Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

 

Rest in peace, Chadwick Boseman.

It couldn't have been easy to completely overhaul this story due to the unfortunate passing of your main star, but director Ryan Coogler did just that. It's actually pretty impressive how he managed to make this all work ànd be a tribute to a colleague. It is by no means perfect and the first 'Black Panther' is still the better film, but 'Wakanda Forever' manages to continue the story in a meaningful way and has some of the best character work in all the Marvel MCU. 

So there.

The country of Wakanda is reeling after the death of their leader T'Challa. Nations from across the globe now think they can move in to get their hands on some of that sweet, sweet vibranium, but they didn't count on the resilience of Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett). Meanwhile Shuri (Letitia Wright) is burying herself in her work. But things start to get funky when vibranium is discovered on the ocean floor, yet the vessel trying to extract it gets taken out by mysterious assailants. 

This turns out to be aquatic people from the nation of Talokan, led by Namor (Tenoch Huerta), an incredibly strong mutant, who seeks to join forces with Wakanda and bring the world to its knees. But Shuri isn't so sure, especially seeing as how Namor has little qualms with killing to get his way and actively hunts a young scientist who created to vibranium detector. 

It's Wakanda versus Talokan, but who will become victorious? And will Shuri be consumed by wrath and vengeance? 

Ever since Marvel had a sort of 'sympathetic' villain in Thanos, they try this thing again with Namor. But where Thanos' reasoning had some merit to it (but going about it the wrong way), Namor is a lot more dubious. His character also flipflops too easily between murderous intent and charm. He could have been written better, and it is thanks to the innate charm of Tenoch Huerta that he doesn't always come across as a complete creep.

Letitia Wright is fine as Shuri, but here, the spotlight is always stolen by the supporting cast. Danai Gurira, Winston Duke and especially Angela Bassett are brilliant and dominate every scene. There's a very legitimate reason ms Bassett garnered so much praise for her portrayal of Queen Ramonda here: she is a true force of nature. Heck, that famous line about her family that's been all over the internet? Goosebumps on the delivery. 

Near the end, the film does turn into that clichéd stroboscopic slugfest quite a lot of Marvel films turn into which is a bit of a shame, but all in all this one does have the heart in the right place. The writing did feel a bit off at times, but the emotional tributes hit home and a lot of the performances are top notch once again.