[8.2/10] The death of Chadwick Boseman looms large over *Black Panther: Wakanda Forever*. The film, and director Ryan Coogler, treat the loss with the gravity it deserves. The drumbeat of the need for ever-more franchise fare marches on unabated. Much of the time, though, you will find yourself forgetting that you are watching another crown jewel in the infinity gauntlet of Marvel megaproducer Kevin Feige, and feel like you’re watching a sober reflection on loss and the irregular patterns of grief and mourning.
There is great artistry in the way Coogler and company choose to use silence to give the death of King T’Challa, and by extension the man who plays him, the emotional space it needs. Creating that absence of sound at the bookends of the film make the moments when his family mourns him feel sacred, unsparing, and real when there’s none of the usual distractions to take your focus away from the sad sentiments of these moments. *Wakanda Forever* features a beautiful funerary tribute, rich with the sort of culture and detail that elevated the first Black Panther movie. But it’s these more stark moments, where simplicity, performance, and reflection take over that have the most impact.
The hardest task before *Black Panther: Wakanda Forever* was to say goodbye to its title character and star in a way that was appropriate to the real world and to the fictional one he once inhabited. Coogler and company not only thread that needle, they turn it into something moving, and organic to the story of the film.
The story does not try to simply replace Boseman or T’Challa. One of the sharpest choices Coogler and co-writer Joe Robert Cole make is to turn *Wakanda Forever* into more of an ensemble piece. T’Challa’s sister Shuri eventually claims the mantle, and she is the film’s main character. But rather than anchoring the film on her as *Black Panther* did T’Challa, there’s a greater balance and willingness to explore the impact of these events on those left in their wake.
Angela Bassett, who was underutilized in the prior film, is volcanic as Queen Ramonda in this one. The film takes the time to explore her status as a grieving mother called to lead her people, desperate to protect the remaining children in her care, and she repays the focus with a performance that is Shakespearean in its gravity, emotion, and intensity. Okoye, the head of the Dora Milaje elite protectors, is once again the film’s secret weapon, a vessel to explore the marks of duty and personal connection amid seismic change and shared loss. Nakia, T’Challa’s paramour, is the prodigal daughter of Wakanda, separating herself from her homeland and the finality of its loss, while getting involved in the issue du jour and protecting a hidden legacy. Each of these women command the film at various intervals, reflecting the death in the family in different ways, and channeling the story through different experiences.
The non-Wakandan additions to the proceedings fit a similar mold. The exception is Everett Ross, whose business with ex-wife Val and the dealings of the U.S. government play like narrative set dressing and setup for later films than anything essential to this one. Riri Williams, a.k.a Ironheart, feels a little shoehorned into the film at times too, but she, by contrast fits the thematic aims of *Wakanda Forever*.
She too is mourning a loss, her stepfather; she quickly becomes another child for Ramonda to defend, and as a tech-minded young woman, she has a natural accord with Shuri. The film finds a way to make her plot-relevant -- as the creator of a vibranium-detection machine that threatens to put the powerful substance into hands the Wakandans and their undersea counterparts don’t trust -- but she largely succeeds as another figure coping with the death of a loved one and the intersection of different worlds with different expectations and demands.
None fits that bill more so than Namor, the king of an undersea civilization called Talokan. *Wakanda Forever* smartly makes Talokan and its inhabitants a funhouse mirror counterpart to Wakanda. Both are rich, capable communities that hide away their talents and resources from the rest of the world. Both benefited from a localized cache of vibranium, whose properties in the soul created plants that allow the citizens to do amazing things and pose a threat, if they choose to, to anyone who would oppose them. But the undersea setting of Talokan, their animosity rather than reclusiveness toward the surface world, and the distinct cultural heritage makes them different.
Coogler and company do the same stellar job for Talokan that they did for T’Challa’s homeland. One of the joys of the original *Black Panther* film was simply seeing Wakanda itself, looking at the beautifully-realized world with distinctive cultural touches mixed with futuristic flair that cultivated a real sense of place. The same is true for Talokan, only the production and design teams imbue it with a Mesoamerican flair, imagining the culture that might have thrived, with a supernatural twist, in the absence of colonial oppression. The attention to detail helps the audience appreciate both communities, alike in dignity, recognizing their equal stature and prowess, while they’re dancing on the edge of being allies or enemies.
Such is the provenance of Namor, himself a mirror image of Shuri. He, like all the major figures, lost someone close to him -- his mother. He too is royalty in a unique and closed-off kingdom, suddenly finding itself having to confront incursions and demands from the outside world. His pointy ears and winged feet from the comics scan as a little silly in the more grounded tone of the MCU, but reimagination of indigenous dress allows him the benefits of so much of the great costuming in the film -- helping to make the character more memorable and give them an added presence through aesthetics alone.
Namor represents the dark path that Shuri might walk down. The question at the heart of *Wakanda Forever* is “How do you respond when someone you love is lost forever?” Having lived for centuries, Namor has watched so many he considers family die, and it has hardened him. It makes him want vengeance, bloodshed, a pound of flesh to fill the hole in his heart where his mother once rested. He wants to wreak havoc upon those who inherited the largesse of the people who colonized and oppressed his ancestors, to strike at them before they impinge on his people’s peace and tranquility.
Shuri has the same anger, the same desire to make someone pay for having lost her brother, for taking away the tools that might have allowed him to save her. She is tempted to go to war against the rest of the world hand-in-hand, especially when Namor shows her around Talokan and explains his people’s achievements and their forebears’ suffering in terms that resonate. But she ultimately refuses, valuing the life of Riri as an innocent bystander, a refusal that results in an attack from the sea god himself and the death of her mother. In one heartbreaking death and act of selflessness from Ramonda, Shuri is in charge, and has an enemy who has taken someone important from her with a plan to exact revenge upon those who’ve done him wrong.
In that, Shuri has her own Killmonger, which makes it a deft choice to return him as the vision Shuri sees after imbibing the artificial heart-shaped herb. She is tempted to let the anger in her heart bear out after so many painful parting of souls. Like almost everyone in *Wakanda Forever* she is still smarting from all that has been taken from her in so short a time. And as she stands over her foe in single combat, having assumed the storied mantle of the Black Panther to protect her people, the images of those thefts, those hearts ripped away from hers, she seeks to avenge those lost and quiet the tempest with metal and blood.
And yet, at the moment of truth, she sees the concordance shared by her people and his, the way their civilizations are built with the same richness, the same blessings, the same joys. She chooses to honor the legacy of her mother and brother, whose nobility spurred them to protect those who need it and show mercy in lieu of vengeance. She spurs Namor to yield, vows to defend him and his people, and finds peace and shared community in lieu of conflict and opposition between the two peoples.
With that, she heals. She allows herself to confront those losses as something to be felt, not a thing that can be solved or fixed. She joins in the shared strength of her brothers and sisters, the support of her community. She lets go of hate and begins working toward the type of future they would want to see, one founded on mutual trust and connection, knowing that their legacy will live on, even if they do not.
It takes *a lot* of movie to reach that landing spot. There’s a ton going on here. With an extended runtime, Coogler does not waste it on the inessential (give or take the “Director Fontaine wants to strike” material). While Shuri’s arc takes center stage, she, Ramonda, Okoye, Nakia, Riri, and even tertiary characters like M’Baku and Ross carry the weight of T’Challa’s death and what it means for Wakanda. He extends these lived-in corners of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, unveiling another civilization as powerful and fully-realized as the stealthy African nation. The latticework of the film’s plot and world-building and themes is intricate, heavy, and not always clear. But it’s all worthwhile, building to a greater whole even in the parts that seem a touch overloaded.
I liked the original *Black Panther* film. Boseman’s performance anchored the film’s central dilemma and humanized the role. The layer of detail to the Afrofuturistic world dreamed up and exacting but communal themes resonated. But it still fit into the superhero movie formula, with appropriate twists and touches to make it Coogler’s own, but hitting the expected sorts of beats the traditional versions of these films must.
*Wakanda Forever* is different, and if I may be so bold, better. Yes, the final reel includes a grand, climactic buffet of CGI spectacle and fisticuffs, and this is still centered on the ascendance of a new superhero. But in its aims and its counts, it deviates from those formulas.
The story is more diffuse, more personal, more individual. Its ensemble focus is unique. Its reflections on the common fears but stronger common ground between oppressed peoples is novel and piercing. While not as tight as its predecessor, what the film lacks in precession, it makes up for in the sheer volume of heartfelt, mournful, genuine material it includes in a tale built on notions of processing loss. To see a movie under this banner given the freedom to craft a unique work of mourning and catharsis, syncopated in its rhythms and raw in its emotions, is a genuine marvel.
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