‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ review: Heartfelt ode to a Marvel hero

Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever begins with prayers. Shuri (Letitia Wright), the person behind Wakanda’s technological supremacy and someone who has spent her entire life scoffing at ‘tradition’ and ‘rituals’, is forced to believe in a greater power and kneel in front of it.

Her brother — King T’Challa or the titular Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman, who played the first Black superhero to get a stand-alone movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe) — is grappling with a fast-failing health. It’s a circumstance where even the most pragmatic become believers. As someone who has nearly always found a solution for a problem, Shuri feels powerless while coming to terms with the inevitability of her brother’s death.

It’s a solemn moment for her, and also the audience, who learned about the sudden news of Boseman’s death (in real life) around two years ago. The actor had been suffering from colon cancer, and kept his illness a secret.

It’s hard not to feel the grief through most of the 161-minute runtime of Coogler’s film. Add to that how Boseman’s unexpected passing possibly left the production in a tailspin, it’s nothing but admirable that Coogler has managed a coherent sequel to his 2018 film.

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The end result is a film that wants to break free of the ‘amusement park’ tag by asking pertinent questions about human nature, taking spectacular swings at decoding the many and imperfect ways of grieving, and talking down to its audience like most films with a reported $250-million budget do. It’s bloated and silly in many places, something we’ve come to expect from such films. However, just when you’re about to be dismissive, Coogler showcases some surprising deftness and awareness.

The fabled, underwater kingdom

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever opens a few years after the events of the 2018 film, where T’Challa promised Wakanda would cooperate with other nations by sharing their seemingly significant and limitless resources. After T’Challa’s death and the Black Panther gone forever (given how Killmonger destroyed the garden that grew the herb which made the Black Panther), there are several attacks on the country’s outposts, with most nations trying to get their hands on the invaluable Vibranium.

In a remarkable action set-piece, Coogler cuts between a speech by Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) in a UN-like forum, and an attack on a Wakandan facility. It establishes two crucial things: One, even without the Black Panther, Wakanda will be able to defend itself. And two, it’s only a matter of time when someone discovers Vibranium and fights Wakanda like an equal.

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Almost on cue, we meet Namor (Tenoch Huerta Meija) the God of a fabled, underwater kingdom called Talokan, also built on Vibranium deposits. Hiding from what they refer to as the ‘surface world’, Namor trained his sights on Wakanda after T’Challa exposed the world to the benefits of Vibranium and the limitless resources at the disposal of worlds like Wakanda and Talokan, at the end of the first film. Namor is convinced the only way to protect his people is to kill the scientist who built the machine that can detect Vibranium.

Turns out the scientist is a 19-year-old MIT student Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) — someone who almost looks like a Shuri replica from the first film — given her chirpy nature and ease around building machines. Namor wants Shuri to bring the young girl to him, so he can kill her.

Namor believes that killing Riri will ensure his people’s safety, while Shuri believes that there has to be a way around blood being spilled. Here’s the meat of the conflict of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever — a leader ready to kill one seemingly innocent child so as to avoid a war with all of the human race, and Shuri’s belief of even one innocent life taken for the ‘greater good’ being unacceptable.

A presence less larger-than-life

One of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s biggest failures lies in the underwritten part of Shuri. Forced to take up the mantle of the Black Panther, the betrayal and rage inside Shuri is hinted at. However, even when she eventually does take up the responsibility she always seemed destined for after her brother’s death, the moment never feels as electric as it should.

Chadwick Boseman — who turned in a clever performance, especially with a less-charismatic character in front of someone like a Killmonger — filled up the screen. Letitia Wright, while great in a supporting part in the first film, doesn’t quite have a larger-than-life presence. Even when Shuri wrestles with her demons, we don’t care for her character like, say, Tom Holland, who imbued a beautiful frailty into Peter Parker.

While taking ambitious swings at building incredibly detailed worlds, the film is forced to rush from Plot Point A to B, using some of the most pedantic screenwriting techniques. For example, when Queen Ramonda seeks out Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) in Haiti to help find Shuri, who is held prisoner in Talokan, all she has to do is find a local who once spotted Namor, and finds her way through the apparently hidden legend city’s defence systems, and rescues them in the span of a scene.

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Also, since the film feels so weighty with grief, the attempts at humour — especially in scenes featuring Riri Williams rolling out the ‘streetspeak’ from the ‘hood — feel like synthetic additions by a Marvel suit possibly to keep up with the one-liner zingers of the rest of the MCU films. The film also force-fits references and segues into different MCU characters, winking at the audience about how these characters will soon become a part of a larger universe in a future film. It’s arguably the most depressing teaser of what the future of these superhero films hold for us.

In the climactic battle, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever plays with interesting ideas — like Shuri’s quest for revenge rather than justice — after losing a loved one, and Namor’s ‘righteous cause’ as a King and a leader. However, the clashing ideologies aren’t fully allowed to breathe, making for a contest that never feels as complex as it should. In the end, we’re given a simple, altruistic solution. We should pray for the disservice done to the talents of Coogler and his crew.