furiously, accomplishing nothing. I did not feel that I knew any of the main characters any better at the end of the film than I did at the beginning, except for perhaps the villian--he had a bit of development.

The visual effects would look right at home in a PlayStation 2 video game cutscene. Very unimpressive, very muddy, poor color contrast.. honestly, a mess.

This movie was probably supposed to release before Captain America: Civil War, I'm guessing? Because at least then I would have had some idea of what was going on with this random panther man who showed up out of nowhere. Well... that's 2 incredibly boring movies that this guy is in, anyway.

This film has some of the most eye-roll inducing and unfunny Marvel-style humor break-ins that I have yet seen. Even a bad film can be somewhat enjoyable if it takes itself seriously. But we can't do that in the Marvel universe, not ever. "Come on guys, are you done with the serious faces?" Wacky! Wacky!

I was watching all-black superhero movies when I was 8 years old, and they were a lot more fun. Can I get some love for The Meteor Man? Maybe we could follow it up with a Static Shock marathon? Good times!