Review of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) by Kaihaku — 16 Nov 2022

The beginning and end segments of this movie are absolutely fantastic. It handles the real life death of it's lead actor with more grace and class than any other sequel I can think of.

Unfortunately, the issue is in what's between the beginning and the end. I can hear the Disney corporate committee planning on this movie, "Hmm. They liked Thanos and Killmonger, let's merge the two for the villain this time. Oh, and since they like Wakanda, let's make the villain be from a secret super advanced society very similar to Wakanda. It will be like a Killermonger/Thanos lead Wakanda versus the actual Wakanda. Kind of like the climax of the last film, which the audience liked." Despite this overly safe set-up, Namor is still pretty solid as the antagonist and while he's no Magento (sorry, Namor is not right) it's functional.

What doesn't work is Ironheart. Riri Williams does not belong in this movie. It's a disservice to Wakanda Forever and it's a disservice to Ironheart. Riri should have had her own standalone origin movie and she feels completely shoehorned into this movie. Riri distracts needlessly from the Wakanda narrative and, clearly, is only introduced here because Disney doesn't have the integrity to launch Riri in her own standalone film.

On the note of compromising Wakanda in order to put narrative focus on Riri. The worst decision this film makes is have Queen Ramonda - a powerful mature woman of color - sacrifice herself in order to save Riri. This is a repeat of Marvel's mishandling of it's female authority figure in Thor: Dark World but it hits even harder here because it's a colossal waste of a talented, engaged actress. Apparently Angela Bassett challenged the decision but was told, "don't worry. It's comics, dead people come back all the time." Which is garbage storytelling and completely undermines the narrative stakes. What a terrible misstep. At least have the Queen lay down her life to save her own people or her own family, to just sacrifice the strongest female authority figure in the story for some stranger - just like Queen Frigga in Thor: Dark World - is an absolute waste.

So, ultimately, the beginning and end are very good. Marvel plays it too safe in the middle acts, distracts from Wakanda by shoehorning in the next franchise, and needlessly kills off one of Black Panther's best characters. The visuals and sound are top notch, just what you'd expect, but most of the heart from this one comes from the off screen death of T'chala.