Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Coogler, 2022)
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a valiant addition to the Black Panther legacy and the Marvel Universe. It brings back many of the things that audiences loved about Black Panther (2018). The costume designs are just as vibrant, the action scenes are just as epic, and the cinematography is just as breathtaking. And there are extraordinary individual performances by parts of the cast. Angela Bassett (Ramonda) absolutely rocks. The woman truly exudes the grace and confidence of a queen whenever the camera is on her. Letitia Wright’s performance as Shuri, the grief-stricken sister of King T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), is almost herculean considering the shoes she is attempting to fill. And Tenoch Huerta does everything he can to make the character of Namor serviceable to the movie.
With that being said, this was a confounding movie to review because it’s going to make a lot of money, but it really should be better.
Full disclosure: I have never been a comic book fan and I have a hard time keeping up with all the characters and plot lines that meander through the Marvel Universe. Loki, Natasha Romanova, Wanda Maximoff, Bucky Barnes. Morag, Xandar, Sokovia, the Quantum Realm. Infinity Stones, Skrull Detectors, Sonic Barrier Cuffs. We are seriously getting to the point where some university needs to offer a degree program in all things MCU! However, jokes aside, there are names that are instantly recognizable to even the least initiated of us: Iron Man, Thor, Thanos. And I think it’s fair to say that Chadwick Boseman admirably added Black Panther to that list. It was a performance that was so good that he managed to make himself the best part of a movie he wasn’t even alive to be in…
And I know that sounds cynical because the general consensus so far is that the director of Wakanda Forever, Ryan Coogler, effectively succeeds in building upon the Black Panther legacy. However, I would argue that the panther in the room is a nearly insurmountable obstacle for this movie to overcome. The death of Chadwick Boseman feels devasting to the essence of the Black Panther franchise. Boseman’s performance in Black Panther (2018) was so charismatic and endearing. The confident leadership that he portrayed in Black Panther tied all of that movie’s best elements together. The power dynamic between him, his sister, and his female generals felt so equitable. Without him the male leadership in Wakanda Forever feels either egregiously milquetoast (Lord M’Baku played by Winston Duke) or ominously evil (Namor). As the father of a daughter, I want to see women placed in positions of empowerment, but I want to see it done in a more balanced way to reflect an achievable reality.
Ultimately, I think I might be succumbing to a bias that there are just certain characters that have to be played by certain actors. Christopher Reeves will always be the Superman. Sean Connery will always be the James Bond we fell in love with. (Although Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig did hold their own.) It doesn’t help that the emotion that Coogler is able to illicit with the first 10 minutes of the film kind of confirms that bias too. He gives us an impeccable tribute to Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) that feels so viscerally real that it motivates you to watch the rest of the movie with a stern sense of reverence. Chad Boseman will always be the Black Panther.
Black Panther was a special movie for several reasons. It reinvigorated an MCU that I thought was starting to become stale. It added a little bit of color to a cinematic palette that was starting to feel bland. Chadwick Boseman’s depiction of Black Panther was a revelation for the MCU because he was absolutely marvelous, yet obviously different. He made being a superhero novel in the same way Robert Downey Jr. made being a superhero sexy. In that way, his performance in Black Panther reminded me a lot of Robert Downey Jr.’s performance in Iron Man (2008). They both provided a spark that ignited the engine of a tired genre. The MCU really owes its life to Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal of Iron Man and the Black Panther franchise will forever be indebted to Chadwick Boseman in that same way.
