Alex Engquist’s review published on Letterboxd:
This review may contain spoilers.
Killmonger's last words - scripted by Joe Robert Cole and Ryan Coogler and unforgettably delivered by Michael B. Jordan (Coogler's muse and primary figure of identification), which contextualize the utopian fantasy of Wakanda within the history of our own world and serve to illuminate their shared ancestry, which dispel any doubt as to whether or not Coogler and Cole expect the audience to sympathize with (and perhaps recognize themselves in) the hero's antagonist, which are so heavy with the burden of that history and its atrocities of slavery and colonialism, which must be the realest words ever spoken in a Marvel movie - are a powerful illustration of what representing marginalized perspectives in mainstream entertainment can mean. It's not quota filling or lip service or audience pandering, but awareness that informs full creative execution - writing that line and giving it to an actor who understands its implications and orchestrating that moment with reverence instead of triumph. The hero has won, the villain is dead, but those words and everything they contain hangs in the air for a moment of stillness. There's nothing to be said in response; Coogler cuts to an extreme wide shot of the two of them on a cliff, overwhelmed by the landscape around them. T'Challa's expression is not discernible, he's too far away. Is it an acknowledgment that Killmonger's dying words are as far as this megabudget franchise product can go toward expressing the pain and historical trauma they bear? It's an immensely powerful moment and a frustrating one, making the vague uplift of the coda that follows seem all the more like a retreat back to safer territory.
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