Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
This film tries to do the impossible by being a touching tribute to Chadwick Boseman, a sequel to the (former) ninth highest grossing film of all time, and a set up to Phase 5 of the MCU. While it isn’t without its flaws, and it succeeds in some respects better than other, it’s hard not to be moved by the genuine emotion at the heart of this movie.
Premise: A year after the sudden death of King T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) rocks the nation of Wakanda, Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) and General Okoye (Danai Gurira) have to protect Wakanda from other nations interested in its vibranium resources. Meanwhile, as Princess Shuri (Letitia Wright) struggles with her own grief, Wakanda also faces a new threat from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean: Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejía), ruler of Talokan, who will stop at nothing to protect his people’s hidden underwater kingdom.
Review:
I’m not sure there’s ever been a blockbuster of the size of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever that’s had to deal with the untimely death of its lead character. It certainly feels unprecedented to me, and I also applaud the filmmakers for not taking the “easy option” of simply recasting the role of T'Challa, as others may have done in their place. To the many, many fans of the first Black Panther film, Chadwick Boseman was T'Challa, and it just wouldn’t have felt right to recast the role. Chadwick Boseman conveyed all of the qualities anyone could look for in a leader – compassion, empathy, wisdom, strength, and loyalty to name but a handful – and from all reports, he didn’t just play the part in front of the camera, he personified those qualities in real life too.
First and foremost, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is an emotional and heartfelt tribute to the sadly missed Chadwick Boseman, and in that respect, it’s an unqualified success. From the emotional opening depiction of T’Challa’s funeral, to the final shots of the movie, the film packs an emotional punch that resonates because of the shared sense of loss that bonds the audience, the characters on screen, and the cast and crew behind the camera. And while the movie is bookended by its two most emotionally impactful moments, the loss of T’Challa (and by extension, Chadwick Boseman) is felt throughout the film, most poignantly though Shuri’s storyline.
“… ‘Wakanda Forever’ is primarily a story about Shuri’s grief…”
Letitia Wright steps up into what is effectively the lead role in Wakanda Forever, and her portrayal of Princess Shuri here is a million miles away from the carefree, fun-loving character that we met in the first film (and understandably so). In the first movie, she was the wise-cracking, gadget-designing, genius little sister, and her sibling chemistry with her on-screen big brother T’Challa was one of the movie’s many highlights. In contrast, Wakanda Forever is primarily a story about Shuri’s grief (which itself is wrapped up with unjustified-but-relatable feelings of guilt), and how she struggles to come to terms with the loss of her brother. Despite all of the superhero trappings, Wakanda Forever is such an emotionally powerful movie because those themes of grief and loss are so universal and, after the losses of the last couple of years in the real world, sadly all too relatable.
If being a fitting tribute to Chadwick Boseman is one of the goals that Wakanda Forever set out to achieve, it’s unquestionably the one it most successfully accomplishes. In contrast, arguably the area it’s weakest in is the way it spends so much of its run time trying to set up other elements of the next phase of the MCU. Not since Iron Man 2 has an MCU film been so obviously preoccupied with setting up plot threads and characters for other future projects, and although I would say that Wakanda Forever ultimately does this more successfully than Iron Man 2, it nevertheless does slow down the film’s momentum with a lot of extra elements.
“…several elements do leave the film feeling over-stuffed in certain places…”
One of the more successful of these additional plot threads is the introduction of Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams, ahead of her appearing in her own Ironheart TV show on Disney+ next year. Introducing the character in Wakanda Forever does make sense, given that it allows the film to touch on how other Black communities have reacted to Wakanda revealing itself to the outside world, and it also gives Shuri someone to play off who isn’t a painful reminder of her brother’s absence. The closest we come to seeing the more light-hearted Shuri of the first film is in her interactions with Riri in this movie.
That said, it’s hard not to feel that the plot to Wakanda Forever would have worked just as well without the introduction of Riri Williams, and the need to give Riri enough screentime to justify her inclusion (not to mention a condensed “origin story”) is one of several elements that can leave the film feeling over-stuffed in certain places. This was perhaps most keenly felt in relation to the Dora Milaje subplot, which introduces Michaela Coel as Aneka, but then does next to nothing with her character. Danai Gurira does get some interesting (and amusing) stuff to do again in this film, but where her storyline ends up feels like it’s more concerned with setting up the proposed Wakanda-based TV show that writer/director Ryan Coogler is developing, than it is with giving her plot-line a satisfactory conclusion in this movie.
“…making Namor & the Talokan descendants of the Mayan people was a stroke of genius…”
Other elements, while undoubtedly setting up future MCU developments, do at least feel more organic and less forced. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that Julia Louis-Dreyfus makes an appearance as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (aka Val) from Black Widow and The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, but her role here feels like it provides a meaningful insight into how governments and intelligence services around the world are currently viewing Wakanda’s vibranium monopoly, and it’s not just a gratuitous cameo to set up another MCU project.
Equally, the introduction of Namor and the underwater kingdom of Talokan is clearly going to have a lasting impact on the future direction of the MCU, but they do feel fundamentally integral to the storyline and themes of Wakanda Forever. In his highest profile role to date is Mexican actor Tenoch Huerta Mejía, who is fantastic in the role of Namor. Just as Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) was a three-dimensional “villain” in the first film who challenged T’Challa to look at the world differently, Namor is another character who, in his own eyes at least, is only doing what is necessary to protect his people from exploitation and subjugation by the outside world. The decision to make Namor and the kingdom of Talokan descendants of the Mayan people of Yucatan in Mexico (instead of making using the comic-book's connection to the myth of Atlantis) was a stroke of genius, at once making the culture and civilisation feel lived in and authentic, but also giving them a very real insight into the dangers of colonialism and conquest. Namor’s ‘do it to them before they do it to you’ attitude carries more weight because we all know what happened to the indigenous peoples of North America and Mesoamerica.
“…a lovingly crafted tribute to a great actor who was taken from the world far too soon…”
Given how much of the film is spent on all of these new elements and characters, it’s nice that the film also still finds time to let the rest of the cast from the original movie shine as well. Angela Bassett gets more to do as Queen Ramonda in this film than she’s had in the rest of her time in the MCU put together, and Winston Duke comes very close to stealing the entire movie on a number of occasions in his returning role as M’Baku. Over the course of Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War and now Wakanda Forever, the character of M’Baku has had an intriguing character arc, and Winston Duke’s performance has been a real highlight of these films. Lupita Nyong'o is also back as Nakia, and she does a lot with a slightly smaller amount of screentime in this sequel.
So overall, it’s fair to say that Wakanda Forever isn’t perfect, mainly because its desire to squeeze so many different elements into one movie means that some of them feel underdeveloped, and the pacing in the middle of the film is a little off. But given that the entire film had to be recalibrated following the passing of its title actor during pre-production, it’s a miracle that the movie is as good as it is. The plot manages to say a lot about everything from intimate stories of grief, loss and revenge, to wider themes of colonialism, the proliferation of WMDs and the international arms race, all while never losing sight of being a lovingly crafted tribute to a great acting talent that was taken from the world far too soon.
Also, make sure you stay for the mid-credit scene…
