General [SPOILER WARNING] if you’d prefer to go into Wakanda Forever cold.
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. The 5 stages of grief. The loss of Chadwick Boseman can be felt all over Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, with all the characters, and the audience, coping with his death over the movie’s runtime. Director Ryan Coogler juggles real time grief with Marvel superhero moviemaking in his sequel, honoring the past while trying to accept it and move Wakanda’s story forward.
After a somber beautiful opening credits, we jump forward a year, with the people of Wakanda still in denial from the loss of T’Challa. The Black Panther’s mother Ramonda (Angela Bassett) has become Queen again, running the day to day with the help of Okoye (Danai Gurira), Ayo (Florence Kasumba), and Aneka (Michaela Coel) and the rest of the Dora Milaje, with the occasional insight from M’Baku (Winston Duke). Shuri (Letitia Wright) and Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) have chosen hermit existences, with the former doing deep technology research and the latter leaving Wakanda for public service. Politically, Wakandans have been working with Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) to keep all the powerful nations from trying to steal Vibranium from their country, assuming that’s the biggest threat. However, the bigger threat comes from under the sea in the form of Namor (Tenoch Huerta), with a host of new scary challenges and the first real test of Wakanda after T’Challa’s passing.
All credit to Ryan Coogler for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever for working as well as it does. There’s the previously mentioned tug of war between the past, the present, and the future of Wakanda, which presents all sorts of story and tonal challenged Coogler has to balance. Plus, Marvel’s pretty weak 4th phase and the incredible legacy of the first Black Panther put Coogler under completely unrealistic expectations and hype to deliver something amazing. Storywise there’s too many cooks in the kitchen, making the movie feel a bit stitched together. However, within the tug of war are some of those Marvely/Coogler moments of wonder, usually revolving around Namor and his kingdom of Talokan. The underwater sequences are a sight to see, filled with jaw dropping invention and grandeur one moment, frightening Jaws like horror the next. Action sequences either have fun aquatic spins, like a modern version of a naval ship battle, or they’re propulsively executed, like an expertly choreographed and soundtracked car(ish) chase through Boston. On the somber side, melancholy is handled beautifully and woven into the worldbuilding of Wakanda, as we see how the country handles loss and a dearth of leadership.
But what Coogler focuses on most is his deep bench of characters inside the Black Panther story. With Boseman no longer at the center, the big gamble is if Letitia Wright can handle the transition from support character to main player. Shuri’s ascent to stardom is a bit rocky (the movie makes some leaps as to her character’s motivation), but it’s necessary, and Wright mostly handles the increased responsibility well enough. Flanking Wright, Angela Bassett adds some of that incredible booming wisdom with a meatier role in Wakanda Forever; Coogler enjoys giving her some space to hurl vocal fireballs at her opponents. And Danai Gurira gets a fun mini arc via a crisis of character, as most of Wakanda is going through. But it’s the newcomers that really make Wakanda Forever interesting. Dominique Thorne’s RiRi Williams fills the empty space left by Wright’s supporting performance, bringing the requisite spunk and awe the part needs. Tenoch Huerta’s Namor though proves Coogler is operating on another level compared to the other Marvel Directors when it comes to villian storytelling. Huerta gives Namor a dignified, almost ageless royal presence, but masking a scary, driven menace underneath. Huerta sells Namor’s Killmonger-esque backstory, which like the first Black Panther, gives the Wakandans in power a chance to grow from what they learn from their foe.
By the end of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, most of our characters have accepted the new reality of a life without Chadwick Boseman. Hopefully Ryan Coogler has helped the fans and Marvel accept it as well, and move onto newer, more exciting storytelling for Wakanda in the future. I found my acceptance after an incredible Angela Bassett monologue. Man, she’s still the best.