Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Seen November 2022

First Watch

💺Imax

Caught in Theatres

Quality (7)

Enjoyment (7)

Score 70%

Thoughts

So I have a lot of thoughts on this movie and they are kinda mixed

First, while obviously beyond this movies control it does really really miss Chadwick and while it tries its best it is not fully able to overcome this hurdle for me - that said given its circumstance I think it does a good job exploring grief.

For me this would this movie in some regard feels like marvel finally growing up or rather being forced to grow up, in some capacity their cheap tricks were off the table here and I think this really helped this movie esp compared to other phase 4 project that have been lackluster at best - this forcing function of telling a real story or real emotional arc for the main characters works here. There is nothing this movie can materially point at and make us glee, it has to earn that (Not sure it fully did earn many/any of those moments) but regardless it couldn’t turn to that.

This also make this a very different marvel movie and an esp weird mcu movie, I wonder how this movie will fit into the rest of the universe esp tonally in rewatches or marathons and such (tho I would much rather them making a movie like this than the rest of phase 4 stuff)

I think Lettia Wright’s performance even more so than Angela Basset really works for me, canonically not sure how old she is (I think she was snapped so not that old) but she definitely feels significantly matured and carries the movie and its grief on her shoulders

I also think largely Namor was executed pretty well, he felt threatening and scary, you could emphatise with him, I wonder if his rage for humans could’ve been made stronger by centuries of atrocities rather than a singular event. All that said I think his motivations against wakanda were quite weak, it was very clear why Shuri wanted to kill him but not vice versa.

Atlantis(but not atlantis for copyright) was imo quite interesting, their power set, their city, their history and how they move, attack and operate was quite cool and seemed much better than Atlantis (from Aquaman) for me.

I think where this movie works best in its exploration of grief (imo real exploration) and I also think that is where its problems are. Real grief is not cathartic and doesn’t get resolved nicely with a bow, doesn’t make you feel happy or okay. There was a small part of me, hoping/expecting to see Chadwick come back in some capacity and say something to Shuri and make everything okay - this is what you except/want in a movie, but I think it took massive restraint from marvels part to not do that and say in real grief you don’t get to see you again or drive off into the sunset.

This was one of the mcu movies that didn’t need and shouldn’t have post credit scenes and I am very happy they understood that. Even the mid credit scene was basically just the last scene continue - also love how they get to have their cake and still eat it by just naming the son T’Challa of having T’Challa but not recasting him

Overall I think this movie has some really good parts but it is missing some je nais se quois that connects all of it together and sticks the deep cut.

Nitpicks/Random Things

I thought I would really hate Ri-Ri Williams as this Knock Off iron man and generally only heard bad things about the character - that said her character was so bland, boring in this movie she didn’t cause that for me. Even the suit at the end looked so god awful, that I was not bad to see a knock off iron man cause it just looked so bad.

Similar to that, ookye’s suit was fucking horrendous dude, jesus christ that shit bad. Thank god the terrible CG was mostly limited to these two suits

I think a lot of call to action, cheer moments was squandered specifically I think the Wakanda Forever weren’t delivered that well, the chat from IW too.

I think Shuri’s theme was terrible and very bad to replace the real BP music with that, it made her entrance in both fights much worse. Didn’t even fit very well with the rest of the theme

Ross and The CIA person could’ve been totally cut tbh

This might seem odd/intensive but Chadwick passing was almost too long ago from when this movie was release, however small my grief or the effect that had on me was mostly gone

General phase 4 being quite shit and ruining marvel hype for me definitely made this movie worse for me tho - if I still really cared about the MCU I think this movie would’ve had a more profound effect

Theatre Experience

Missed the opening weekend and weekend in general, so I think the vibe was worse. The movie didn't have many screaming moments but for me they squandered what they had in this regard, the movie had more crying moments but that didn’t come through as much for me.