Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

The nation of Wakanda is in mourning after the unexpected death of its king, T'Challa, from illness. The destruction of the herb that is needed to create a new Black Panther has left Wakanda leaderless, with an interim council led by Queen Ramonda trying to hold the nation together. T'Challa's younger sister, technical genius Shuri, sets out to recreate the herb, but faces a rising threat in the form of the underwater kingdom of Talokan, lead the charismatic Namor. Conflict between the two nations appears inevitable, and Wakanda has never been more vulnerable.

2018's Black Panther was a breakout, smash success for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Excellent performances and direction overcame traditional MCU issues (a weak finale, overreliant on CGI battles) to deliver one of the strongest films in the series. The continuation of some of these storylines through Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame confirmed there was a great deal of potential in the continued adventures of T'Challa and the Wakandans.

Unfortunately, Chadwick Boseman unexpectedly passed away from cancer in late 2020. The lost of one of his generation's most promising actors was a tragedy. It also - and far more trivially, of course -  created a major problem for Marvel, as they spent weeks agonising over whether recasting the role (an idea supported by some of Boseman's family) or proceeding in a different direction. Ultimately concluding that Boseman was irreplaceable, the decision was made to mirror his passing in the film series, and make the sequel about a completely different story, more about Wakanda itself and the quest to find a new Black Panther.

It's therefore hard to undersell the conditions under which Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was written, shot and released. Boseman's shadow hangs over every second of footage and I can only imagine the sheer difficulties faced by director Ryan Coogler and his team as they tried to course-correct in the most unpleasant of circumstances.

Unfortunately, those difficulties are discernible across most of the film. The general story arc feels a little muddled, as it wanders back and forth between internal Wakandan problems, issues with its relationship with the USA (there's a subplot about tensions in the CIA which feels detached from everything else) and, slightly randomly, France, and the rising challenge posed by Namor (a grumpily on-form Tenoch Huerta Majia) and Talokan. There's also the problems faced by Ramonda (an imperiously impressive Angela Bassett) in retaining authority. The film also ill-advisedly decides to do some setup work for later projects by also introducing Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams (aka Ironheart) and furthering the machinations of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), which feels like the movie was putting more weight on its shoulders than it could really manage.

The film's biggest challenge is elevating Letitia Wright as Shuri to the role of the main protagonist. Wright was superb in a supporting role in Black Panther and the Thanos duology, but here the writing doesn't seem to be up to the task. The film tries to mine some tension over whether Shuri is going to become the new Black Panther, which is pretty much obvious from before you even start watching, and then over whether this would be accepted by other Wakandans and so on, none of which manages to be particularly interesting.

Better-handled is the personal relationship between Shuri and Namor, which moves from respect to enmity and back again. The film's problem is that everyone knows that Namor (aka the Sub-Mariner) is one of Marvel's longest-standing heroes, so he is clearly going to do a heel turn to becoming a good character at some point. This removes some tension and jeopardy, and the attempts to reinstate it (such as a fairly brutal attack on Wakanda's capital) only makes Namor's character arc less plausible. The idea is fine but I'm not sure I really buy how it unfolds.

The movie even manages to fumble its naval battle ending, with some of the worst CGI I've ever seen in a professionally-made modern feature film. The last time I saw CG this bad in a major release was in The Mummy Returns, a film now twenty-two years old, and hints at a horrendously rushed production schedule.

Again, it's easy to forgive Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (***) for some of these problems given the huge cloud under which it was made. It has many great performances (with Angela Basset having the finest, and Lupita Nyong'o and Winston Duke being great in reduced roles), many of the ideas are excellent and the notion of making a film where the central character passed away before it even begins is powerful. But the writing is confused, the pacing is uneven, character motivations are not always clear and the effects are risible. The result is a film that is enjoyable, but you have to overlook a lot of issues along the way.

The film is available now via Disney+ worldwide.

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