Black Panther: Marvel’s thrilling vision of the afrofuture

Black Panther is a 2018 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the eighteenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film is directed by Ryan Coogler, who co-wrote the screenplay with Joe Robert Cole, and stars Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa / Black Panther, alongside Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, and Andy Serkis.

In Black Panther, T’Challa is crowned king of Wakanda following his father’s death, but his sovereignty is challenged by an adversary who plans to abandon the country’s isolationist policies and begin a global revolution. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 97% based on 452 reviews, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The website’s critical consensus reads, “Black Panther elevates superhero cinema to thrilling new heights while telling one of the MCU’s most absorbing stories— and introducing some of its most fully realized characters.”

As of February 18, 2018, it was the best-reviewed live-action superhero film on the site, beating The Dark Knight (2008) and Iron Man (both 94%).Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 88 out of 100, based on 55 critics, indicating “universal acclaim”. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “A+” on an A+ to F scale, the second live-action superhero film to receive that grade after Marvel’s The Avengers. Filmgoers polled by comScore’s PostTrak service gave the film a 92% positive score and an 88% “definite recommend”, with a third of people planning to see the film again.