A lot of weight rested on this films’ shoulders. Following up Black Panther is not just making another Marvel sequel, because Black Panther was not just any Marvel movie. It was a cultural phenomenon, a major moment for representation in the blockbuster industry, and a movie that is still among the MCU’s Top Five, one of the few that truly transcends their insular cinematic universe. The tragic death of Chadwick Boseman in 2020 threw a wrench in whatever initial plans director Ryan Coogler and the team at Marvel had for the continuing series. Suddenly, the sequel had to be completely different and in a way that conveyed sincere respect for its’ lost star -someone who had been more of a driving force behind Black Panther than he ever got credit for in his life.
No one would envy Coogler that task, and under the circumstances it’s amazing he was able to pull something through that does in several respects feel like a worthy eulogy for Boseman and his T’Challa. But Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is still a Marvel movie and thus is obligated to advance the larger universe’s priorities in concert with that. The teaser it released back at Comic-Con seemed to propose a marriage of mourning and moving forward with purpose, movingly edited and utilizing a couple perfect music samples relevant to these themes. It was breathtaking -I don’t know that the movie matched up.
Marvel was wise enough to exercise restraint where it came to dealing with the death. They didn’t try any of that digital necromancy, T’Challa’s body is never even shown. He is revealed to have died of a disease that could only have been cured through the magical properties of the herb that gave him his Black Panther powers -and which Killmonger of course destroyed in the previous movie. As expected, his sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) becomes the focal point, particularly distraught and unable to healthily mourn his passing. And yet for much of the movie, it is a collective Wakanda the movie seems interested in, and specifically the women left in the wake of T’Challa’s death, who drive the action: Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), and Okoye (Danai Gurira). It’s a smart move I think, and though nothing really can be called bold in the cash-cow that is the MCU anymore, it is a refreshing choice that the Black Panther figure doesn’t make an appearance until quite late in the film.
That too seems to be a by-product of the films’ reverence, waiting until absolutely necessary to debut Boseman’s successor in costume. In the meantime though there are conversations about coping with the death -one primarily between Ramonda and Shuri setting the latter off on her character arc defined by that pain and bitterness towards it all. And on cue that’s when the main adversary in this sequel makes his appearance, to tempt her aggressive instincts and pose an alliance. Played by Tenoch Huerta, Namor is a curious new instigator, in that he is yet another representation of Marvel’s expansive ambitions both narratively and thematically. He is the six-hundred-year-old leader of a heretofore unheard of sea-dwelling culture called the Talokan -descendants of the Maya, who also possess vibranium that is now being sought after by the U.S. military. He blames Wakanda for the exposure of the vibranium secret, but poses an alliance to protect the resource from the rest of the world, vowing to go to war with them if they disagree.
In Namor, Coogler and Huerta aim to recapture that same raw sense of revolutionary passion that informed Killmonger -he too has suffered directly from the traumas of colonialism and genocide, and quite rightly sees the attempts by foreign nations to gain power of his peoples’ resources as an extension of that same thing. He’s less corrupt than his predecessor but just as ruthless, and Huerta is one of the unambiguous highlights of the film. Namor is interesting enough, but his people and world have considerably less dimension -we get but a glimpse of their society through Shuri’s eyes. In fairness, Wakanda isn’t much showcased in new ways either, significant stretches being set outside the nation and with the problems of the core group of characters.
The plotting in general is missing the momentum and clear direction of the first movie: character dynamics and priorities are shifted around, curious plot beats are left unattended, the tenets of the major arc dip and rise inconsistently over the runtime, and characters are brought in with little purpose but to set up future MCU developments. This last bit is perhaps the most notable as a Boston MIT student Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) is introduced as a major MacGuffin the Talokans are after, only for that relevance to dissipate by the end of the second act as her greater purpose becomes simply to introduce a new Iron Man into the MCU. Worse is the case of CIA agent Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) -here out of obligation due to his role in the last film, and whose entire side-storyline amounts to nothing of consequence to the actual narrative. He’s already a very bland character, and all the movie accomplishes is repositioning him slightly for his next appearance and establishing a past relationship with Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ CIA director.
There is some good character work in the film though, and some better performances. Bassett is a powerful standout, as is Winston Duke, whose M’Baku has become one of Marvel’s more surprising multi-layered characters. Though she’s ultimately underutilized, Gurira gets one remarkable scene opposite Bassett, and Nyong’o is as good as usual, though her reintroduction is belated. However, Michaela Coel, for as much as her casting was heralded by fans of her award-winning shows, is barely significant as a junior member of the Dora Milaje –likely another character who could have been cut if she didn’t establish herself a potential new hero for future Marvel installments. Most importantly though is the role of the new Black Panther, and Letitia Wright takes time settling into it. Her performance is unremarkable up to the critical point at the end of the second act, where her conflict is given greater depth and she rises to the occasion.
Bluntly the movie comes to deal intimately with how people and their actions are driven by pain of grief; personal in the case of Shuri, cultural in the case of Namor. Both lash out in ways irresponsible of their leadership, Coogler drawing a clear line between Shuri’s refusal to healthily come to terms with her brothers’ death and her vengeful pursuit of Namor after he deals another crushing blow to Wakanda in retaliation for her escape. It’s intense and compelling, the heart of it set in motion terrifically by a scene with Shuri in the Ancestral Plain that comes close to topping the ones from the previous movie. Shuri makes some bold, even malicious choices, and it’s interesting to see the movie grapple with the complexity of her moral character –even as it fails to follow through on their weight with a resolution rooted in convention. What does work though is the articulation of the pain on both sides, and the spectre of white industrial imperialism as a root source.
The action scenes are generally rote, if the CGI is slightly improved over its’ predecessor. Coogler uses quite a bit of slow-motion enhancement in his choreography that occasionally serves the purpose of a striking image, but in other instances feels like an unimaginative way to add character to the otherwise dull action beats. He’s doing what he can to make a Marvel movie visually interesting though, and I admire the moments where it really succeeds, such as in a few panoramic one-shots –although there remains nothing like that inverted camera rotation from the first movie. In general, the fingerprints of the wider corporation are way more palpable on Wakanda Forever.
Where the movie hits the strongest are in its’ moments of memorial. The opening Marvel logo for this one consists of nothing but clips of T’Challa against a silent soundtrack. Dotted throughout the film are references of remembrance from Ramonda, Nakia, and others. And it ends with a sensitivity that took me by surprise, moving and measured and without any of the usual Marvel fluff. It closes not one but two arcs really beautifully. None of us know what this movie could have been with Chadwick Boseman, his absence looms large over both its’ strengths and weaknesses. Wakanda Forever struggles to find its’ way without him, as arguably it inevitably was going to. But amidst its’ flaws it does something so few of these movies have managed: it dealt with death in a real permanent, mature way. It’s a messy movie, but a fitting tribute. T’Challa can rest in peace.
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