‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ Made Me Care About the MCU Again
With impactful emotional beats, powerful female characters, and an engaging villain, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a highlight of Marvel’s current phase.
I have to admit, I’ve been pretty underwhelmed with Marvel movies post-Endgame. It’s not that they’re objectively bad, but they’ve struggled to achieve the same level of excitement, character development, humor, or emotional impact that was more commonplace in the 20+ movies before Thanos’s big snap. With the combination of mediocre movies like Thor: Love and Thunder and the seemingly endless list of Disney+ shows, the MCU has felt more like a content factory than a satisfying, ongoing narrative world.
Of the upcoming slate, the movie I was most anticipating was Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The first film was one of the highlights of the MCU for me with spectacular performances from the late Chadwick Boseman and Michael B. Jordan, the beautiful new world of Wakanda, and a story that touched on real issues without feeling too message-heavy or fake progressive in that performative corporate way we sometimes see from Disney. Where would the story go from here? And how would they handle the real-life death of one of the most beloved actors of our time within the world of the MCU?
Right from the get-go, Wakanda Forever addresses the death of T’Challa and how the nation can move forward without a Black Panther. The story centers on T’Challa’s mother Ramonda (Angela Bassett) and sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) as they process their grief and try to figure out the best path for their country.
Marvel has often been criticized for undercutting serious moments with a joke, so it’s a relief that they let the impact resonate more here. Every moment reflecting on the legacy of Boseman’s T’Challa feels respectful and genuinely emotional beyond just the context of the story. You can feel the reverence the cast and crew had for him and the acknowledgment of what his performance meant to the world in several scenes, and I appreciate that these moments were given time to breathe.
It’s also nice to get more character development for Ramonda and Shuri here. Bassett gets a few moments to flex her considerable acting chops and Wright gets to take Shuri from a young princess to a ruler who grasps the responsibility of diplomacy. Lupita Nyong’o is in a more reduced role in the first half but her Nakia gets more time to shine later on in the story. The introduction of Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams brings a fun new perspective to the world of Wakanda. Even Okoye (Danai Gurira) and the Dora Milaje get more lines and character traits than in previous films. Frankly, it was wonderful to see so many Black women front and center in this story.
One of the highlights of the film was Tenoch Huerta’s engaging performance as Namor. He’s both sympathetic and menacing in a way that is reminiscent of Jordan’s Killmonger, but fresh and unique enough to never feel like a rehash. Huerta’s charisma will absolutely make Namor one to watch in future Marvel installments.
At over two and a half hours, Wakanda Forever is one of the longer Marvel entries and it’s not without a bit of MCU bloat. The story rolls along before they remember that they have to explicitly tie this in with all the other stuff going on in the Marvel universe, so the momentum stumbles a bit in scenes with Martin Freeman’s Everett Ross, though Freeman remains quite fun to watch. It never descends into full imaginative nonsense, but there are a few moments clunky enough to make me wish they’d just get out of their own way and let this story be this story instead of another device for keeping the Marvel machine running.
While the story might not be as elegantly told as pre-2019 MCU movies, it’s certainly one of the stronger post-Endgame offerings with enough character development, fun action, and solid emotional beats to remind you of the MCU’s glory days.
