Black Panther

Welcome to The Ahn Bros's movie review discussion. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

Listen to the discussion here: https://goo.gl/zNZmfA

Chad: This movie we're reviewing today is Black Panther.

Alex: So Black Panther is the most recent Marvel movie to come out, and basically it's about a prince of an African country who returns home and claims the throne because his father was assassinated. And what he has to deal with is the struggle of bringing together his nation, and also the conflicts of people from the outside coming in, kind of disrupting how everything works.

C: Right, and how they use their secret technology: whether they should help the world around them who need it, or just keep to themselves.

So this movie obviously has a lot of Black representation, and I feel like it's going to do really well because of it. It's like a movement.

A: Yeah, it is.

C: Just in opening night, they made $25 million already.

A: I'm pretty sure it's made more than all of the other Marvel movies.

C: On opening night?

A: I think it has sold more presale tickets than any other Marvel movie.

C: I believe it.

It's definitely a good movie for Hollywood, because it proves that movies like Black Panther and Get Out, movies that consist of a mainly minority cast, can carry their own and make money.

A: Well, not exactly minority cast. I would say Black cast.

C: Sure, Black cast.

A: There's a slight difference now.

C: But I think this movie's great. It will hopefully lead to other minorities getting their own movies too. I think we need more Asian representation or Mexican or Middle Eastern. Right?

A: It might.

C: Cause right now the Oscars is black and white.

A: It is, but I mean, we're not sure if America is ready for an all Asian or all Mexican cast movie. Who would even be in an all Mexican cast movie? Are there enough actors to make an all Mexican cast movie?

C: That is true. Benecio Del Toro

A: Not exactly Mexican. Hispanic, right?

But with Blacks, there's a good amount of Black people in America.

C: And this movie, Black Panther, has all the top talents.

A: Yeah.

C: The director, Ryan Coogler directed Fruitvale Station and Creed. Fruitvale Station has to do with Oakland, and surprisingly this movie has Oakland as a central location, which kind of means something to use since we live in the Bay Area. And the movie stars one of his signature actors, Michael B. Jordan, who plays the badass character.

Speaking of actors, there's Lupita.

A: Lupita, everyone's favorite actress. The new star. The academy award winning actress.

I don't really like her, but in this movie, she kind of won me over a little bit, cause she speaks Korean. And she speaks it pretty well.

C: That was pretty interesting. With Marvel movies, they seem to be making more of an effort to appeal to the Korean audience, because Koreans seem to love the Marvel universe for some reason. I think this is the second collaboration with Korea. They have a car chase scene in Busan, and for some reason, Lupita's character knows Korean.

A: Her Korean is good. Good in the sense that you can understand what she's saying. But do we know that she understands what she's saying though in real life? Can she actually speak more than just the lines she's memorized.

C: The way she delivered her lines, it made it seem like she understood Korean. I was convinced.

A: I don't know, it's hard to say. But obviously her accent wasn't that great.

C: Speaking of accents, the main actor, Chadwick Boseman... he had a pretty solid African accent.

A: He does. People might not know, he doesn't actually have an African accent.

C: Right, he's African American.

A: Let's move on to the story.

C: While the movie is overall an above average experience, the story is filled with cliches. The movie's villain is driven by revenge. A pretty big cliche. There's your typical car chase scene. The little sister, the princess, somehow is the technological genius. She's kind of like the guy in James Bond who gives him the suit and weapons.

A: All the cool little gadgets.

C: Pretty unbelievable.

There's also a fight scene in the end where a character comes in at the last minute with his army to turn the tide of the fight. It's kind of like in Lord of the Rings, when Gandalf comes in to save Helm's Deep.

A: And there's one more, where the main character never dies. Obviously that's kind of unavoidable in this movie.

C: Of course, it's a Marvel movie.

A: There are scenes where he should have died, but survives.

C: It kind of reminds me of the trend, Explain a Film Plot Badly. You can describe the movie as:

Sore loser kills his own cousin to regain power.

A: That's a good one.

C: What about the music? It's interesting that they had Kendrick Lamar make an album called Black Panther. They have several of his songs throughout the film. Let's listen to a clip of "Pray For Me" by Kendrick Lamar and The Weeknd.

*plays clip

A: That's full of energy, man.

C: I'm gonna add that to my workout playlist.

A: This movie had a lot of pumped up music, especially when they showed Michael B. Jordan's character.

C: Yes, cause his character is from the hood. So they have a lot of hip hop music that signifies his control of the scene.

A: But also in a way, it felt out of place sometimes. Right?

C: You mean the clash between African American culture and African the continent culture?

A: Yeah, exactly. We have someone who's African American Black, coming over and trying to conquer and rule an African country. And although he's related, he's from that country, it felt a little off at times.

C: Yeah, it felt off. But it is an attempt to reclaim his roots.

Overall, the movie has a very good message.

A: It does.

C: So what is your rating for it?

A (in a horrible African accent): So I give my movie, a 4/5.

C: Whoa, that's pretty good.

A: So how about you?

C: 4/5 is pretty generous. I'd give it a 3.5/5.

A (returning to his horrible African accent): That is very harsh.

C: That's not harsh. That's above average. The movie is above average in terms of entertainment, message, and theme. But the story, cliches... it's a Marvel film, you've already seen it, done that.

A: It's true, but didn't you tell me before that it's one of the better Marvel movies?

C: Right, better Marvel movie recently. And that's not really that hard to beat.

A: So it's as good as some of the better Marvel movies is what you're saying.

C: Yeah.

A: It's as good as Age of Ultron.

C: Oh, Age of Ultron is not that good.

A: Well I think you gave Age of Ultron a 3.5 as well.

C: No, I don't think so. I think I gave it a 2.5 or a 3.

A: We can check later.

C: Okay.

Alex: 4

Chad: 3.5