https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/movies/best-movies-21st-century.html
96. Black Panther (Ryan Coogler, 2018)
There’s so much to love. It’s a superhero spectacle that actually has something important to say, about how identity, history and responsibility intersect. Wakanda, the Afrofuturistic world where the story takes place, is a visual wonder. The women (played by Angela Bassett, Danai Gurira, Lupita Nyong’o and Letitia Wright — all excellent) aren’t just sidekicks or love interests. Michael B. Jordan, as the tragically villainous Killmonger, has never been more swoon worthy. And, of course, Chadwick Boseman shines in the title role, sadly one of his last before dying of cancer.
I soured on it when a guy shows up to this hyper advanced, futuristic, utopian society and goes, “I challenge the king to combat, and you have to let me do it, and then when I win, you have to make me king.” And everyone just shrugs like “Welp, thems the rules. Nothing we can do about it.”
That was the thing that bothered me most as well. It’s supposed to be the most advanced society on Earth, and they use a kind of trial by combat to decide their leader.
Not to mention how clichéd it was in The Avengers for them to be running around with spears (or weapons that looked like spears), as if they had a particular fondness for a stone age motif.
Have you been paying attention to real world politics lately
Hyper advanced hidden society… might makes right rulership challenge. Yeah the two don’t seem to go very well together do they?