If there is one thing BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER gets right is the reverence and respect it gives to the memory of Chadwick Boseman, taken from us way too soon after making the role of T'Challa, the Black Panther, totally and uniquely his own. From the opening montage, where he is the only Marvel superhero whose visage we see, onward throughout the film, his shadow looms over the characters, story, and action. We feel his missing presence in every scene. It is clear that director Ryan Coogler, the returning members of the cast from the first film, and the producers where dealt a very difficult hand when crafting a sequel and finding a way forward. Perhaps it was an impossible chore, perhaps there was no way they could have succeeded under these conditions, but the resulting film was just a disappointment as far as I'm concerned. In the absence Boseman, WAKANDA FOREVER fills the void by elevating the principle female characters to center stage, and having them face off against a threat from Prince Namor, the leader of an undersea race heretofore unknown to the MCU over the issue of vibranium, an all purpose element found in abundance in Wakanda (and the source of its technological superiority), and now for the first time, discovered outside the African nation on the ocean's floor. Coveted by other nations, this sets off a conflict when Namor demands that Wakanda do his dirty work for him, and eliminate the threat from the surface world. I don't fault the actresses-Letitia Wright, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, and the indomitable Angela Bassett-who totally give it their all, and clearly bring it. But the script goes heavy on the themes of female empowerment, anti-colonialism, and Afro-futurism that earn praise from mainstream film critics and pop culture commentators at the expense of the tension and conflict, and even humor that made the first film something special. A cameo by Michael B. Jordan's Killmonger in a dream sequence only served as a further reminder of what WAKANDA FOREVER was missing. At a running time of more than two and half hours, WAKANDA FOREVER works way too hard to generate some heat with its thin plot. Namor is played by Tenoch Huerta as another antagonist motivated by past injustice, so he never really feels like a Big Bad. And those wings on his heels look silly. Tweaking Namor's origin to make him and his undersea kingdom have a connection to the ancient Mayans, who escape Spanish oppression by ingesting vibranium, works, but giving all of them but Namor blue skin invokes unflattering comparisons to AVATAR (it didn't help that the trailer for James Cameron's latest epic played in the theater before WAKANDA FOREVER). There are some great action set pieces, something the MCU does well, but the resolution of the final battle between Princess Shuri and Namor is underwhelming. There are a few cameos, and I liked the interplay between Martin Freeman and Julia Louis-Dreyfuss. And was I the only one who thought Richard Schiff was just playing an older version of his character from THE WEST WING when he shows up as the Secretary of State?
There is a single mid-credits scene that reveals that the legacy of T'Challa is more than what it first appeared, something I thought the movie was leading toward all along. It opens up a host of possibilities for future BLACK PANTHER films, but I was further disappointed that there is no hint as to where Phase IV of the MCU is heading. That was one of my complaints with THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER and I think the loyal fans are getting restless. Namor is a character with a lot of history with The Fantastic Four, and this would have been an opportunity to give us some idea of how and when they might be introduced into the main MCU. Namor also mentions that he is a mutant, one of the first ones ever in the Marvel universe, raising the possibility of the X-Men showing up-how great would it have been if he'd been approached by Magneto in another after credits scene seeing how their back stories have similarities. Will just have to wait and see what the next Ant-Man movie shows us.
There is a single mid-credits scene that reveals that the legacy of T'Challa is more than what it first appeared, something I thought the movie was leading toward all along. It opens up a host of possibilities for future BLACK PANTHER films, but I was further disappointed that there is no hint as to where Phase IV of the MCU is heading. That was one of my complaints with THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER and I think the loyal fans are getting restless. Namor is a character with a lot of history with The Fantastic Four, and this would have been an opportunity to give us some idea of how and when they might be introduced into the main MCU. Namor also mentions that he is a mutant, one of the first ones ever in the Marvel universe, raising the possibility of the X-Men showing up-how great would it have been if he'd been approached by Magneto in another after credits scene seeing how their back stories have similarities. Will just have to wait and see what the next Ant-Man movie shows us.