‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ Review: A Singular Tribute, a Complicated Farewell
THE LARGER MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE TAKES A BACK SEAT AS RYAN COOGLER CRAFTS ONE OF THE SERIES’ MOST CHALLENGING, YET TRIUMPHANT ENTRIES TO DATE.
How do we bring ourselves to say goodbye, when the very circumstance of needing to do so is what tears us apart? To center a story around grief is a monumental challenge. Whether the narrative begins in the wake of a never-seen character's passing - 'Ordinary People' comes to mind - or a long-developed story, having killed off a main character, lingers on the others coming to terms with it - as the final episodes of 'Halt and Catch Fire' did - there exists the possibility of losing the project within the morose, of capturing grief so thoroughly that there's little room for the narrative itself, so little that it too withers away. Ryan Coogler has found himself facing that challenge amplified a millionfold, with 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,' first drafted as, presumably, a roaring celebration of the Black Panther as a symbol, one which presents Wakanda as a global and cultural superpower, thrown into disarray by the real life death of Chadwick Boseman two years ago. The Marvel Cinematic Universe suddenly lost its T'Challa, the fictional Wakanda its king, and Coogler lost a colleague and friend who could not have been more integral to the stories they were telling together. Much of the rest of the world has expressed the chasm left behind by this loss as well.
So what was Coogler to do? Beyond his grief, or the ability to make 'Wakanda Forever' while coping with it, or grappling with the question of whether it was even right to still make the film after the tragedy, how could a story about the Black Panther work without this Black Panther? What are his options here? It's true that T'Challa and the Black Panther are not one and the same, and that other characters have taken the mantle historically, so there's a path forward where another character might take over the alter ego. The hashtag #RecastT'Challa, meanwhile, represents a fan movement to preserve the character, to keep T'Challa in the suit, to allow Wakanda to have its king, to place another actor in Boseman's shoes and continue the work he began. After all, this wouldn't be the first recast in the MCU. Why, just in 2022, Harrison Ford was cast as Thaddeus Ross, replacing William Hurt after the actor passed away. Surely, anyone reading can see the gulf of difference between the two situations. Chadwick Boseman was revered far beyond the reaches of the cinema screen, an icon and inspiration for entire communities across generations, one of the rare actors who lived as a cultural icon in their own right. For millions of people, Chadwick Boseman was their T'Challa, inseparable from the role because they were a living embodiment of it. The option of recasting T'Challa, therefore, seems a fool's errand, something truly impossible to do justice to, so in choosing the former option, Coogler gave himself - and his film - a fighting chance. In turn, however, he made the choice to tell a grief narrative that is, on top of all the usual complications that come with such a thing, filling the gap of a beloved, irreplaceable lead actor and their iconic role. It’s a deeply unenviable task, yet one which Coogler rose to the challenge of meeting.
By beginning 'Wakanda Forever' in the final moments of T'Challa's life - moments which occur entirely off screen, never stooping so manipulatively low as that one time J.J. Abrams felt it appropriate to make audiences watch a CGI Carrie Fisher pass away on screen three years after her real-life death - Coogler and co-writer Joe Robert Cole lay a firm, decisive foundation: just as we now live in a world without Chadwick Boseman, so do the inhabitants of the MCU. This, combined with T'Challa's funeral, makes for one of the most remarkable, harrowing opening sequences in the entire series - perhaps, even, its greatest - as it patiently, poignantly sends both T'Challa and Boseman off with an almost absolute finality. Almost absolute, because now the rest of Wakanda are left to their grief, and we not only bear witness to it for the next two-and-a-half hours, many of us are often co-participants in it. This is the core of the film, a prolonged meditation on the complexities of grief, a reflective mourning of Chadwick Boseman, and the film excels as a result. There are many sequences here - that aforementioned opening; several poignant exchanges throughout the film between Shuri (Letitia Wright) and Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett); a climactic moment of internal turmoil; and an absolute gut-punch of an ending - that are superior among the MCU as a whole, often in part, sometimes entirely, because of how separately they exist from the MCU. As a character piece, with how introspective it often is, and how unflinching its gaze is into the inner emotional state of its ensemble, but particularly that of Shuri, ‘Wakanda Forever’ feels almost singular, with ‘Iron Man 3’ and its analytical portrait of Tony Stark being the only other entry that bears even the most hollow of similarities.
And like that now near-decade old entry, the world of ‘Wakanda Forever’ takes some of its time to challenge the legacy and future of the Black Panther itself - reminiscent, in some ways, of how ‘Iron Man 3’ also questioned that of the Iron Man suit, of Stark’s alter ego - but more pointedly, if there is a place for it without T’Challa, without Boseman. Is it a symbol which should be laid to rest, its legacy left to stand in memory? Does Wakanda need the Black Panther? Do we? Can it go on any longer without T’Challa? The film raises these questions - among many more - answers some of them, and leaves others either open to interpretation or up in the air entirely. This allows audiences most affected by Boseman’s passing to draw their own conclusions, to find their own form of closure and, more savvily, leaves material from which future Black Panther films can be developed. The film has a 161-minute runtime - second in the series only to ‘Avengers: Endgame’ - and before you shy away from it for how daunting the length may be, know that the length is earned by the ambitious ideas the film is built on. The strength of this foundation is matched by - in what has become a rarity for the MCU but something which the Black Panther films have now gone two-for-two in nailing - its antagonist, Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejía), whose revelation to Wakanda echoes that of Killmonger in some ways: his plot borne from the ramifications of the death of the King of Wakanda, his indirect ties to the nation, and even his lineage, which - while not Wakandan - informs his villainous traits through a combination of heartbreak and the impact of colonialism and slavery on his way of life. Mejía brings this iconic character to life with a complex array of emotions that ebb and flow like the water he lives in, parting entirely at times to make way for an undercurrent of malice that is more a product of trauma and, yes, grief, than it is outright evil. There are decisions Namor makes that elicit scorn, but only towards the actions themselves, with the reasoning behind them complicated and largely rooted in a desire to protect his people and his home. Were it not for the intricacy of Mejía’s performance, these elements of Namor’s characterization would not land; because they do, he stands as one of the best MCU antagonists and characters as a whole.
The performances across the board are stellar. If Coogler’s unenviable task was having to scrap his initial plans and script for ‘Wakanda Forever,’ and instead build an entirely new film from the depths of his grief, then Wright is faced with stepping up from a supporting role into a lead role that no one - most of all herself - had ever planned or expected to be required of her. Chadwick Boseman is, as has echoed through this review, irreplaceable, but putting Wright in the starring role of a film with the words ‘Black Panther’ in its title makes the comparisons inevitable, the weight of her task present from the first frame to the last. And just as Coogler found a way to navigate the impossible, to create a Black Panther story absent of our Black Panther, Wright carries the heaviness of said story, of the legendary actor who she is succeeding, of her own, palpable grief. Even in the lighter moments of the film, Wright imbues Shuri with the reality of her loneliness, her misery without her brother that is stopped behind only the thinnest of walls from being unleashed. It is a magnificent, devastating lead performance that is often subtle, even understated, easily a career-best turn for Wright and one which deserves a lot more notice than it will probably receive given the nature of the film it belongs to. The exact same can be said for Bassett as Ramonda, thrust into the role of Wakanda’s leader and a grieving mother, whose grief is often allowed to burst forth, whether she is addressing the United Nations or even just addressing her own chamber. The decisions Ramonda makes as a character are complex, on occasion perhaps disagreeable, but never unmotivated, and Bassett uses every ounce of her abilities to ensure that the audience understands Ramonda, sympathizes with her even if they do not agree with her choice. Coogler seemed to understand the absolute gold mine of performance work his script contains, which is why Wright and Bassett seem to be given every last frame of shared screen time the film can possibly give them, which again makes for some of its most affecting scenes. It’s not quite as easy to apply the “career-best” descriptor to Bassett’s turn, given Bassett’s decades of phenomenal work, but this performance is at least in the conversation, to the point where Best Supporting Actress does not seem to be off the table. Danai Gurira, Winston Duke, and Lupita Nyong’o, who collectively formed something of the heart of the first Black Panther film, are all given their moments to shine here, each displaying their respective character’s grief process, and it’s a credit to the trio - in addition to how well-defined Okoye, M’Baku, and Nakia are by this script plus that of the previous film - that their emotions feel so fully captured despite how limited their screen time is.
If there’s one gripe to be had with ‘Wakanda Forever’, it’s that, despite how successfully it breaks free of the MCU as a whole, the unavoidable tie-ins and mandates still rear their heads in a small handful of moments. Martin Freeman’s return as Everett Ross is not unwelcome - his first scene serves as an effective cameo - but each subsequent time the film cuts away to him produces diminishing returns. The rationale behind including his semi-detached B-story makes sense upon thorough consideration of the ways in which other world powers are exercising their designs on vibranium in the wake of T’Challa’s death, of how Ross - no matter how much of an ally he tries to be to Wakanda - is an agent of one of those powers, but some of his screen time might have still been better served towards Nakia in particular. Dominique Thorne’s introduction as Riri Williams is charisma-laden and endearing, despite her initial status as a MacGuffin for the plot, and the promise and import of her character does ring true in dramatic fashion during the film’s back half, but it would have similarly been nice to allow her some added agency of her own in the middle; instead, it feels like the film’s other areas of creative freedom were granted upon the condition that Coogler dedicate part of it to setting up the upcoming ‘Ironheart’ series as well. On an aesthetic front, however, ‘Wakanda Forever’ does not falter. Credit four years of advancement in CGI technology, credit the relaxed schedule the VFX team were able to utilize, but for whatever shortcomings ‘Black Panther’ might have had on that front, they’re nonexistent in its sequel. The climactic battle, cross-cutting aside, is one of the most satisfying and visually arresting set pieces in the entire MCU, and there’s nothing among the preceding two hours that breaks immersion or feels unfinished. Wakanda is even more captivating today than it was in 2018, and the newly introduced Talokan is an equally stunning cinematic world that will hopefully be seen again sooner rather than later. And on the practical front, the production design is meticulous. Ruth E. Carter, in particular, might as well just be handed another Academy Award for costuming now, because she not only outdoes her own Oscar-winning work from the first film, there’s nothing else that has come out this year that even comes to mind as being in the same league. So, even though it actively fights against “just being another Marvel movie,” arguably succeeding in that particular metric more than even its predecessor did, for those coming into the film for the visuals and action of the MCU, it’s unlikely to disappoint.
Brass tacks: 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' is not a flawless film. To evaluate it on a simple, qualitative level, it - like its predecessor - is just the shortest of steps away from being the best film in the MCU. But the truth of properly interrogating this film is much more complex than that. Yes, it is messy, it is uneven, it at times even borders on the realm of the nonsensical…yet that is simultaneously the core of what makes it such a remarkable film, warts and all. Grief is messy, life is uneven, and both are so often devoid of sense. Ryan Coogler, his cast, the movie itself, all confront the loss of Chadwick Boseman with dignity, solemnity, courage. It’s one of the most compelling grief narratives ever put to screen, one which is not likely to fade from the mind with any sort of hurry. The circumstances involved behind its production make it a singular entry in the MCU, the likes of which - we must hope with all conviction, surely, given the circumstances that were requisite of its existence - will never come again. What should, instead, be taken away from it is that these films can be more than just ‘franchise entries,’ that they can be genuine passion projects of cinema, that they can represent something bigger than themselves and certainly something more than fanservice for comic book junkies. Ryan Coogler had a nigh impossible task placed in front of him two years ago, yet here we are, with the director having made what might be the best film that could have ever come from the monumental tragedy at its center.