Movie Review: 'Black Panther Wakanda Forever' Honors Chadwick Boseman and Blockbuster Adventure

Black Panther Wakanda Forever (2022)

Directed by Ryan Coogler

Written by Ryan Coogler

Starring Letitia Wright, Angela Bassett, Winston Duke, Lupita N'yongo

Release Date November 11th, 2022

Published November 11th2, 2022

Black Panther Wakanda Forever begins jarringly and without warning. We begin in the moment of the death of King T'Challa. His heart is still beating as his sister, the brilliant scientist, Shuri (Letitia Wright), forgoes being by her brother's side in favor of desperately trying to save him by perfecting a potion. T'Challa dies before Shuri can find the right combination of elements for her life saving potion, the same potion he'd taken when he'd become Black Panther, the masked protector of Wakanda.

Shuri is plagued by both guilt and grief as her mother, Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett, as regal as ever), tries to comfort her. Jumping ahead by one year, Shuri remains consumed by guilt and since she doesn't believe in the elders or life after death, she refuses the comfort that such ideas can bring. Her guilt and sadness are slowly curdling inside her just as we find out that the leader of an underwater kingdom, Namor (Tenoch Huerta), is convinced that Wakanda has designs on attacking the kingdom of Atlantis.

This is not the case. Rather, the Americans have created a machine that can locate Vibranium, the super powerful element that was once believed to only exist in Wakanda. The truth is that Vibranium also exists in Atlantis and the Americans want it. Namor's misguided belief that Wakanda is after the vibranium, sets off a chain of events that includes kidnapping Shuri, and the young American scientist Ri-Ri (Dominique Thorne), who created the incredible Vibranium locating machine. Namor believes that killing the scientist will keep enemies from locating Atlantis.

Naturally, Queen Ramonda sees this as an act of war against Wakanda and the two sides begin a slow roll toward war. Shuri is caught in the middle, wanting nothing more than to protect Wakanda while also understanding Namor as someone who has lost people and as someone simply trying to protect his people from the incursion of the outside world. King T'Challa's decision to share Wakanda with the world has had consequences and those consequences include an unending desire for Vibranium as a weapon of war. The consequences of revealing Wakanda to the world are directly confronted in Wakanda Forever.

Director Ryan Coogler has an extraordinary command over the story he is telling in Black Panther Wakanda Forever. Keep in mind the tight rope walk Coogler is making in trying to honor his friend Chadwick Boseman and not exploiting his death for cheap emotion. Coogler has to show love and respect for Boseman while also moving the Wakanda story into the future and provide comic book thrills along the way to satisfy mainstream audiences.

Most directors in Coogler's place would have fallen back on easy, maudlin ploys for sympathy. Not Coogler, he smartly dispatches with performative grieving to the long term effect that the loss of a loved one can have on those loved ones. No one seems ready to move on from T'Challa but they are also always prepared to defend themselves as circumstances require. The vulnerability of Wakanda without the Black Panther, is a major subplot of Black Panther Wakanda Forever and it is remarkably well handled under the circumstances.

That said, the key to making this plot work is Letitia Wright. Wright's Shuri has the impossible task of taking up the mantel as Wakanda's protector and she is not ready for it. She's not ready to let herself grieve fully for her brother and only the circumstance of Namor's arrival in Wakanda, exposing the Wakandan defenses in the process, thrusts Shuri out her longing and grief and into a place where she is driven by rage and revenge and her journey morphs from grieving to vengeance and on to maturity.

Wright does a wonderful job throughout of giving Shuri an inner life, an intellectual and emotional life that feels real under these outsized circumstances. The script does take shortcuts to get Shuri to Black Panther but these shortcuts are typical of all Marvel adventures where the dictates of blockbuster cinema often requires a shortcut to keep the pace and action up while the emotional aspects of the story linger in the background.

Letitia Wright's perfectly pitched performance is the key to Coogler's success in Black Panther Wakanda Forever. The young actress does an incredible job of fleshing out Shuri well beyond her tech genius character from the first movie to a full on superhero of her own in this film. The transition is believably bumpy and the struggle toward heroism is the story being told. Wright is aided greatly by Angela Bassett whose strength of character and wealth of emotional range lifts every scene of rBlack Panther Wakanda Forever. Bassett is magnificent.

I adore Black Panther Wakanda Forever. It's both a loving tribute to the legacy and love of Chadwick Boseman and a standout Marvel movie adventure. You would expect the movie to be one or the other and that Coogler has crafted something that lands in both categories is remarkable. I'm eager to see where the Black Panther universe goes from here and with Wright in the lead, the future of Wakanda and the Marvel universe is one I am eager to be part of again in a future sequel.

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