The long awaited sequel to the original Black Panther has finally hit theaters (after a few months’ delay), and I was able to watch it on release day. In this post, I’ve shared my thoughts and reflections on the movie, and my final verdict on how good this movie is.
* SPOILERS FOR BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER *
I’m going to start off with something we’ll all probably agree on: Black Panther was, and still is, one of the best Marvel films made. The unique plot, star-studded cast, and beautiful cinematography made it near perfect. And, coming into the theater, I knew that it’d be hard to make a sequel that was even better, or even at the same caliber, as the original movie.
And, after watching the movie, I could tell I was right.
Wakanda Forever just… lacked everything that Black Panther had. The plot, dragging on for nearly three hours, had so many holes that it was hard to keep track of. While I did feel that the set design of Talokan (the underwater city) was stunning, a significant number of shots were extremely dark and you had to squint your eyes to see.
One thing they did do right was the emotions. I could feel the grief pouring out of Queen Ramonda’s voice when she talked to Okoye in the throne room. The bittersweet tone she had when addressed the United Nations on T’Challa’s death. Not just her, but Shuri as well faced the deaths of her brother and mother in just over a year. She managed to deal with it not by seeking revenge, but by reflecting on her memories and looking towards the future.
“I am Queen of the most powerful nation in the world and my entire family is gone. Have I not given everything?”
Queen Ramonda, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
And then, there were some sentiments that I didn’t understand. Namor was quite the antagonist of the movie. He managed to get past the defenses of an extremely protected country, killed the Queen of said country, and nearly invaded said country. However, when it mattered the most for him to embrace his personality and fight Wakanda… he kneeled. Sure, he claims that Wakanda will fall to the other nations, but that isn’t the point.
The antagonist became a protagonist?
In the original movie, Killmonger was a great villain. He had a motive to become the Black Panther and take the throne, and he nearly executed his plans. But he didn’t stop halfway through out of pity for his cousin. No, he continued his plan anyway and we were treated to some epic action sequences between the two Kings.
It’s pretty hard to match Michael B. Jordan’s acting skills, but Namor just wasn’t a greatly designed MCU villain (MCU Villains are subjected to a high standard 😅). In my opinion, movies are as strong as their villain. A great movie can be a flop if the villain just isn’t well-developed. Take a look at Endgame for example: the movie was good AND the villain was good (hence, it broke box office records).
Additionally, the movie left so. many. loose. ends. Not just that, but also quite a few things that didn’t really add up.
LOOSE ENDS
What happened to the UN Conference? A whole scene involving the representatives from the different nations was shown at the beginning: but then never mentioned again.
Ex-CIA Operative Everett Ross was also used as an information source for Shuri & Okoye. They asked him for classified information about the scientist, which he later got in trouble for, and then broke him out at the end. Instead of this shortcut to finding out about Riri Williams, there were so many better options.
DIDN’T ADD UP
Speaking of Williams: a fifteen-year old capable of making technology that no one in the world has figured out? I understand where Marvel was trying to go with this, but realistically, she would need a LOT of help and time to make a machine like that: not to mention that she would probably need to have an insanely high amount of IQ to pull it off.
Oh yea: and the fact that Vibranium is found outside of Wakanda. The nation is known for being the only in the world to possess this extremely powerful metal. Nope, not anymore. Talokan now has Vibranium, and it was the whole reason that Namor wanted to kill the scientist. IMO, Namor could have had better motives for trying to invade Wakanda.
Also, when Shuri (or should I say, Black Panther?) was fighting Namor, she gets stabbed through the stomach by a spear. Like, it goes FULLY through her stomach. Then, she just REMOVES it, and the suit heals back up. It’s one thing for the technologically-advanced suit to repair itself, but another for human flesh to seal up in a matter of seconds.
Lastly, one thing the movie lacked was humor. Shuri provided some really funny dialogue in the first movie that made for a nice break from the action. The sequel had a few funny lines at best, which kind of made the whole thing bland. Seriously, there’s enough humor in the original to make a whole seven-minute video.
Overall, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever just didn’t live up to its predecessor. The plot had several problems, characters were poorly designed, and it left a lot of loose ends.
On the other hand, it wasn’t terrible: as a standalone movie it truly dealt with strong emotions and had some pretty cool fight scenes. Of course, you may be wondering why I haven’t mentioned Chadwick Boseman. I think that the movie dealt really well with this. It didn’t entirely focus on his death, but still honored him thoroughly.
Marvel movies have unfortunately disappointed for a while (the last good one was No Way Home, in my opinion). Hopefully, that ends next year as we are just entering the beginning of Phases 5 & 6 (what Marvel has dubbed the “Multiverse” saga).
And before I go… rest in peace, Chadwick Boseman.
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