Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

* * * * 2022 ‧ Action/Adventure ‧ 2h 41m

The people of Wakanda fight to protect their home from intervening world powers as they mourn the death of King T'Challa.

Cast: Letitia Wright Lupita Nyong'o Danai Gurira

Release date: 10 November 2022

Official Trailer

Review

7.3/10 IMDB
84% Rotten Tomatoes

Kind of a mixed bag but worth seeing if you liked the first one.

The MCU's mechanics are too oppressive to allow for true mournful meditation.

The first Black Panther... set a bar Wakanda Forever didn't come close to matching. But taken on its own terms as a superhero sequel tasked with serving an unusually wide range of needs it stands as a different kind of accomplishment.

ROAR EMOTIONS
BLACK PANTHER MINUS ITS HERO STILL AN ALL-ACTION SLICE OF MARVEL MAGIC
leigh Paatsch
BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER (M)
Director: Ryan Coogler (Creed)
Starring: Letitia Wright Tenoch Huerta Lupita Nyong'o Angela Bassett Martin Freeman
Rating: hhhhj
A king departs a legacy arrives and a people move on
Not only was the original Black Panther a game-changing trailblazing rip-roaring superhero action movie.
It also rapidly became a true cultural phenomenon and undoubtedly one of the best things to have ever carried the Marvel Comics logo.
Audiences couldn't get enough of the noble heroism of Chadwick Boseman's King T'Challa and his female-dominated fighting force of Wakandan warriors the Dora Milaje.
Four years later the second Black Panther arrives in a radically different movie world without its charismatic star to lead the way (Boseman will no longer to be seen as T'Challa after his death from cancer in 2020).
While Wakanda Forever never quite hits the dynamic heights scaled by its predecessor there is no way this epic excitement machine can be tagged as a let-down. There is just too much raw energy and genuine emotion coursing through the production for it to be deemed anything else but a rousing success.
Fans of the original Black Panther will appreciate the tastefully moving way in which the charismatic Boseman has been farewelled by the franchise.
As for those Marvel devotees who have noticed the studio's once-impeccable standards slipping in recent times Wakanda Forever will mark a return to the top-notch fare Marvel has been generally renowned for.
As the story begins the sudden death of T'Challa has left several nations sniffing around Wakanda's vast and exclusive reserves of vibranium the mystery mineral that powers the kingdom's technical and tactical superiority.
The discovery of a new non-Wakandan source of vibranium leads to the emergence of a new enemy that will not be so easily dispatched by traditional combat.
The undersea nation of Talokan is in many ways the equal of Wakanda when it comes to great leaps forward in technical innovation powered by vibranium.
The Talokan can also protect their interests with a fighting fury that the Wakanda brains trust - led as always by the brilliant scientific mind of Princess Shuri (Letitia Wright) - initially find impossible to counter.
A prime example of the Talokan's watery warmongering ways is their leader Namor (Tenoch Huerta) an Aquaman-like demigod who is one of the most formidable and unpredictable adversaries to ever hail from the Marvel stable.
If you like your supervillains on the super side then you will be plenty impressed and often intimidated by Namor's work.
Speaking of being impressed those who loved the first Black Panther will be stirred by the motivated manner in which established cast members band together to fill the sizeable void left by Boseman's departure.
Wright steps it up in an expanded role for the redoubtable Princess and the likes of Lupita Nyong'o (as the undercover specialist Nakia) Danai Gurira (as Okoye head of the Dora Milaje) and impressive newcomer Dominique Thorne (as Riri a talented student inventor) all rise to the occasion in similar fashion.
On a production level Wakanda Forever is a triumph with elegantly composed visuals and genuinely pulse-pounding combat scenes never failing to captivate the viewer throughout.
While the filmmakers of Wakanda Forever had the movie's change of storytelling direction thrust upon them the fresh momentum generated here all but guarantees the Black Panther effect will continue to prowl and pounce for some time to come.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is in cinemas now