I’ve already posted about early reactions to Black Panther, the latest Marvel movie and noted how those early reactions were quite positive.

Welp, the movie is being released today and, if you go by the overall ratings presented on rottentomatoes.com, it would appear that critics are also falling head over heels for this film (you can see those overall ratings for Black Panther here).

Interestingly, or perhaps not, while a whopping 98% of critics have expressed positive feelings for the film, the audience reactions are a little less, at this point being in the still positive range of 77%.

Here’s the thing: It’s becoming clear that there are some people out there who are purposely trying to bring certain films down.

Apparently, some of them belong to the “alt-right”, a group that I don’t really want to waste too much time typing about.

There were rumors that this started with Star Wars: The Last Jedi, that some of the audience reactions were from people who simply wanted to bring the movie down.  I suspect there were elements there who did this, but given what I’ve read around the ‘net, TLJ was a film that some very much loved but which many others… did not.

How much of the film’s audience reaction, which over on rottentomatoes.com currently sits at a mediocre 48% positive, is attributable to the malcontents determined to bring something down is difficult to gauge but, again and based on my reading many people’s reactions to the film (positive and negative), I do believe there is a sizeable contingent of people who legitimately didn’t like it.

As for Black Panther, I’ve already noted before that I’m not all that interested in seeing this movie and suspect I won’t catch it until it hits either home video or some premium cable channel (like I did with Spider-Man: Homecoming).

Having said that, I have no reason whatsoever to believe the “pro” critics and early fan reactions are incorrect.  Quite the contrary: I firmly believe these positive opinions and, further, absolutely believe Black Panther is a good, perhaps even excellent, film.

…but…

Here’s the thing: As big a fan of comic books as I am, I’m becoming distressingly fatigued by this seemingly endless procession of comic book films.  Worse, I just don’t have the time like I used to to see films in general and, obviously, this includes superhero films specifically.  By necessity I’ve become choosy about where I spend my increasingly limited free time and, until something changes, that’s the way it is.

Sometimes, sadly, there can be too much of a good thing.

Returning to i09.com/gizmodo.com, Germain Lussier notes that a preview of the upcoming Marvel movie Black Panther was screened and audience reaction was for the most part positive/ecstatic:

The first reaction to Black Panther sound like Marvel has crowned a new King

Now, having pointed this out and at the risk of getting bombarded with negatives… I’m not all that interested in seeing this film.

In fact, now that we’re some… what?…  two hundred fifty six films into the Marvel “Universe” (I kid, I kid) I find myself less and less interested in the latest release.

I still haven’t seen the latest Spider-Man film.  I haven’t seen Thor: Ragnarok.  I refuse to see Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (to this day I’m bewildered so many people liked the first one, as you can read here).

Let’s face it: I’ve had enough of Marvel’s cinematic universe, even though I consider Captain America: Winter Soldier one of the all time best comic book movies ever made.

I’m tired of ’em.

And as a comic book fan, this is indeed a painful thing to admit.

The problem, in my mind, with Marvel movies is that there is a growing sameness to them.  They hit upon a winning box office formula and of late it feels like all their movies are following that formula.  This became most apparent to me with the Doctor Strange film, which was essentially a remake of the original Iron Man film but with sorcery.

But that’s just my opinion and if anyone out there reading this feels the complete opposite and is super excited to see Black Panther… then more power to you!  I’m glad you’ve found something that makes you excited to go to the theaters and I genuinely hope you have a blast seeing the film.

One final note: If you do follow the above link, check out some of the comments made by readers.  At least one of them apparently did see the film and his/her reaction is diametrically opposite to what the twitter reactions were.

I suppose we’ll see later in February, when the film is officially released.