Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

No one could've envied director Ryan Coogler as he followed up 2018's  smash hit/cultural phenom BLACK PANTHER.  Especially in the aftermath of the death of Chadwick Boseman, who starred as T'Challa, the titular king of Wakanda.  The sequel would have to honor his legacy, while continuing this corner of the Marvel Comic Universe in a fashion that would satiate the insatiable maws of MCU fans, who keep turning up for their increasingly repetitive and spectacle-laden CGI fests.  The original film, while still occasionally falling into the usual tropes, was exemplary in its intrigue and world building, while also fleshing out comic book characters into dimensions rarely seen in any superhero movie.   Would 2022's BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER follow the usual route? Trying to outdo its progenitor in every imaginable way? Or would it ease up on the throttle and give us a more meditative take on loss?

The answer is, yes.  The film admirably pays its respects to Boseman, seen in a few photo montages as the Marvel logo flashes onscreen, and strikes a somber tone at times.  How the screenplay, by Coogler and Joe Robert Cole, deals with loss and grief is its greatest asset, and in moments really works as the intended elegy.  The laurels awarded to Angela Bassett, who plays Ramonda, the Queen Mother of Wakanda, are richly earned.  Her scenes resonate with power and honestly are too good for yet another inconsequential superhero saga, which at the end of the day, these movies still are. 

Accordingly, the action is ramped up, punctuated by a plot heaviness that for me was too busy, leading to a bloated running time of nearly three hours.  The film's title thus becomes a bit of a bad joke. 

The focus of WAKANDA FORVER is on Shuri (Letitia Wright), a scientist and engineer who during the film's opening tries and fails to save her brother T'Challa's life, ravaged by terminal illness.   Time marches on and the Queen desires a new Black Panther be created (per history), while Shuri rebels, hoping for a future where such a protector is not necessary.  But as the rest of the world covets Wakanda's supply of Vibranium, the element you may recall is part of Captain America's shield and other vital instruments, military might is needed more than ever.  In an effective early scene, The Queen joins a United Nations meeting to defend her nation's stance on Vibranium resources, and has a team of captured would-be thieves brought in unharmed despite their previous efforts to steal it.   Wakanda is forever a nation of peace.

But soon a flank of blue skinned, AVATAR-like humans with gills attack and wipe out a Navy SEAL station in the Atlantic that is attempting to extract Vibranium from the ocean floor.  Wakandans get the blame from the CIA, leading to rumors of war.  Namor, the fearsome leader of the blue skin colony who has wings on his ankles and is impervious to firepower, welcomes such chaos, but does first try to seek truce and even alliance with both Shur and the Queen.

There's also a spunky MIT student named Riri (Dominique Thorne), who developed the Viranmium detector used by the Americans.  Namor threatens to attack Wakanda if she is not handed over to him.

The plot congeals, and it's honestly a bit tiresome.  I mentioned AVATAR, and for a stretch this film kinda resembles the recent THE WAY OF WATER, strangely enough.  I feel like Coogler should've rallied his talents toward a leaner adventure, one that perhaps addressed civil unrest within Wakanda in the wake of T'Challa's demise, without the addition of all these other elements (taking their bids from the comic books, nonetheless).    The subplot involving CIA agent Ross (Martin Freeman) is woefully underdeveloped, but at least we're spared a potential "white savior" thread.  And whose idea was it to cast Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the CIA Director? The least convincing such character I can recall? She even has the ever popular and currently fashionable pink streak in her hair.  How plausible. 

Stopping short of understandable vengeance is nothing new in these sort of juvenile yarns, and in the late battle sequence (quite clumsy) we get some feel good moments of this stripe, but by then WAKANDA FOREVER has folded under its own weight, to say nothing of Boseman's absence.