“I have seen gods fly. I’ve seen men build weapons that I couldn’t even imagine. I’ve seen aliens drop from the sky. But I have never seen anything like this. How much more are you hiding?”
The line from Martin Freeman’s character, Everett Ross, is a good summary of the newest trailer for Black Panther. We’ve been watching the Marvel Cinematic Universe unfold for nearly a decade, and some of the movies’ carefully curated beats are starting to feel repetitive. But we haven’t quite seen anything like Black Panther.
That’s partly because Wakanda is an entirely new setting for Marvel. Instead of a place like New York, a city with an absurdly high volume of superhero-related events, Black Panther is transporting us to a super-advanced city in the heart of Africa. It’s a city of wonder and futuristic flourishes—like if Blade Runner 2049 took place in a jungle. Wakanda also happens to be home to nearly every cool actor on the planet: Chadwick Boseman, Freeman, Michael B. Jordan, Danai Gurira, Lupita Nyong’o, Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett, a one-armed Andy Serkis. And director Ryan Coogler (Creed, Fruitvale Station) is teasing us with shots like this.
And this:
The new trailer’s still fairly light on plot, but it’s clear that our protagonist, T’Challa (Boseman), is burdened with the responsibility of being Wakanda’s new king—remember, his father died in Captain America: Civil War—and outside forces who want to capitalize on the instability his father’s death provides and take over the country. T’Challa’s main threat is Jordan’s Erik Killmonger, which means he gets to play a villain; a villain I’m pretty much already rooting for, and who has his own Black Panther–esque suit.
This one second of footage is all I need to know that Black Panther will be Marvel’s best movie since Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It comes out in February 2018.
