Re-Visiting the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

 "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" (2022)

The original "Black Panther" was not just one of the best Marvel origin movies, but one of the best Marvel movies period. Director and writer Ryan Coogler crafted a story rich in culture that told a story that we rarely see in superhero movies. So, the news that star, Chadwick Boseman, had succumbed to colon cancer in 2020 was a gut punch to many fans. We were all left to wonder how they would carry on without their titular, charismatic star. The first "Black Panther" was unique to the MCU up to that point so it makes sense that "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" would be unique as well. A movie that within the trappings of a standard superhero film told a story about grief and generational trauma that also served as a tribute to the previous Black Panther.

Principal photography on "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" in late June 2021 and wrapped in late March 2022. Production took a brief pause to allow Letitia Wright to heal from an onset injury. The film stars Letitia Wright as Shuri/Black Panther, Lupita Nyong'o as Nakia, Danai Gurira as Okoye, Winston Duke as M'Baku, Florence Kasumba as Ayo, Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams, Michaela Coel as Aneka, Mabel Cadena as Namora, Tenoch Huerta Mejia as Namor, Martin Freeman as Everett K. Ross, Julia Louis Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine and Angela Bassett as Ramonda. The film was written by Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole. It was directed by Ryan Coogler. "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" was released on November 11, 2022.

The new Black Panther

When it comes to discussing "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever." I think you have to start off with discussing the death offscreen of King T'Challa. The film starts off by throwing you into chaos. Shuri is in her laboratory and is frantically trying to create a synthetic version of the Heart Shaped Herb after they were all destroyed by Killmonger in the first movie. It becomes clear very quickly that the reason for this is because T'Challa's health is failing and Shuri is desperate to save her brother using the one thing that usually doesn't let her down. Science. This scene is so well done. You can feel the desperation and Letitia Wright plays it all perfectly. The look on her face when Ramonda enters the lab and she realizes that she is too late is heartbreaking and it is perfectly Shuri that she checks with GRIOT before accepting the fact that her brother is dead. 

"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" starts off by punching its audience right in the emotional gut and it is the perfect thing to do because that way it can build us back up and take us through the grieving process at the same time. The funeral for T'Challa is beautiful. If you don't cry when you watch it, then you probably don't have a soul. The whole sequence is so wonderful and I can only imagine how cathartic it was for the cast to film. It is a memorial for a fictional character but in a way it is also a memorial for Chadwick Boseman as well for the audience.

I really love how female focused that this movie is. The first film was, but its even more apparent without Chadwick around to anchor the cast. If you're familiar with the comics, it shouldn't come as any surprise that the focus would shift from T'Challa to Letitia Wright's Shuri. Shuri's journey throughout this film is really interesting. T'Challa had really reconciled his scientific prowess with his love and appreciation for the more religious aspects of being Wakandan. Shuri is struggling to reconcile those things. She is focused on science. After failing to save T'Challa, she is not interested in continuing her work on creating a synthetic Heart Shaped Herb. It isn't until she meets Namor and visits Talokan that she starts to come to grips with all aspects of what it means to be Wakandan. 

Wright was great in "Black Panther," but she served a much more supporting role. A lot of this film rests on her shoulders and I think she acquits herself really well. She has so much chemistry with everyone she interacts with whether it's the sibling like banter that she shares with Danai Gurira's Okoye or the extremely realistic mother/daughter bond she shares with Angela Bassett's Ramonda. I really enjoyed the scene with Ramonda and Shuri out in the Wakandan wilderness where they conflicting ideologies of mother and daughter really come to a head. I think the introduction of Dominque Thorne's, Riri Wiliams, helped humanize Shuri as well, giving her someone closer to her age to play off of as well.

This woman.

Danai Gurira keeps showing audiences why Okoye is kind of the not so secret weapon of the MCU. There was talk of their being a Wakanda spin-off Disney+ series that would focus on Okoye and the Dora Milaje and I really hope that is still the case. Gurira is steely. She is a bad ass. When she is taking on the Talokans, you feel her determination. You see her steeliness in her face, in all her movements. She's not afraid to show emotion. When she pleads with Ramonda to allow her to give her life for the country that she loves so much, you feel every word of it. But, she is funny. It doesn't matter if she is volleying back and forth with Okoye about her make up on MIT or making fun of Riri for threatening her with a heater. Or if she is giving the business to her favorite colonizer, Gurira makes Okoye very funny and very relatable.

Speaking of Dominque Thorne's Riri Williams, "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" introduces the MCU to the person most likely to pick up the mantle of Iron Man from the deceased Tony Star. Thorne's Riri is smart. Like really smart. And street smart. And not afraid to get her hands dirty. It's kind of cool to see the parallel's between herself and Stark that Coogler peppers the film with. Whether it's her original makeshift armor or the way that she brings it to the very limits of it's capabilities when she takes it to the upper atmosphere to outsmart a drone that's pursuing her. It's great to see this young, gifted and black woman do more than  what a rich, smart white guy could do. That armor she sports in the climax of the film is so beautiful. She has to leave it in Wakanda at the end of the film, but I'm sure it won't be long until she's suiting up again. In fact, we know it will because the "Ironheart" series has wrapped.

Lupita Nyong'o's Nakia doesn't make her appearance until about the midway point, but it was worth the wait. It sort of felt in "Black Panther" that Nakia was an afterthought, that she didn't have much agency of her own outside of T'Challa, but I think that this film remedies that up to a point. Nakia is running a school in Haiti and really living her best life until she is brought in by Ramonda to search for Shuri when she is taken by Namor. I love seeing Nakia in spy mode with those glasses on when she is researching Namor and the Talokans. She continues to be a badass and it is immediately apparent why Ramonda reached out to her. If I have one complaint, it's that I could use more Nakia. Always. More Nakia.

It's not just the women that are giving killer performances in this movie. The men are too. Winston Duke continues to be perfect as M'Baku. I had a giant grin on my face every time he was on screen. I loved his interactions with Shuri and what happens at the end of the film I think sets a really cool path for M'Baku in the MCU in the future. Again, like Nakia, my only real complaint is that I could have used more M'Baku. 

Tenoch Huerta Mejia brings a classic Marvel character to the screen with Namor. I can't say enough good things about the MCU interpretation of Namor and the Talokans which are the Atlanteans of the comics. Mejia really shines as Namor. He is menacing and charming. He is arrogant. He is dangerous. He is exactly what you think of when you think of Namor. Also, I think this is the first time that the word "mutant" is uttered onscreen in the MCU and I squealed a little the first time I heard it. I loved how they made the Talokan's the mirrors of the Wakandans. The links to Aztec and Mayan culture. It is so cool. The Talokans riding in on whales. Their water grenades. Shuri's tour of Talokan is just breathtaking. I love how it feels like you are on the streets of a South American street. The murals that depict Namor's story that he shows Shuri. It all just feels so authentic and lived in and real.

Power

I saved the best performance of the film for last and I think everyone knows that I'm talking about Angela Bassett. She is perfect in this film. She doesn't step a foot wrong. She came extremely close to being the first actor to win an Academy Award for a Marvel film and I'm still extremely bitter that she didn't. Bassett pours her entire heart and soul into this movie. Every moment she is onscreen is an event. She makes you emotional. She is fiercely powerful. Look at that scene where Ramonda speaks at the UN and reveals that she knows they are trying to find sneaky ways to get vibranium for themselves. If I were the people in that room I would be shaking in my boots. This is a woman who takes no shit. She is the epitome of regal. Then, on the opposite end of the spectrum, there is her fiery, emotional words to Okoye after Shuri is taken by Namor. This is a woman that has kept a tight rein on her emotions and she is finally letting them off the leash. She is giving the people in that room a taste of the grief and pain she still carries and the fear that she may lose the last person in her family. I am still extremely saddened that they killed Ramonda. The MCU is at a worse place without Queen Ramonda in it.

There is a lot of serious deep stuff happening in "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever," but it never gets bogged down in it. There are a lot of lighthearted moments and there is a ton of great action starting with the Talokan's attack on the CIA base. I love how that sequence has a kind of horror movie quality to it. The car chase sequence feels like a sequel sequence to the one that was in "Black Panther," but bigger and badder and with even bigger stakes since it ends with Okoye facing off with Namora, Attuma and the other Talokans and that is a brutal battle. You feel every hit and it is phenomenal.  

"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" kind of bucks a common trend in a lot of MCU movies. At this point in a post like this, you'd be ready for me for start talking about how the movie kind of falls apart in the inevitable third act big fight scene and it really doesn't here. There is still a big bombastic fight with the Wakandans going against the Talokan's but it's juxtaposed with a smaller, more brutal fight between the new Black Panther and Namor. You feel every slice. Every punch. You feel the rage that both of these people feel for the things that they have been through. For the things that their people have gone through and it really re-frames this thing that we've seen before because there is real emotion threaded through it. 

One thing I've heard people complain about is that Shuri sees Killmonger when she takes the Heart Shaped Herb. I don't really have an issue with that. First off, why would I complain about Michael B. Jordan coming back? Secondly, it couldn't be T'Challa. If it was Ramonda, it wouldn't be as impactful and with the state of mind that Shuri finds herself in, being the last living member of her family, her state of mind would be  the most similar to what how Killmonger felt.

My biggest issue with this movie is the colonizer portions. I love Martin Freeman and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, but their portions just feel tacked on. I think if you excise their scenes from the movie, they really wouldn't be missed. They feel like they were mandated by Marvel. Like someone told Coogler that there had to be more connective tissue with this movie and Phase Four so add in Ross and Val and stuff like that.  But that is an extremely minor quibble with a movie that I do feel is very, very good. 

The movie ends with Wakanda in an interesting position and this franchise could go in some intriguing directions. Will Wakanda end up teaming with Talokan against the surface world? How will Wakanda change with M'Baku as king? How will Shuri's approach to being Black Panther differ from her brother's? I certainly hope we find out the answers to these questions.

The film ends with Shuri finally burning her funeral garments in Haiti and allowing herself to fully grieve her losses and it gives a real face acting showcase for Letitia Wright that I'm not mad at. Nakia also introduces Shuri to her nephew, Toussaint. Toussaint reveals to Shuri that his Wakandan name is T'Challa, ensuring that the MCU will always have a T'Challa.

Recently there has been a lot of talk about how the MCU is failing and flopping and I think there is truth to that in ways. But, I think it's great to be reminded and remember that Marvel can still produce high quality films so maybe the rumors of their demise have been exaggerated? 

Next up, its time to celebrate the holidays with the Guardians of the Galaxy.

What do you all think? I clearly love this movie. I saw it twice in theaters and still loved it just as much. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.