Short answer: because he was playing a specific character from the comic books (although then the question becomes about why they cast a British guy in the first place). But yes, his American accent wasn’t great.
Serkis, man… one of these days he’s going to get the right role that doesn’t involve wearing a motion capture suit and the awards will roll in.
I’m convinced that there’s an outtake reel somewhere with Klaue asking Ross “What has it gots in its pocketsss, preciousss?”.
Watched this movie yesterday, finally. 3-D, but not IMAX. Good 3-D movie; nothing too funky looking, but definitely enhanced the views of Wakanda.
Loved the movie. In the top quartile of the MCU movies I’ve seen, as well as the X-Men, old Spiderman, etc. movies. I liked it especially because the villain (Killmonger) wasn’t cookie-cutterish, the movie does make you think a bit about his motivations (even if they got a bit heavy-handed with the message), and they didn’t go that far overboard with the combat stuff.
As for the depiction of Wakanda and Wakandans, I find it a bit disturbing when people object to depictions of “advanced” cultures that don’t look and act “American”. What’s wrong with having a conservative, traditional approach to how they select their ruler? For one thing, it’s pretty clear that they don’t expect anyone to challenge (it’s been thoroughly ritualized), for another, they are (for whatever reason) still quite into their “warrior” class, and finally, it’s mostly geared towards determining who is best suited for the Black Panther role. I, personally, should think that Africa and Africans would be proud to demonstrate that becoming “advanced” technologically doesn’t mean becoming nothing more than “black” Americans.
What DID disturb me was the horrible depiction of supposed African geology. NO where in Africa are there mountains like the ones the Gorilla tribe lives in. No reason for them to exist, either.
That just goes to show how good the veil is.
What type of mountains are those? I climbed Mt. Kenya when I was a teenager, but I’m no geologist.
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The kind on a location in Atlanta?
ETA: I believe the movie was filmed there.
Here’s a good article on some of the filming locations. It confirms that some of the mountains seen in the movie were genuine mountains in Africa. It specifically mentions Rwenzori Mountains National Park in Uganda, which does indeed have impressive mountains.
Nice sleuthing! I wondered what geological distinction I was missing, and it now appears I was not missing one.
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Really? Try making Wakanda and Killmonger white and see if it reminds you of anything. Tell me it doesn’t smack of Syndrome from The Incredibles (selling super-stuff) and the Soviet Union (exporting Communism).
I’m not seeing any comparison at all between Killmonger and Syndrome, and even if there were, Syndrome wasn’t cookie-cutterish, either.
Eric ‘Killmonger’ was created because his father was killed and he was abandoned by his family. Syndrome was created becase Mr. Incredible just didn’t want a sidekick, and ‘Buddy’ was resentful. I guess there is a very rough parallel there but it is hardly a matter of changing skin color; Black Panther introduces the notion that Wakanda, a technologically advanced but isolationist African nation has a responsibility to other people of African heritage (presumably for not having acted to protect their ancestors or unifying Africa during the slavery and colonial eras), while in The Incredibles the “Supers” are legally prohibited from using their powers to fight crime. If The Incredibles has any parallel in the MCU it is to Captain America: Civil War, where a villain manipulates the hero into violating those restrictions and drives conflict within the team. And as we all know, The Incredibles is actually just the best Fantastic Four film ever made.
Stranger
I agree with Stranger.
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Selling / exporting tech.
I feel like you’d need a tub of Vaseline and a crowbar to fit that into “cookie-cutter”, to be honest.
If that’s all the further you’re looking, then you could also include Ironmonger, from Iron Man. But all three differ in how they’re distributing the tech, to whom, and why. That last is especially important, since motive is really what defines a villain. Killmonger is giving (not selling) tech to those who he agrees with ideologically, to give them an edge over their opponents, in order to redress centuries of injustice. Syndrome is distributing (whether by gift or sale isn’t particularly important to him) tech to everyone, in order to make supers un-special, because he was spurned by a super in his youth. Ironmonger is selling (definitely not giving) tech to whomever can afford it, without regard to what “side” they’re on, to get money from the sales, because he likes money.
And Darren Cross is selling his shrinking technology to Hydra in Ant-Man ‘cause, well, he’s a psychotic jerk. If anything, Iron Man and Ant-Man are largely the same plot down to the villian selling tech to an underground terrorist organization (Ten Rings in Iron Man, Hydra in Ant-Man), the hero’s refusal to share their technology with the government, and the nagging, not quite consumated lover interest (Pepper Potts, Hope Van Dyne). They even take out the villian in essentially the same way; Stark sneaks behind and destroys the Iron Monger suit’s targetting computer to disable him, and then detonates his factory’s ARC reactor to overload the Iron Monger suit and cause it to fail, Lang sneaks behind disables the Yellowjacket weapon systems and then causes its regulator to malfunction, causing the suit to collapse in upon itself.
If the plot of Black Panther is similar to any movie, it would be The Godfather; T’Challa realizes that his father was not the saintly figure he believed him to be, and that as King he will also have to make difficult and morally ambiguous choices (“That’s my family, Kay, not me.”), faces the challenge of facing the world and making Wakanda ‘legitimate’, i.e. open to the world (“In five years the Corleone family will be compeletly legitimate.”) and opposes feeding a violent new crime (drugs in The Godfather) which opens up conflict, is betrayed by a close confidant (“Today I settled all family business so don’t tell me that you’re innocent. Admit what you did.”), and ends up having to sacrifice family to achieve his end (Poor, dumb Fredo, combined with a little bit of headstrong and violent Sonny). Of course, The Godfather is a Greek tragedy in the guise of a Mafia movie, while Black Panther is a heroic Marvel film, so in the end T’Challa has and makes the good moral choice that redeems himself and Wakanda, but many of the beats are quite similar.
Stranger
Nice. So Shuri is Tom?
Hmm…I think Zuri is Tom Hagen. Shuri is Clemenza (provides the weapon and makes sure that T’Challa gets away). Best not to take it further than that; it’s obviously not an exact parallel, but the themes of betrayal, commitment to family, having to make choices with some moral ambiguity, having to change the way of doing things to survive are all fairly analogous.
Stranger
Nicely done!
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Shuri is obviously supposed to be Tessio. Like Shuri, he was the smart one. And at the waterfall scene, it was Shuri who looked like she was going to challenge T’Challa - a clear foreshadowing of an eventual move to usurp him.
I’m guessing the subplot where she sold out T’Challa to Killmonger didn’t make the final cut. Maybe it’ll be a DVD extra.