Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - Review 

Rating: 5 out of 5

FEW films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe - let alone any universe - will carry the emotional impact of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

A sequel to Marvel’s 2018 cultural phenomenon, the follow-up is informed by the sad death of its former leading man, Chadwick Boseman, from cancer (aged just 43). It was a death that rocked the film world and posed something of a dilemma for the creative team behind this movie. Should they recast and preserve the screen character? Or embrace the tragedy and pay poignant tribute?

Director Ryan Coogler - backed by the likes of Kevin Feige - opted for the latter, delivering a sombre yet still exhilarating film that got the mix of death and rebirth just right.

Hence, Wakanda Forever opens with a heartfelt tribute to Boseman and his character, T’Challa, who has also died in the interim period between these two movies. There’s a funeral and an outpouring of grief that’s sure to leave every viewer teary eyed - but respectfully so. There’s no sense that this feels contrived. Rather, a collective sorrow shared by cast, crew and fan base.

Thereafter, the question lingers of who will follow in T’Challa’s footsteps, while the Wakandans must simultaneously fend off the opportunist and predatory attacks from western powers who want to seize their precious mineral reserve of vibranium, as well as the new threat posed by another unknown people from a secret undersea city called Talokan, led by Namor (Tenoch Huerta) with Mesoamerican connections.

Favourite to take up the mantle is T’Challa’s sister Shuri ( Letitia Wright), the renowned scientist who assumed the tech role of Q in the first film. Yet Shuri is not only racked by anger and grief, but also a sense of self-doubt at her own perceived failure to prevent or even understand her brother’s fatal illness.

Wright is terrific as the vulnerable Shuri, almost casting aside completely the formerly feisty charisma that defined her first outing. It makes her more human and hugely empathetic, so that her eventual show of strength delivers a genuinely hard fought crowd-pleaser of a moment.

Yet all of the ensemble play their part, channelling their grief at what happened to their leader with the responsibility of leadership and strength that are incumbent with their positions in Wakandan society. Angela Bassett, especially, shines as T’Challa and Shuri’s mother, who must balance her sadness with continued strength on behalf of both her people and her daughter; all while becoming a focal point for Namor’s wrath. Her arc is every bit as powerful.

There’s notable work, too, from Lupita Nyong’o’s Nakia, a warrior now in self-imposed exile in Haiti, as well as the formidable Winston Duke, whose Jabari tribesman M’Baku continues to provide an imposing (yet sympathetic) presence.

Elsewhere, there’s yet more story to unpick as Martin Freeman’s CIA man Everett Ross tries to covertly help the Wakandans by providing them with intelligence that places him at odds with his ex-wife, CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), while helping them to find brilliant young MIT student Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), who has designed a new vibranium detector, which discloses a new source of this precious substance under the sea.

With so much plot to juggle, in tandem with the emotional arcs, it’s credit to Coogler that Wakanda Forever works as both a proper Marvel blockbuster and an intimate story of overcoming guilt and grief.

It is spectacular when it needs to be, it maintains the momentum of the MCU in moving forward and delivers more than its fair share of bravura moments.

Huerta’s Namor is a credible villain - someone who has a sympathetic back story (much like the best bad guys in this series), yet equally capable of acts of destruction that leave an indelible mark on those he targets. The stage is set early on with a lethal attack on a CIA team aboard a ship, while a mid-film assault on Wakanda is as spectacular as it is emotionally charged.

Coogler - as he has long demonstrated with films such as Fruitvale Station, Creed and the first Black Panther - knows how to mix exhilarating choreography with complex emotional beats, enabling the film to build towards another memorably rousing finale.

He then doubles down on the high emotion that informed the opening of the film with an intimate final scene that, again, plays havoc with the tear ducts.

But this feels like a Labour of love for all concerned: a film that pays tribute to the actor that made such an indelible impression on the genre in general, and to all who worked with him and watched him on-screen. It’s respectful, poignant and rousing, a tour-de-force that succeeds on just about every level.