SYNOPSIS: Queen Ramonda, Shuri, M’Baku, Okoye and the Dora Milaje fight to protect their nation from intervening world powers in the wake of King T’Challa’s death. As the Wakandans strive to embrace their next chapter, the heroes must band together with the help of War Dog Nakia and Everett Ross and forge a new path for the kingdom of Wakanda.
I would like to start this review out by saying that my heart goes out to all the people involved in this project. I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been for Ryan Coogler to finalize the script for this, and then have his whole world turned upside down with the tragic passing of Chadwick Boseman, causing him to have to write this film again from the ground up. What this film turned out to be is a tribute to Boseman, which certainly works when the its focus is on that subject primarily, but I can’t say this movie does a fantastic job of balancing everything out.
This is a very hard review for me to write. Up until last year I considered myself a pretty diehard MCU shill. I had seen every movie at least three times, and they were the films that I grew up watching and were the films that got me into movies and comics respectively. Over the past year, I’ve been pretty vocal about my feelings regarding Disney+, and the quantity of content that Disney/Marvel has been pushing out in contrast to its quality.
The problem with MCU movies, and the Disney+ shows, is they feel mandated to a certain degree to push the agenda of what’s to come inside of the Marvel Universe. All the films are about introducing what’s next, setting up spin-offs, shows, or characters that are underdeveloped for the sake of content. I can say without a doubt, that everything in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever that was created with care and love by Coogler and his team, I had no problems with. But, it was apparent to me while watching, that the executives at Marvel had their grubby little fingers all over this thing, and that’s where this movie really starts to fight with itself.
First of all, literally everyone in this movie is acting their asses off. Angela Bassett gives such a fantastic performance, and Letitia Wright pulls the weight of the lead character here with an impressive performance as well. Tenoch Huerta Mejía is great as Namor, but It’s hard to rival Killmonger’s story in terms of MCU villains, and I definitely felt his absence while watching this.
For the most part, the action on display here is very well-done. There’s a great fight between two people on a bridge that felt very stripped back and raw, and I was excited to see the rest of the action scenes in the film because of that. The final battle felt slightly rushed, which definitely juxtaposed the lengthy runtime.
Namor might not have been quite as compelling as Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger, but the execution of the underwater city of Talokan and its inhabitants was spectacular. I loved the underwater scenes with them, and the direction of it all was so cool to watch, and it all looks fantastic too. I found them to be an exceptionally strong threat, and a very imposing presence.
Ludwig Goransson's score was PHENOMENAL, and quite possibly my favorite thing about this movie as a whole. It was powerful and moving, and elevated every single action scene it was present in.
There were a lot of very noticeable mandates coming from Marvel that I could see in contrast to the real story this movie was trying to tell. The moments where it focuses on the characters grieving over Boseman’s death were powerful, and real. Outside of that, there’s a lot of subplots going on that I frankly did not care about whatsoever. Everett Ross’ character is given a lot of undeserved screen time for one reason or another to advance some of the subplots, and I really didn’t see the purpose in his presence.
The length of the movie due to there being a lot of different storylines going on is definitely pushing the limit. Towards the third act, I was slowly beginning to lose interest, and by the time the final battle rolled around, it had lost me. Until the final scene, which I thought was the perfect bookend to the film overall (Until the post credits scene, which I don’t really know how to feel about).
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has so much potential in its story. Coogler turned this film into a story with a very heartfelt core, and it's a shame that there was so much executive fluff surrounding it that it feels messy at times. I give all the credit to Coogler and his team for making everything good about this movie, and shame on Feige for trying to invade this examination of grief as a selling point for whats to come.
3/5
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