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Black Panther (Blu-ray Multi-Screen Edition) Review
Image Credit: Marvel Studios
Loading...Marvel Black Panther arrives on Blu-ray and home video in the wake of Avengers: Infinity War. Now, Marvel fans can go back and check out the smash-hit, Black Panther, which finally gives the legendary comics character his own section of the MCU sandbox to play in after T’Challa’s introduction in Captain America: Civil War.
The Movie: The king has returned. Marvel brought the iconic superhero, the Black Panther, to the screen for the first time in 2016’s Civil War, and he finally transitioned to the spotlight for his own solo-big screen adventure earlier this year. The results for Marvel’s Black Panther were nothing less than earth-shattering.
The film is still running very strong at the box office, and it’s very close to crossing the $700 million domestic mark; a feat that no other Marvel Studios feature has yet to accomplish, including The Avengers and this year’s other smash Marvel hit Avengers: Infinity War. Black Panther will be the first.
My main broad strokes for the film can be found in my official review from last February. Overall, Ryan Coogler did a tremendous job in giving T’Challa the spotlight and creating an awe-inspiring version of Wakanda that’s brought to vibrant life onscreen. Michael B. Jordan is definitely one of the MCU’s stronger villains as Killmonger.
The film features a lot of great action, and there’s a strong cast to support the excellent Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa. Danai Gurira as Okoye and Letitia Wright as Shuri nearly steal the show and offer some of the film’s best moments as Wakanda’s respective top warrior of the Dora Milaje and top tech and scientist; as well as T’Challa’s little sister. Boseman and Wright did a great job of creating a fun believe brother-and-sister relationship that feels very natural and organic.
Black Panther definitely bucks the idea that Marvel Studios makes movies that overly comedic or humorous. The stakes and consequences of the movie are real. There is humor in the film, but it’s never over-played. But “I never freeze” leading to “Nakia…hi!” always gets a good laugh.
Not to harp on them, but in terms of flaws, the film probably could’ve lost or cut some of the relationships in the supporting cast. Daniel Kaluuya as W’Kabi and Danai Gurira as Okoye are established early in the film as husband and wife. However, the film does almost nothing with the subplot. Unfortunately, their one major scene together was cut.
While the action for the film is good, some of the fight sequences later in the film just look a bit too cartoony and CG heavy. And that’s in comparison to some other recent Marvel films. It’s not as bad as say the visual effects and CG of last year’s Justice League, but some of the CG looks a little too unconvincing. That’s more of a minor nitpick.
Black Panther is most definitely a game-changer for the MCU and likely comic book superhero films as a whole. How that plays out remains to be seen.
Blu-Ray Info: The Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Copy multi-screen edition release for Black Panther is a single-disc release. It’s packaged in a standard Blu-ray clamshell case with translucent blue plastic, with the single disc for the Blu-ray edition. There’s a slip cover for the Blu-ray case. There’s also an insert with a download code for the digital HD version of the film.
Video Info: The Blu-ray edition of Black Panther is pictured in 1080p High Definition with a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.39:1. Black Panther has translated excellently into the Blu-ray format. The images really pop. Everything looks sharp and nicely lit. It’s a very vibrant and lush world, and the picture still looks incredibly sharp and pristine on Blu-ray.
Audio Info: The main Blu-ray audio track for the combo pack release is presented in 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. There is also an optional English 2.0 Descriptive Audio track for those with sight issues. Additionally, optional French and Spanish language tracks in 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound are included, as well as optional English, French and Spanish subtitles. The Blu-ray features a strong audio soundtrack and mix. Ludwig Göransson’s score sounds great and really crisp. The sound editing and background ambience sounds very sharp and layered.
Special Features: The Multi-Screen Edition release for Black Panther features a nice helping of extras for the Blu-ray disc. It’s a good mix of extra content for the film. It’s not a mind-blowing amount of extras, but it’s a good amount to make this a strong home video release. There’s a good mix of production featurettes, commentary, deleted footage and more.
Audio Commentary: The Blu-ray release features a feature-length, screen-specific audio commentary track with Director Ryan Coogler and Production Designer Hannah Beachler. It’s a very solid commentary track, and Coogler shares a lot of his own personal experiences that he brought to his execution to the film. They also go into some nice details, such as designing the Wakandan language and text. Coogler and Beachler offer some very interesting anecdotes to the film’s execution to how they built the Wakanda and made it feel real and authentic to the human experience. Coogler points out one of the film’s best lines that was taken out of a line from the comics. It’s a good, entertaining commentary track.
Featurettes: There are several behind-the-scenes featurettes on the making of the film that can be viewed individually or all together as a single 24-minute feature. There’s Crowning of a New King, which covers the introduction of the Black Panther character in the MCU in Captain America: Civil War and transitioning to T’Challa taking center stage in his own film. The Hidden Kingdom is a seven-minute featurette that covers bringing the fictional country of Wakanda to life on the big screen. The Warriors Within showcases the strong women character who play prominent roles in the film, such as Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), Shuri (Letitia Wright) and Okoye (Danai Gurira). Finally, Wakanda Revealed: Exploring the Technology is a six-minute featurette that offers an expanded look at Vibranium and the mineral’s significance for Wakanda, and how it’s used to create Wakandan technology.
Deleted Scenes: There’s a nice smattering of Deleted Scenes for the Blu-ray disc. There are a total of four deleted scenes that run together at about seven minutes. UN Meet and Greet shows an extra scene between T’Challa and Everett Ross before T’Challa goes before the UN. Okoye and W’Kabi Discuss the Future of Wakanda shows an extra scene between Okoye and her husband W’Kabi (Daniel Kaluuya). This is the only scene among this group I believe should’ve stayed in the main film. In the movie, the husband and wife relationship of Okoye and W’Kabi is not very well defined. It’s an almost pointless subplot that the movie introduces in an off-handed manner, but it almost never gets revisited.
This was a great scene that naturally fits in well, and it underscores the motivations for both characters as well as their relationship as husband and wife. Otherwise, they should’ve cut out that relationship subplot from the film and not referenced it at all because it really adds nothing to the narrative. The Okoye and W’Kabi scene definitely should’ve stayed. Voices from the Past is a new scene between a young T’Challa as a boy and his father, T’Chaka. It’s sort of a redundant scene, but there’s a nice cut at the end of it showing an adult T’Challa overlooking the lifeless body of his murdered father. The other scenes are decent, but they don’t really add a whole lot.
From Page to Screen: A Roundtable Discussion: This is the best feature of the Blu-ray release. It runs about 20-and-a-half minutes and features the writers of the Black Panther comics talking about the history of the character in the comics and the Black Panther character becoming the star of his own major motion pictures.
Comic writers Christopher Priest, Don McGregor, Ta-Nehisi Coates, film executive producer Nate Moore, film writer Joe Robert Cole and co-writer/director Ryan Coogler are among the talking heads for this feature. They delve into how T’Challa/Black Panther was such a groundbreaking, trailblazing character in the comics, and the film almost seems to mirror how groundbreaking the character was in the comics as well. This is a type of featurette I’d like to see on future MCU home video releases.
Marvel Studios: The First Ten Years — Connecting the Universe: A similar featurette was released for Thor: Ragnarok on Blu-ray. The one runs eight minutes and 39 seconds and covers the interconnectivity of the MCU.
Exclusive Sneak Peek at Ant-Man and the Wasp: This is an incredibly short video featurette for Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp, which is due out later this summer.
Gag Reel: This is your standard movie gag reel. It runs less than two minutes.
