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Ryan Coogler debuted with the sophisticated
Fruitvale Station (2013) before selling out with
the seventh "Rocky" movies Creed (2015).
The blockbuster
Black Panther (2018), based on the Marvel Comics superhero,
is a
a tedious collage of old Hollywood stereotypes recast in futuristic
high-tech scenario with mildly artistic visual effects,
about the handsome young king of an hidden kingdom
who turns into a James Bond of the jungle to carry out the stereotypical
deadly mission against the stereotypical evil man. Add the stereotypical
side story to avenge the killing of his father and the stereotypical
love story with a stubborn sexy woman.
The cartoonish implausible plot, replete with ridiculous shootouts and car chases, leads to the most amateurish of happy endings and philosophical conclusions.
Children are playing basketball in Oakland in 1992. In a nearby apartment
the superhero "Black Panther" appears amid two female warriors to denounce and
kill his own brother as a traitor, guilty of selling their secret weapon to
a (white) arms dealer, Ulysses.
The Black Panther is the king of an obscure African kingdom,
Wakanda, which is considered a very poor country but actually hides in the
forest the most technologically advanced city. The power of the Black Panther
and of the nation derives from a cosmic material called
vibranium that dropped over Wakanda in ancient times.
Wakanda has sent the king's brother N'Jobu to work undercover in Oakland.
The Black Panther is king T'Chaka, who has been informed of
his brother N'Jobu's betrayal. The accusation is confirmed by N'Jobu's best
friend and assistant, Zuri, who is actually another undercover Wakanda agent.
The flashback ends and we are in Wakanda, a futuristic city in the middle
of a primitive African jungle.
The king's dies and his son T'Challa is crowned king in an elaborate ceremony, despite a late challenge by his rival M'Baku.
His mother, his ex-girlfriend Nakia and his younger sister Shuri support him.
The white mercenary Ulysses, who has a prosthetic arm weaponized with vibranium,
and the black Erik steal a Wakandan artifact,
containing vibranium, from a British museum.
T'Challa is informed that the CIA is trying to buy it and T'Challa leads
the expedition that disrupts the operation and captures the mercenary Ulysses.
Ulysses reveals to the CIA agent, Everett, that Wakanda is a technologically advanced civilization. Erik frees Ulysses and kills Everett, but Everett is
resurrected by Shuri using advanced technology.
Zuri tells new king T'Challa that his uncle N'Jobu wanted to provide African-American rebels with vibranium to conquer the other races.
T'Challa's father was opposed and traveled to Oakland to stop the plan.
The uncle tried to kill Zuri and T'Challa's father killed him, killed his own
brother. Uncle N'Jobu had a child in the USA, Erik.
A flashback shows the then prince (now king) as a child playing basketball near the building where his father killed his brother to save Zuri's life.
Erik kills Ulysses and takes the body to Wakanda, challenging the king T'Challa to the throne. Erik wins, kills T'Challa throwing him into a waterfall, kills Zuri and becomes the new king with the declared intent
to use the vibranium to subjugate the white race.
A flashback shows Eriks' version of the killing of his father.
Everett, T'Challa's mother, Nakia and Shuri
trek to the kingdom of the defeated challenger M'Baku and beg him to help dethrone the new king Erik. M'Baku's men found T'Challa's body unconscious but not
dead and he is promptly resurrected to lead the rebellion.
T'Challa kills Erik, who refuses to surrender. T'Challa is king again and looks
like he's going to marry his old girlfriend Nakia.
Back in Oakland, children are playing basketball.
T'Challa brings his sister to visit the building that is being torn down to
create a museum run by his sister.
A Wakanda spaceship lands in the basketball court: the king has decided to
tell the world the truth about the kingdom, which he does at the United Nation.
Black Panther - Wakanda Forever (2022)
Sinners (2025) is both a horror movie and a metaphor for White people's exploitation of Black people.
The story takes place in 1932 in a Black rural community. The voiceover of Annie introduces the "musical" theme, that some people have a gift for music, but this often has a tragic counterpart.
A young man, Samuel, bloody and exhausted, enters a church while mass is taking place. The preacher, who is
his father Jedidiah, invites him to forsake his guitar because blues music is an instrument of the devil.
A flashback shows us what happened in the previous day.
Samuel works in a cotton plantation but his passion is to play the guitar.
Black twins
Elijah "Smoke" and Elias "Stack"
returned from several years in Chicago, presumably
working for mobsters, with money.
They purchase a sawmill from White landowner Hogwood, and threaten to kill him
and anybody else belonging to the Ku Klux Klan. Hogwood protests that the Klan
doesn't exist anymore.
The twins want to start a "juke joint" and quickly draft Samuel, who is their
cousin, to play guitar, plus a veteran pianist, Delta Slim,
and
their friend Cornbread as the bouncer.
They also buy supplies from friendly Chinese shopkeepers Grace and Bo-chow, who
have a teenager daughter, Lisa. While he is negotiating, two Blacks try to steal stuff from the twins' truck. Stack runs outside and shoots both of them, although only wounding them. He is clearly a cold-blooded killer.
Stack tells Samuel that Smoke killed their abusive father.
Samuel is attracted by a lively girl, Pearline, who says she's married, while
Stack is confronted by his ex-girlfriend Mary, a resentful mulatta who looks White, and while Smoke makes peace with his estranged and no less resentful wife Annie.
Meanwhile, a disfigured White man, Remmick, knocks at the door of an isolated cabin begging for
help. He is chased by "Indians". The white couple who lives in the house,
Bert, who is Hogwood's nephew, and Joan, take him in and hide him.
The "Indian" who leads the posse demand that they surrender him but they refuse. The Indian then warns them that they are in great danger and rides away.
In fact, Remmick is a vampire and quickly turns both Bert and Joan into vampires.
On the opening night of the juke joint, Samuel performs and the crown loves it.
Remmick, Bert and Joan shows up pretending to be musicians who want to join the party, but Smoke refuses to let them in because they are White. Remmick insists that they just want to socialize but eventually retreats. Remmick, Bert and Joan remain nearby playing their Irish folk music.
The other major performer of the party is Pearline, who singings leads a trance-inspiring dance. Behind the scenes, the twins are discussing their financial losses. Mary overhears them and walks outside determined to find money. She meets
Remmick who pledges money. May realizes too late that there is something weird about Remmick: he attacks her and turns her into a vampire. She returns to the party and seduces Stack only to bite him to death. Samuel and Smoke catch her in
the act. Smoke shoots her repeatedly but she still flees laughing and promising to kill them all. At the same time, bouncer Cornbread leaves the front door to pee and is attacked by Remmick.
Smoke, devastated by Stack's death, kicks everybody out, but this way he offers
the crowd to Remmick's gang, so that they all turn into vampires.
Annie understands what is going on. When Stack resurrects and tries to approach
Smoke, Annie throws garlic juice at him. Stack runs out terrified and joins
Remmick's army. The only good news is that the vampires cannot enter the
building unless invited. They try invite to convince Smoke to invite them in,
but Annie and Delta Slim make sure that Smoke resists the temptation.
At one point Remmick offers to leave if Smoke surrenders Samuel, whose
guitar playing is indeed supernatural. Remmick also mentions that
Hogwood is actually the leader of the local Klan and plans to attack the juke joint at dawn.
Smoke refuses any deal and shuts the door, but Remmick has also converted into
vampire Grace's husband Bo-chow and Remmick threatens to walk to town and
attack Grace's daughter Lisa. At this, Grace decides that it is time to act and
forces Smoke, Delta Slim, Samuel, Pearline (the surviving humans) to invite
the vampires in and kill as many as possible. What follows is a gigantic riot
during which lots of vampires are killed but not Remmick, not Stack and not Mary.
Grace sets fire to herself in order to burn a vampire.
Delta Slim sacrifices himself to hold back
the vampires while the others escape.
Annie begs Smoke to kill her by sking her through her heart.
Remmick bites Pearline who becomes a vampire.
After a lengthy (and tedious) fight, Smoke kills his brother Stack.
Smoke then kills Remmick who is about to kill Samuel.
Smoke and Samuel are the only survivors at dawn, when sunlight
incinerates all other campires, including Pearline.
Smoke now has to confront Hogwood's gang. Smoke arms himself and shoots them
all dead, but is mortally wounded and has a vision of Annie and their dead
little daughter. Now we are back to the first scene: Samuel enters the church
and his father begs him to drop the guitar. Samuel disobeys and leaves, and
in 1992 he is shown performing, an old man, in Chicago.
The film seems to end with the credits but instead it restarts. The ghosts
of young
Stack and young Mary appear at a pub where the old Samuel is drinking alone.
Stack claims that he was not killed by Smoke: Smoke only made him promise that
Samuel would be unharmed. Samuel refuses their offer of immortality and instead
plays a song for them. Stack hugs Samuel and leaves with Mary.
As they are walking away, Samuel confesses that the memory of that night still
haunts him, but, at the same time, before the vampires appear that was the
best night of his life.
Stack confesses that for him too that memory is special:
it was the last time he saw his brother and the last time he saw the Sun.
And for a few hours he was free.
(Copyright © 2017 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )
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