This film had many things going against it before the cameras even started rolling. The biggest and most unfortunate one was the passing of Chadwick Boseman, the Black Panther himself. I can’t even imagine finding this charismatic actor who nailed his role in the previous films (all the way from Captain America: Civil War (2016) to Avengers: Endgame (2019)) and now, him not being there for the film that was built around his character, that must have been tough to cope with. So the film had to deal with that; on top of it, the pandemic happened, and not only that mean delays, but it also meant Letitia Wright (who plays a scientist in the MCU) started to “ask questions”. But she’s definitely not anti-vax just asking questions… Look, I don’t know, she denied it (even though she posted some questionable stuff about the pandemic on her Twitter) but for a big-budget production that already had to change everything because of their leading star passing away, this was the last thing anybody should have worried about. But somehow, Ryan Coogler stepped up and delivered this film that is very close to perfection.
Before diving into the film itself, we must address the elephant in the room – how this movie dealt with Chadwick’s death. I loved every single second of it. I thought Marvel’s logo in the beginning with just him was a sweet touch; I thought the beginning sequence was done well, and throughout this movie, you could feel that he was gone. I know some people didn’t like that about this film, but I thought they did the best they could. It was sad to see a tribute to such a talented, charismatic actor who was taken from us way too soon, but that tribute never felt too much nor dragged the film down. I also loved how they didn’t even attempt to CGI him into any part of the film, and I can only hope it will stay like that for future projects. It’s always striking when a big franchise does this (looking at you, Fast franchise), and I hope Disney has learned its lesson and won’t do that to Chadwick’s memory. This was the perfect send-off for him, let him rest in power now.
As far as the film itself, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has piles of setups for many future MCU projects. Sure, you might say, but that’s not something new it’s been like that for ages within the MCU. Yes, to a degree, but since this movie marks the end of Stage 4, it seemed like the executives tasked Ryan to do so much more universe-building stuff than necessary; on top of dealing with Chadwick’s death. Did we really need Riri, aka Dominique Thorne? And her setting up Ironheart? Ok, let’s say she was so vital (she wasn’t) but ok. Did we truly desperately need Martin Freeman and Julia Louis-Dreyfus in this film? Both are great actors I usually love to watch in anything, but both felt as necessary here as a condom machine in the Vatican. Because that would be my only criticism of this film, it has too much going on. And I am not even talking about cutting anything; I didn’t mind the length, but the film has to focus on the core characters! Focus more on Shuri, Nakia or Queen Ramonda!
Speaking of the core characters, let’s talk about them. I hope Letitia has stopped “just asking questions” because I really like her character, and she seems to be a great actress. Shuri went on this painful journey, and Letitia displayed beautifully; what can happen if you don’t deal with your inner grief/demons properly; you may lose yourself. I was surprised to see so little of Lupita Nyong’o in this film, but she killed it in the scenes she was in. It also seemed they are setting her character to be more important later on (no spoilers, but just because of the ending). And Angela Bassett was great. But we need to talk about her Oscar nomination.
I have always liked Angela and believed she would get that Oscar one day. It seems that she is the front-runner for this role here, but instead of being happy for her, my emotions are mixed. Does she deserve an Oscar? Yes. Is she a phenomenal actress? Also yes. Was she Oscar-worthy in this film? She definitely gave the best performance here, but… Oscar-worthy? No. Especially in the category “Best Supporting Actress”, my vote would either go to Stephanie Hsu (for Everything Everywhere All at Once, 2022, my review here) or Kerry Condon (for The Banshees of Inisherin, 2022, my review here). Now, will I be mad if Angela wins? No, I would not; it would just feel like the Academy is “correcting” yet another mistake of not rewarding her sooner, the same they did with many artists before (Ennio, Leo, Scorsese, just off the top of my head). And again, to repeat, Angela Bassett is a phenomenal actress who deserves an Oscar. I am simply not sure whether this is the film she should get it for, that’s all.
Back to the film, MCU seems to have another great villain in Namor (played by Tenoch Huerta). That is something both this film and the original Black Panther (2018) have in common; they managed to have villains that you can see everything from their point-of-view. And how if they don’t take it too far, they are not villains. But of course, this being a comic book film, we can’t have any blurred lines here, so even Namor has to cross some lines to put him in the villain camp, the same as Michael B. Jordan‘s Killmonger. But I liked Namor, the whole secret civilisation living underwater, how they “linked” him with Kukulkan and the entire history of his society; I was in. But again, had we spent less time setting up everything and more time with this movie’s main characters, I would have loved to learn more about their race, that underwater society.
Also, before it slips my mind, you get many stereotypical MCU fights. So quite a few are cut to death, but in the beginning, there were two action sequences that were shot in a complete dark. I have a nice 4K OLED TV, I was streaming this 4K from Disney, and in those two sequences, neither I nor my girlfriend could see anything. She even asked me whether I could increase the brightness during the second scene because she thought there must be something wrong with our nice TV, given you can hear action happening but can’t see it. That is by no means a big complaint; the rest of the film was lit perfectly fine; just those two early action sequences being shot like that was definitely… a choice.
Overall, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a near-perfect film that plainly has too much going for it. I loved everything directly related to the film, from the villain to honouring Chadwick’s legacy within the MCU. I don’t think they could have done that part any better. It is just a shame that MCU is the big machine that needs to “keep trucking” no matter what, so this film had to spend a good chunk of it on stuff that could have been left to other shows/films. And again, I am not necessarily saying that the almost three-hour runtime bothered me; no. I just wished they would have built this world (and Namor’s world) better and spent that time with our main protagonists rather than characters you can cut out of this film, and honestly, you wouldn’t even know they were there in the first place. But I have to repeat myself; given everything that went against this film, this is an insane accomplishment and statement of how extremely talented Ryan Coogler is.
That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!
Until next time,
Luke
