February 2, 2018
Black Panther (2018) **
First, let's get the politics out of the way: this is a smart pro-Trump movie, celebrating a conservative country that embraces border security, isolationism and refuses to accept refugees, but because it's set in Africa and promotes a Wakanda-first (rather than America-first) policy, nobody can accuse it of alt-right sympathies. And the film's villain is a radical leftist who wants to fight racist oppression and start revolutions everywhere. That said, the film itself, while quite impressive on many levels, is way too long, way too slow and way too reminiscent of Disney's "The Lion King". It could have used more action scenes as well. There is an excellent review on Breitbart here, which sums up the film's politics perfectly: "The movie's hero is Trump, the villain is Black Lives Matter".