You write Spoiler Alert after the first paragraph. Good god - the entire headline is a spoiler.

I still don't think Mudede bothered to watch the movie, as the entire premise of this article is completely undercut by a very minor aspect of the film: it's entire ending.

Also, I have a feeling that the "lack of cars" is more about cutting costs. The sets were overused and cheap, and the CGI was clearly done at a bargain prices as well. It looked extremely dated.

But never mind what was in the film, I am sure this financial product made solely for profits by the multi-national Disney entertainment conglomerate is all about how bad capitalism and globalism is.

@3 it is nice to see a critique since everything else is complete wank about how incredible the film is

@5: I think a lot of critics are afraid to say much negative about it because then they know their Twitter feed is going to be full of morons calling them racist Nazis. Although it may also be because of the way studios work when it comes to reviews now, especially with Rotten Tomatoes (RT).

So how it works now is that the studio only allows certain critics and viewers to watch films pre-release, and those hand chosen viewers are the ones who build the pre-release RT score. This is why complete garbage like Batman Vs. Superman can debut with an amazing RT score, and why mediocre movies like Black Panther come out with a score that is better than Citizen Kane and The Wizard of Oz. This makes the movie seem more critically acclaimed than it actually is, when non-biased critics and viewers start to rate it.

The studios do this because first week sales are where you have to make your profits now, as movies have really step drop-offs after the first week due to many being killed by word of mouth and bad RT scores.

@6: That chase scene went on way too long and was kind of boring, as it felt more like an ad for the car than a necessary scene. The movie was at its best when it was exploring the world it built (it should have done more of this), but it felt like some studio exec was demanding more action scenes, and the movie suffered because of it.

At least it avoided the standard "every movie an origin story" that has ruined most Marvel movies.

I do hope T'Challa (or more to the point, his tech-badass sister) devised some kind of force field for Wakanda before he opened it up to the world, because before capitalism even gets a chance to turn Vibranium into a commodity, the militaries of the world will do everything they can to ransack the city and steal its Vibranium for weapons.

@9: Those two statements are not related at all.

@8: The whole point of the movie is that you can't just wall yourself off and say "fuck you" to the rest of the world. Keeping a wall around Wakanda would destroy the entire point of the film.

What? How can Wakanda be free from global capitalism when it's trading Vibranium, as we see in Age of Ultron? The premise of Wakanda is that it's running a global cartel. It controls all vibranium supply and charges exorbitant prices for the limited amount it let's out of the country. That artificial scarcity made it extremely rich. And while it's amazing that it's public face is one of poverty, it's clearly importing TONS of materials and goods from the remainder of the world.

@1, i think you are right, so i changed it.

@13 Cheers Charles.

@12 I can't believe I'm doing this but here we are -- wasn't the Vibranium in Age of Ultron the stuff that had been smuggled by Klaue (not sold by Wakanda)?

Only a moron could think there are “spoilers” to a comic book movie with a plot contrived for ten year olds.

I thought it was an entertaining movie. But I don't watch comic book based movies to determine the meaning of life. I let that shit ago when I was 10 years old.

@15 you are correct. That vibranium was stolen/smuggled from Wakanda. This is mentioned in the film and part of the on going story we see in Black Panther with Klaue.

Hiddenism. Heard here first.

Norway's oil wealth has made Democratic Socialist paradise possible here on Earth.

@15 & 18, But you can't smuggle it if there's no vibranium trade. And there's too much vibranium out in the MCU to think it was ALL stolen. The sale of vibranium is also long established Marvel canon. Maybe the movie did a 180 on that. But what we see in Wakanda is not possible without outside trade. And we shouldn't promote that it is possible given how much conservatives already love talking up "indigenous" solutions to poverty at the expense of foreign aid.

Hiddenism is the Prime Directive, obfuscated because the rich Federation superpower surrounds islands of backwardness, while the rich Wakandan superpower is an island surrounded by backwardness. The idea is the same. The dramatic irony is that both colonialism and hiddenism are paternalistic.

It feels like the author missed a pretty obvious reason for Wakanda hiding itself which is, while related to capitalism, not directly tied to it in the ways cited:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_c…

Wakanda, as a primary source of an incredibly valuable resource, would have been mined and harvested if they were not secret. That is the main threat to their existence. The new revelation is that they have developed enough tech and culture to protect themselves from that influence or at least, so they hope.

With great power....I think we all know how that one goes. Opening Wakanda to the world need not expose it to the dangers of capitalism in the form of exploitation and capital flight, if the state defended itself adequately, e.g. via capital controls and Polyani's notions of embedded markets.

Rhodesia was a Wakanda of sorts until minority rule was ended and it became increasingly communist. Rhodesia was the Jewel of Africa, second only to South Africa in terms of wealth-- and only because South Africa was larger and more populous(read: more Europeans).

Isn't it funny(or maybe not) how the most "colonized" African countries are the most advanced ones, whereas, the untouched parts are the least? Isn't it funny how the most colonized become increasingly poor as they become more and more "decolonized?" The real vibranium seems to be Europeans--- if you ask me.

Killmonger could have easily been the human personification of haile sellassie's famous words "Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war.."

Killmonger could have easily been the human personification of haile sellassie's famous words "Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war.."