'KILLING HIM WILL RISK ETERNAL WAR'
Is 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' Good? Here's What The Reviews Say
Marvel's highly anticipated sequel "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" is set to release on November 11. Directed by Ryan Coogler and starring Angela Bassett, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Danai Gurira, Florence Kasumba, Lupita Nyong'o and Martin Freeman, the film follows Wakandans and how prominent members of its society deal with their freedom in the wake of King T'Challa's death.
Does the 30th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe still carry the same charm that kick-started this wild ride back in 2008? Here's what the reviews say.
What It's About
The plot of "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" is eerily meta, in that it asks how you carry on when the center of your orbit is gone forever. There's bigger, more action-packed plotting at play in this sequel. But its core throbs with the conflict between Shuri and her mother, whose grief and beliefs are in radiant contrast, and how it could determine Wakanda's next chapter.
With the King dead, it's up to the women who loved and led alongside him to determine the future of Wakanda and the future of the Black Panther. Along the way, they will not only battle the rage that comes with grief but also a dangerous enemy from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.
[Mashable]
This is a movie about the Wakandan women. Winston Duke’s M’Baku and CIA Wakanda expert Ross (Martin Freeman) play important supporting roles, but it is Queen Ramunda, Suri, Okoye, Nokia, and Riri who are at the center of this story. Their interaction, with good will and often good humor (the comments about the dress presented to Shuri by the Talocans is a hoot) is the vibranium that is this film’s superpawer.
Not Replacing Chadwick Boseman Was Wise
When Ryan Coogler, the director and co-writer of “Black Panther,” agreed to go ahead in making the sequel after Boseman’s death (for a while he says he considered stepping away), he knew that the already daunting challenge of creating a movie that could live up to the first film had multiplied exponentially. His decision not to replace Boseman with a different actor was wise. You don’t try to replace someone who’s irreplaceable.
[Variety]
Was The Film Too Rushed?
Still, some will no doubt miss the tight focus and energy of Black Panther. This sequel is more scattered, a vast expansion with a hole at its center. In their mourning, the film’s characters are tossed to the wind, atomized on their own sad trajectories. But so, it seems, is the film itself, keeping busy so it doesn’t get dragged down in the undertow of its despair. One wishes that Coogler and company had more time to process, to collect themselves and figure out the truly best way forward, rather than grafting different characters onto a story once meant for T’Challa. But economics waits for no period of reflection, and so they have done their timely contractual duty in as noble a fashion as, perhaps, was possible.
It also has lots of extra pockets, sewn on to make room for all the characters audiences expect to see, as well as some new ones. Lupita Nyong’o returns as Nakia, essentially T’Challa’s widow, but doesn’t get a whole lot to do. Martin Freeman again plays CIA guy Ross; his story feels wedged in. Dominique Thorne plays teenage supergenius Riri Williams—she and Shuri forge a bond that’s intriguing but barely explored.
[TIME]
Namor (Tenoch Huerta) Leaves His Mark In The MCU
Comics history aficionados who have been waiting impatiently for the appearance of Namor — first introduced as the proto-mutant Sub-Mariner in 1939 — will not be disappointed by Mexican actor Huerta’s glowering demeanor and burly physicality in the role. The winged feet might be a bit much, but the regal attire is spectacular, his hard-bodied naked torso adorned with shells and beads and gold and robes of kelp.
[THR]
Namor may lack the personal animus that made Killmonger such an unusually compelling Marvel villain, but he shares that character’s postcolonial anger, his distorted righteousness, and his utter disinterest in wearing clothes. Like Killmonger, Namor represents a violent but not altogether illogical threat to Wakanda — one that interrogates the integrity of its Afrofuturistic utopia rather than flatters it, and plays into imperialistic strategies of pitting rival tribes against each other (something that “Wakanda Forever” addresses to whatever extent a modern Hollywood movie of its size possibly can). Combined with a ravishing underwater kingdom that cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw (“Palo Alto”) ingeniously brings to life with counterintuitive flashes of red, that’s enough to make Namor one of the more arresting bad guys that Marvel has ever brought to the screen.
TL;DR
Expectations are high for the emotional sequel, coming two years after Chadwick Boseman’s death. If only Marvel didn’t (once again) get in its own, frustrating way.
Be prepared to weep as Ryan Coogler and his cast mourn a character and the actor who played him — while resetting the power dynamic in the franchise
“Wakanda Forever” is overlong, a little unwieldy and somewhat mystifyingly steers toward a climax on a barge in the middle of the Atlantic. But Coogler’s fluid command of mixing intimacy with spectacle remains gripping.
[AP]
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