Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - Review

Rating: 6.5/10

BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER is an emotional tear-jerker but ultimately, an underwhelming sequel to its predecessor. Director Ryan Coogler had an impossible job of continuing the story without his lead actor (RIP Chadwick Boseman) and he did the best he could given the circumstances, but this film was sorely missing the presence of T'Challa as the main character. 

I really like Letitia Wright as Shuri and she was great as a supporting character in the previous film BLACK PANTHER but if you take away any film's main character and replace them with a supporting character, it just isn't going to have that same magic as before. The scenes with the characters Valentina de Fontaine and Everett Ross felt out of place and they seem to have been shoehorned into this film by Marvel to setup for future films and I just wasn't interested in those scenes, which made the pacing of the first half of this movie very slow. Speaking of pacing, the 2 hour and 41 minute runtime felt much longer at times and this film would have benefitted with a 15-20 minute trim (e.g. The scenes with Valentina and Everett).

There were positives that outshone the negatives for me though. The introduction of Namor and Talokan was fantastic and he was a great antagonist. Tenoch Huerta (Namor) and Angela Basset (Ramonda) carried this movie with their fantastic performances. Danai Gurira as Okoye was also a standout for me. Ryan Coogler does an impeccable job with the world-building throughout this film as he builds a rich culture for Namor's people and expands on previous Wakandan lore. The character arc Shuri goes through in this film was a slow-burn but ultimately satisfying in the end. The overall theme of grief and how each character processes it differently (Shuri, Ramonda, Nakia etc.) makes for an emotionally rich film and the tribute to Chadwick Boseman and the character of T'Challa was beautifully done.

BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER could have been a much worse film in the hands of any other director. This film has a few drawbacks, but Ryan Coogler still miraculously constructs a powerful and heart-felt film worth seeing.

--------------------------------------------------------

Director: Ryan Coogler

Writer(s): Ryan Coogler, Joe Robert Cole

Runtime: 2h 41m

Release Date: November 2022

---------------------------------------------------------