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Black Panther  (DVD)

8/10

Stars: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Sterling K Brown, Florence Kasumba, John Kani, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, Andy Serkis

Director: Ryan Coogler

Hollywood has created a continuing box-office bonanza (Black Panther is currently going from strength to super-profitable world-wide strength) by exploiting every comic book hero from the X Men, Superman, The Green Hornet to the Incredible Hulk etc, etc, etc.

Given Black Panther was co-created by Marvel Comics', Stan Lee, I was expecting the usual Marvel Mix as before.

True, director and cowriter (with Joe Robert Cole) Coogler delivers all the comic-strip action and excitement the most devoted genre fan could ask for, while the predominant subtext - how wealthy nations callously exploit poor and oppressed countries - hits hard and often but always within the context of the narrative,

The central storyline follows Boseman's T'Challa leaving the US to return to his African home country of Wakanda to take his rightful place as King.

Boseman scores in his Jekyll-and-Hyde-style superhero role and there's strong support from Bassett, Whitaker, Jordan and Nyongo while Serkis, a splendid villain from Darkest Johannesburg with a spot-on South African accent, is great value and Freeman, who fell from space in the flop sci-fi film of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy redeems himself here as a heroic FBI agent.

Alan Frank

USA 2018. UK Distributor: Disney. Technicolor.
128 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 12.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 1, Drugs 0, Swearing 1.

Review date: 17 Jun 2018