Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Non-Spoiler Review
I love ranking my favorite movies and TV shows at the end of each year. I love pop culture and experiencing new stories. I want to give new stories a chance. That being said, I’ve put together my favorite films and shows from this year—the only film that could possibly change that list is Avatar: The Way Of Water next month—and none of the Marvel TV shows and movies this year made any of the lists. It’s been a pretty disappointing year for the MCU as far as I’m concerned, and that makes me sad, because I thought it came back so strong last year after its famine in 2020.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever though, is the best MCU movie of the year, and while it’s not in my top five of all time, this was a really intriguing, entertaining, and at times emotional and powerful film. It’s no spoiler that King T’Challa of Wakanda is not in this film due to Chadwick Boseman’s tragic passing two years ago. T’Challa is dead before the film’s first five minutes and the way it’s handled is the best way they could’ve possibly done it. The character’s legacy as well as the actor’s is powerfully and heartbreakingly realized in this film and, yes, I did shed a tear or two.
Given T’Challa’s absence in the film, his sister Shuri takes center stage and bears the responsibility of trying to keep the peace between Wakanda and the underwater kingdom of Talokan as tensions boil over when Talokan’s existence is threatened by the seizure of their own vibranium by the United States government. The king of Talokan, Namor, is determined to preserve his people at all costs, even if it means going to war with Wakanda should they prevent him from killing the young woman that has the tools she needs to help the US government find their vibranium.
It’s a hefty movie that probably ran longer than it needed to, but there’s a lot of great character work here. Shuri is grieving from her brother’s death, but it’s not the only thing that defines her and there’s more for her to explore and learn. She has a really solid character arc, and so does Namor, who may be my favorite antagonist since Wenwu in Shang Chi: The Legend Of the Ten Rings. Gone are the days of Phase One villains and their one-dimensional motivations and character development.
One of the movie’s weakest links however has to be Ironheart, the ‘spiritual’ successor to Iron Man. She has no presence in the film, no charisma, and no arc. Considering how long this movie is, the fact that she’s practically the MacGuffin of the film, and the fact that she’s supposed to be one of the ‘next generation’ characters, it’s disappointing that neither her performance or character contains anything promising. There are very weak explanations as to how she’s able to build this tech that took Tony Stark a long time to perfect, and she doesn’t ever even mention Stark as an inspiration. One line would’ve been nice.
The film is also visually lacking, which I feel is something that Ryan Coogler doesn’t have his strength in. Too many scenes are shot at night, but that was an issue in the first film too, except the first film still looked more appealing. There’s a lot of washed out colors and dark backdrops that gives the film a somewhat ugly appearance.
Story-wise though, it’s pretty fantastic and the character arcs are well done. Some of the sound design is great, the editing is really good, and the music score at times really, really rocks. It’s easily the best MCU film of 2022, and though that’s not saying much as far as I’m concerned, it’s still good. Not necessarily great (though it has great moments), it’s good.
8/10