This Black Panther review contains spoilers.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Black Panther turns out to be one of the most influential movies of the decade. That may seem like a grandiose statement, but look at Ryan Coogler’s Marvel film in the context of the larger blockbuster landscape, and you’ll see he’s doing what no one else has really attempted. Yes, Will Smith was the king of the blockbuster for a time, but it was a success centered on one performer. With Black Panther, Coogler has gifted the world a look at not only how a superhero movie can get ferociously political, but also to shine a light on characters who are too often relegated to the sidelines. Every single person in Black Panther, hero or villain, has agency, a purpose, and something worth saying. And they all do it in a meticulously designed world that’s as lush and as vibrant as anything we’ve seen on screen this century. These overpowering strengths are enough to overshadow when the Marvel machinery rears its head and tries to make Black Panther smaller than it is.

Kicking off with a couple prologues explaining the history of Wakanda and the Black Panther before moving to 1992 to see a young King T’Chaka confront his brother N’Jobu (Sterling K. Brown) about smuggling the precious metal Vibranium out of their homeland. N’Jobu believes that Wakandans owe it the outside world, especially black people, to use their superior technology to fight back. But T’Chaka refuses and is forced to kill N’Jobu. We cut to the present day and T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) is set to become the new King of Wakanda following the death of T’Chaka during the events of Captain America: Civil War. After earning his crown by combat, he learns that arms dealer Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis), who attacked Wakanda decades ago, has been spotted. Determined to bring the fugitive to justice, T’Challa, with the help of General Okoye (Danai Gurira), spy/ex-girlfriend Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), and his brilliant sister Shuri (Letitia Wright), goes to take down Klaue, but gets swept up in a larger plan by N’Jobu’s son, Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan), who wants to realize his father’s vision.

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Image via Marvel Studios

The politics at the center of Black Panther are what give the movie its urgency and power. While other Marvel films have occasionally flirted with political ideas (The Winter Soldier with surveillance, Civil War with government oversight), Black Panther tackles them head on by focusing on the cost and purpose of isolationism. Coogler and co-writer Joe Robert Cole use Wakanda both as a vision and as a symbol. As a vision, it’s a beautiful realization of what an African people could be given the resources and removed from the colonization and subjugation at the hands of white nations. It’s a glorious, “What If?” and taken on its own terms, it’s a wondrous land that we want to keep visiting.

But Coogler doesn’t ignore the politics that have made Wakanda so successful. It’s a nation built on isolationism, and that isolationism mirrors the “America First” policies of America’s right wing. It’s the notion that in order for a nation to thrive, it must be cut off from the rest of the world and focused only on its own survival. Killmonger may be an extremist in his belief that the only way for Wakanda to thrive is as a conquering empire, but he’s not wrong that the country’s isolationism is harmful and self-serving. He’s a villain whose viewpoint is rooted in truth, and while we disagree with his methods and extremism, he’s right that isolationism in a global community is ultimately cruel to people who need help.

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Image via Marvel Studios

When Black Panther is digging into these tough political questions through the lens of a spy thriller (Shuri is basically Q to T’Challa’s Bond), the movie fires on all cylinders. It has a perfect sense of identity while forging a new path for strong, powerful characters who still have a personality rather than simply displaying physical strength as a substitute for identity. If Marvel announced tomorrow we were getting spinoffs for Okoye, Nakia, and Shuri, I’d be ridiculously excited because all of the characters leave a deep impression, especially within the world of Wakanda.

Marvel has tried to make its worlds as big and diverse as possible to varying levels of success, but they’ve never been better than what we see here with Black Panther. Wakanda is a (no pun intended) marvel to behold thanks to the outstanding production design by Hannah Beachler, the astounding costumes from Ruth E. Carter, and the vibrant cinematography by Rachel Morrison. Wakanda doesn’t just feel exciting and unique, but also lived-in with a culture that stretches back long before this movie begins. Although I kind of like origin stories, Black Panther makes the right move by dropping us into the middle of T’Challa’s tale because it makes his world feel even bigger.

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Image via Marvel Studios

But Black Panther isn’t just T’Challa’s story. It’s also Killmonger’s, and Marvel is largely able to avoid its pernicious villain problem by following both men and seeing how their lives were shaped—by tradition in the case of T’Challa and being cut off from that tradition in the case of Killmonger. These are two warring viewpoints, and while a lesser script would have lazily made Killmonger an inverse version of T’Challa, he becomes Marvel’s best villain since Loki by being kind of similar to Loki. He’s a lost son whose father was killed by the king, and that king prevented him from achieving his birthright and destiny. The result is the alluring mixture of shocking bravado and tormented soul, but Jordan makes the role all his own. Killmonger is definitely a bad guy, but his motives are always relatable because the movie gives him as much care and attention as T’Challa.

The entire picture holds together fairly well until Killmonger takes T’Challa’s throne, and then the plot kind of loses its way. It stops being about the political repercussions and the challenges of leadership and more about “stopping the bad guy.” And that’s fine to a degree since Killmonger needs to be defeated, but it’s far less interesting. Pretending that T’Challa’s dead is a waste of time since we know he didn’t really die when facing Killmonger. And then the climactic battle just feels like a CGI parade without the weight of character interactions. In its third act, Black Panther moves from groundbreaking to perfunctory.

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Image via Marvel Studios

That’s the price of Marvel’s sandbox, and I think the trade-off, considering everything Coogler gets in return, is worth it. This is a superhero movie that lets black men and black women be absolute superstars, and I would be shocked if we don’t see lots of little kids dressing up as their favorite Black Panther characters this Halloween. It’s a movie that leaves an impact and changes the landscape even if it occasionally has to hew to conventions in order to do so.

Rating: B+

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Image via Marvel Studios