Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (11.18.22)

 

When Chadwick Boseman tragically passed away in 2020, his absence left Marvel Studios in an uncomfortable position. Black Panther, the 2018 cultural phenomenon that launched Boseman to international stardom, was their highest grossing non-Avengers film to date, and leaving money on the table by not producing a sequel was not something they were willing to do. So the choice was this: Should they recast their main character or move on without him? I must admit that I was skeptical that a Black Panther film without Black Panther would ever work, but I’m going to have to go ahead and eat those words because Black Panther: Wakanda Forever turned out to be one of the most ambitious, emotional, and mature Marvel films yet.  

The main theme of Wakanda Forever is grief, and it is one that is thoroughly examined in both the narrative sense with T'Challa and the meta sense with Boseman. The absence of both the main character and the actor who portrayed him looms large, and the space they leave is not so much filled by the one-time supporting cast as it is a main character in and of itself. For a good chunk of the movie there is no main character, and all of the actors involved manage this wonderfully, from the returning ones to the fresh faces that drive the main conflict of the film. This conflict is very comic book-y even by comic book movie standards, but the film never loses this melancholy heart. 

Also returning for Wakanda Forever are costume designer Ruth Carter, production designer Hannah Beachler, and composer Ludwig Goransson, each of whom won an Academy Award for their work on the original Black Panther. The look and sounds of Wakanda is what gave the fictional country its vibrant identity in the first film, and I would not be in the least bit surprised if each of these crew members have another Oscar in their future for a job well done on the second. Joining Wakanda in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s line up of lamentably fake tourist attractions is the underwater Aztec city of Talokan (standing in for the comics’ version of Atlantis), which has no less soul and beauty than its African counterpart. If nothing else, Wakanda Forever looks and sounds amazing.  

The film’s second half is not quite as good as its first half as the theme of grief (somewhat naturally) evolves into a theme of revenge, at which point cliche becomes abundant and the 2 hour 41 minute runtime becomes to feel a bit long (it never really drags, however, which is an impressive feat for Marvel’s second longest film to date). This coincides with Wakanda Forever finally cementing who it wants its main character to be, a decision that I did not find as interesting as the ensemble approach up to that point. But as complaints go these are very minor. Director Ryan Googler and company managing to make a movie this good with the tragic circumstances they were given is nothing short of a miracle.  

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is now available in theaters.  

 

This review was first published in The Keizertimes on November 18^th, 2022. Visit at http://keizertimes.com/