Another year, another cycle of cinematic adaptations of Marvel Comics characters. Last year, we received the much-anticipated return of Thor in Thor: Ragnarok, the first movie dedicated to the MCU iteration of Spiderman in Spiderman: Homecoming, and the comedic return of everyone’s favorite space misfits in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. As it stands, 2018 is shaping up to be quite the year for Marvel movies since the films set for this year are the hype-inducing Avengers: Infinity War Part 1, the sequel to the ridiculously fun Ant Man with Ant Man and the Wasp, and February’s critically acclaimed film: Black Panther.

When Captain America: Civil War was first released, Marvel fans everywhere knew that two new movies would be hitting theaters sooner than they’d imagine with the arrival of both Black Panther and Spiderman now added to the roster of MCU characters. Standing as a stark contrast to how many Spiderman films there have been, Black Panther was new and exciting territory for fans alike. I’m going to issue a minor spoiler warning right here if you haven’t seen Captain America: Civil War, yet. Not a month after its release, Black Panther is already receiving baffling amounts of praise and glowing reviews.

The story is set after the events of Civil War where the leader of a hidden, highly advanced African nation called Wakanda was killed in a bomb explosion during a conference that would determine the regulations placed on everyone’s favorite heroes. His son, T’Challa, would go on to take up his mantle as Wakanda’s leader, assuming the title of Black Panther. This brings us to the events of the current film.

The film itself follows T’Challa going about the rights of passage for becoming the leader of Wakanda, accompanied by Okoye, one of his personal guards; Shuri, his brilliant, meme-quoting sister; and Nakia, his ex who is a Wakandan spy. However, after being given the title, everything quickly spirals out of control when Erik Stevens, a U.S. black-ops soldier of Wakandan origin, returns to his homeland under the moniker of Killmonger to overthrow T’Challa. This is all in a joint-effort with MCU veteran villain (first appearing in Avengers: Age of Ultron) Ulysses Klaue to gain access to Wakanda’s rich wealth of a resource called vibranium. If that name sounds familiar, vibranium is the same material used to make Captain America’s shield among other MCU character’s weapons and armor.

Now we come to the part of the review I’m sure nobody is wondering about since this movie has already been praised up and down. Let me start off by saying that this movie IS NOT in any way bad. That being said, it didn’t really blow me away either. As a movie, it visually stands out not only with how good the whole film looks aesthetically, but the cinematography was done well, too. As a Marvel movie, it’s kind of basic. Although, it’s the first of its kind not only for the character’s story and background in the MCU (excluding his appearance in Civil War), but it’s the first Black Panther movie. By no means am I saying it’s a bad movie, believe me, I liked it. In fact, I personally think it was better than the trailer made it look, which may have something to do with why audiences reacted so positively, but that may have more to do with the cast. Speaking of which, it’s kind of interesting to watch Michael B. Jordan (Killmonger in the movie) in interviews on the movie since he’s familiar with the comics.

To put it simply, it was a good movie, but it was just another Marvel movie. There really wasn’t much about it that really separated itself from others of its kind like Iron Man or Thor. I suppose that it’s important for this to happen, though. Without a movie to set the stage for the character and the direction of a plot or storyline outside of the large interconnected build-up for Infinity War, we aren’t able to see a better story told for T’Challa and the others. Is it a bad film? Absolutely not. The only other factor about this production that I need to point out is that not since Suicide Squad have I seen a movie, nonetheless a superhero movie, have a soundtrack that’s just as good as, if not better than the film itself; something that’s praised up and down by fans and critics alike. All-in-all, it’s worth a watch.