My Review of "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever"

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has finally come out after so many issues and delays. It's probably one of the most anticipated Marvel movies to come out recently and with good reason. This wasn't going to be an easy feat to get a proper Black Panther sequel without the main character in the movie. Still they did an okay job at it for what they were given.

The movie starts out with panic and distress. There is an unexplained reason why T'Challa, aka Black Panther has passed away. I had a bit of an issue with this but I understand why they did it the way they did it. It's kind of hard to believe with a city as advanced as Wakanda this could have happened to T'Challa. Apparently something happened that threatened his life but he decided not to say anything about it until the very last minute and they couldn't save his life. Again I understand that they had to do what they had to do but I'll touch back on this later on.

Things brings us to the distraught family and nation. The world now wow looks at Wakanda as a weaker society now that they don't have Black Panther to protect them. This is kind of dumb as well knowing how advanced Wakanda's civilization is in the first place. Regardless, world leaders are trying to steal vibranium for themselves to gain military power.

Queen Ramonda will have none of this and declares that Wakanda is able to defend itself and its state secrets. Little does she know that there is vibranium outside of Wakanda. It's located deep in the ocean floors. This is the next frontier for these ambitious military nations. That is until they realize something is protecting the vibranium down there.

It just so happens it's a new undiscovered underwater nation headed by their leader Namor. They don't want any outsiders disturbing their peaceful nation and are willing to do anything to protect their autonomy. In order to do this they try to make a pact with the Wakandans but the stipulations of this pact were kind of crazy.

Through a series of secret keeping and misunderstandings we have ourselves a full on war between the underwater people and the Wakandans. That's the big side story of the movie that keeps it going. The main story lies behind Shuri and her ways of dealing with grief.

She's been through a lot in the last few years. She's lost her father, her brother, had a huge intergalactic war, dealt with the blip and now this crazy war. That's a lot for someone to take and you understand her anger is building and brooding inside of her. Even more understandable is her mother Ramonda's grief. Ramonda has to do all that and rule a nation at the same time. She had a really interesting character exploration.

The exploration of these characters are done pretty well but the movie at times kind of becomes aimless. It loses it's touch with who its audience is. This is not a movie for everyone. If you want to bring your kids you might want to second question that thought. There are a lot of drawn out sequences that deal with more adult situations with grief and internal conflict. These concepts are pretty cool but not necessarily good for kids. I saw a family have to leave the theatre because their kids couldn't take their boredom. I don't blame them, it's not really for them.

You have these big bombastic action sequences. They almost feel like a secondary thing. They're just there to appease a certain demographic that they aren't even targeting. The kids have already left the building because they don't have the attention span or cognitive capacity to understand what you're trying to get at.

There are a lot of weird inconsistencies that took me out of the movie closer to the end of the movie. We're fully aware that humans require so much equipment to even go to this underwater city that Namor lives in. Why would he even be worried about any outsiders coming in to colonize it? The only people capable of that is Wakandans and they don't even think of them as a threat.

I found there was a lot of unnecessary pandering closer to the end of the movie as well. They tacked on certain relationships that have nothing to do with the story at all just for show. I kind of saw a lot of pandering throughout this movie. There are certain demographics that they're trying to push for a little further while trying to appease everyone. This is incredibly hard to do.

Another thing I had an issue with was that they had this humongous fight with an onslaught of destruction only for it all to be repaired the very next day. I mean there's certain scenes where certain characters are for sure supposed to die. There's a lot of ex machina situations that just allow them to show up in the next scene without a scratch on them.

I guess the lack of repercussions of the events that pass kind of blew my mind. This movie also went into certain weird nit picks that I kind of accepted from the first movie that I questioned in this movie. For example the consistency of language is pretty weird. Originally I thought Black Panther was to explore African heritage but now I have a different feeling. It's more like a western expectation of what African heritage is.

Big things about culture aren't really discussed in terms Black Panther. Language is a big element of culture. The underwater nation had their own language and spoke it constantly. Wakandans don't really converse in their language ever. Maybe a basic statement here or there but never in conversation. That's weird because you're isolated in the country with your own people but speak English. I know it's for people to understand the movie however we've seen Shang-Chi have conversations in Mandarin, Ms. Marvel with Urdu and now this movie with their Mesoamerican language. We see it's possible but they decided not to.

Other weird things even included Namor's constant need to be outside of the water I guess for dialogue for the movie. Can't he see that it is really inconvenient for his people to be serving him within oxygen areas? They don't really explain this at all since Namor can live within the ocean with no problems. Again it makes sense for dialogue for the movie but still weird since he has dialogue in water in certain scenes.

I know that's a lot to complain about in this movie but it isn't without certain great moments. Romanda was a great character that was explored further in this movie. The concept of the underwater nation and Namor were interesting with certain issues. The art direction is absolutely beautiful. Decoration of the clothing and the scenery was breathtaking. Although there were weird artistic additions added to the mix. There's this scene where they have a password to get into Wakanda. A tray of water will pull up and they had to drum the tray of water a certain way for the portal to open.... I know... things like this happen throughout this movie and no one even bats an eyelash.

Overall, the most important thing about this movie is that it is entertaining. I would say yes it is entertaining but up to a certain point. The sheer amount of odd additions to this movie really have me second guessing why I enjoyed this movie. I know as a one time viewing it was good enough to keep me entertained. Unfortunately I definitely wouldn't go out and watch it again. That's why I have to give this movie a 6 out of 10. I can see why people like this movie but its definitely not for me.