Black Panther: Wakanda Forever review

BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER: 

SEQUEL EFFECTIVELY PAYS TRIBUTE TO CHADWICK BOSEMAN AND IS A WORTHY CONTINUATION OF THE CHARACTER’S STORYLINE!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** ½ out of 4

MARVEL STUDIOS

The Panther lives on in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

 

            The gates of Wakanda have been reopened in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the latest installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and follow-up to 2018’s Black Panther. What can be said about the first film that hasn’t been said already? Not only was it a massive critical and commercial hit, but also game-changing in superhero movies as it was the first to feature a mostly African American cast, a more sophisticated and enriching story that steps outside the MCU formula, the flawless casting of the late Chadwick Boseman (Who tragically passed away in 2020) as the titular character, one of the MCU’s best villains with Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger, and the film would go on to become the first superhero movie to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.

            It’s quite impressive how huge the impact of the first film was when it came out and that it became this worldwide phenomenon. Sure, other individual MCU films like Iron Man and Guardians of the Galaxy made a big impression, but not to this extent. 

            Now, we have the sequel with Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station, Creed) returning as director and most of the cast from the first film reprising their roles. The film was heavily built up in the marketing as this emotional powerhouse and feature-length tribute to Boseman…and they weren’t lying! That is essentially what Wakanda Forever is, and it’s done very well. 

            T’Challa, the king of Wakanda and original Black Panther has died of an undisclosed illness and the people of Wakanda are mourning the loss of their king and protector. Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett-Malcolm X, Contact, How Stella Got Her Groove Back), Princess Shuri (Letitia Wright-The Commuter, Sing 2, Death on the Nile), M’Baku (Winston Duke-Us, Nine Days, Spenser Confidential), Okoye (Danai Gurira-The Visitor, The Walking Dead, All Eyez on Me), and the Dora Milaje are fighting protect their nation from intervening world powers in the wake of T’Challa’s death. 

            However, a new threat comes in the form of mysterious blue people not from Pandora, but from the underwater kingdom of Talokan led by their king, Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejía-El Inferno, The 33, The Forever Purge) which causes a huge conflict between both civilizations. Shuri and Okoye recruit MIT student and genius inventor, Riri Williams/Ironheart (Dominique Thorne-If Beale Street Could Talk, Judas and the Black Messiah) and enlist the help of T’Challa’s former lover and undercover Wakandan spy, Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o-12 Years a Slave, Star Wars franchise, Us) and CIA agent, Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman-The Hobbit trilogy, Sherlock, The World’s End) to resolve this crisis and hopefully bring peace to both tribes while also potentially finding their new Panther. 

            The film also stars Florence Kasumba (Wonder Woman, Emerald City, The Lion King (2019)) as Ayo, Michaela Coel (Chewing Gum, Black Mirror, I May Destroy You) as Aneka, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Seinfeld, The New Adventures of Old Christine, Veep) as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. 

            Overall, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever may not be as impactful as its groundbreaking predecessor, but it’s still a worthy continuation of the Black Panther storyline and an emotional tribute to Chadwick Boseman’s legacy. From the opening sequence where T’Challa is dying followed by the film reusing the Chadwick Boseman-themed Marvel Studios intro on the Disney+ version of the first movie all the way to the mid-credits scene (There’s no after-credits scene though!), you can tell the cast and crew were speaking from the heart when making this film and honoring both the T’Challa character and Chadwick as well as the impact the two of them had. 

            I did show some skepticism when it was announced that Black Panther 2’s production was still moving forward after Chadwick’s passing because his performance as the character was so iconic and expertly portrayed that I felt could not be duplicated or recast, it would be like recasting Iron Man if Robert Downey Jr. suddenly died, it just doesn’t seem right to me. Luckily, that was not the case as this film makes the bold decision to have T’Challa die and make the characters react to it in the same way we all did when the news broke out and it really works. 

            This personal approach allows the film to be more character-focused compared to other MCU films, which was one of the major strengths of the first movie. In my opinion, the first Black Panther had some of the best characters in any of the MCU films with interesting motives and backstories, charisma, and a sense of realism and many of them are given their time to shine here especially Angela Bassett and Letitia Wright. 

            Angela Bassett is chillingly good in this movie with some of her biggest scene-stealing moments consisting of her giving speeches about political clashes between Wakanda and the rest of the world and this gut-wrenching monologue about her son’s demise. Letitia Wright’s Shuri might be the character who has changed the most since her last appearance as she is now a recluse who has isolated herself from the rest of Wakanda with her technology and is trying to come to terms with the irreversible death of her brother, she is easily the emotional stand-out of the film and honestly carries the entire movie with her performance alone. 

            The action is also exhilarating with another fun car chase sequence like in the first film, some clever uses of slow-motion during certain fights, and a climax with much less CGI than its predecessor (That is one of the few issues I have with the first Black Panther). Oh, did I mention go see this in IMAX? Well, you should! 

            With that said, there are some things that kept Wakanda Forever from being perfect for me, I don’t think the story is quite as strong as the first film and it does feel overstuffed at times. I never felt the runtime as I was watching it which clocks in at around 2 hours and 40 minutes, but there are some side characters’ subplots that don’t really amount to much and either could have been trimmed down or taken out completely. 

            Whatever flaws I have with it, they don’t ruin Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, this is a solid follow-up to the 2018 film and a loving tribute to the late great Chadwick Boseman. It’s the film that proves that even though Chadwick and T’Challa are gone, Wakanda is and always will be…Forever!