For a variety of reasons, I put off seeing Black Panther.  Partly I’ve been down on the Marvel movies lately.  The DC movies have been better than they’ve been given credit for–very flawed movies, but more enjoyable than most people want to admit–and the Marvel movies took a step back.  Ant-Man was solid.  Captain America: Civil War was essentially Avengers 2.75 and fairly predictable, but more enjoyable than I thought it would be.  Doctor Strange was my personal favorite of the recent marvel movies.  Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was bit too much of a rehashing of the first movie and didn’t really move the characters forward.  Spider-Man: Homecoming and Thor: Ragnarok didn’t even hold my attention long enough to actually go.  Might see them eventually, but I’m still in no rush.

So yeah, I finally saw Black Panther today.  Loved it.  I felt it was a movie where everything about it was right.  Casting, writing, the music, directing… In general, they got it right.  And it felt like the soft reset that the MCU needed.  I think part of my fatigue with the MCU was that it really felt like a lot of the stories were set up for the next movies rather than being there in their own story.  Black Panther really did feel like it was its own movie without needing significance to the rest of the MCU.  Which was good.

Overall it was great film, with a lot of great talent at work.  Even gave me a few ideas for where I might go with the Brigade.