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In August of 2020, the world was shocked by the sudden passing of Chadwick Boseman. Beyond just playing T’Challa in multiple movies for Marvel including Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther, and both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, he had an incredibly prolific career portraying a number of historical and pop culture figures including Jackie Robinson in 42, James Brown in Get On Up (a criminally underrated movie), and Thurgood Marshall in Marshall. Prior to his untimely passing, he was going to reprise his role as T’Challa in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, however the movie had to be reworked to accommodate his death without just recasting T’Challa and moving on. The resulting project may have some issues, however it is Marvel Studios’ strongest outing of the year delivering some fantastic emotional moments.
Small note going forward: There is a character that was not announced to be in the movie that appears for a not insubstantial amount of the screentime. This character’s appearance is a small point of contention that a paragraph will be devoted to, so if a reader is trying to avoid spoilers, skip reading paragraph four.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever follows Shuri (Letitia Wright) as she deals with the aftermath of T’Challa’s death. While in mourning, Namor (Tenoch Huerta) emerges from Talocan and challenges Wakanda to join them in defense of the world’s Vibranium supply from the rest of humanity vying for it. Martin Freeman (Everett Ross), Angela Bassett (Queen Ramonda), Lupita Nyong’o (Nakia), Dominique Thorne (Riri Williams/Ironheart), and Danai Gurira (Okoye) round out the rest of the cast.
The only spoiler that is really worth addressing is the return of one character that appears multiple times throughout the movie that really only serves to set up a future movie. This refers to the appearance of Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, now director of the CIA. She appears multiple times throughout the movie, mostly in conjunction with operations to get Vibranium out of Wakanda, however since Wakanda is dealing with Talocan for most of the movie, the United States is never made aware of Talocan’s existence, and this plot never dovetails back into the main narrative (either thematically or surface level), it only serves to set up 2025’s The Thunderbolts which may have an appearance from a character or two from this film. Arguably, this plot and the ending of this movie (without spoiling it) overplays Marvel’s hand going into The Thunderbolts, leaving little room for interpretation or speculation about what the movie will be about.
It is only worth mentioning because any time spent with that character would have been better served developing Riri Williams whose role is a less developed version of America Chavez from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness where she is less of a character and more of a breathing MacGuffin to hinge the plot around. Two action set pieces are set around her and her armor that she built herself, however no explanation is given as to why she’s building an armor beyond an offhand comment by Shuri asking if the armor is “Stark Tech” which never actually gets an answer. That said, in Ironheart’s first outing there are a number of visual and narrative references to moments from Tony Stark’s appearances that will bring some joy to fans.
The production design and costume design for this franchise continues to astound, with Talocan and everyone around Namor taking deep inspiration from the Mayans and other Meso-American cultures. The designs have the same level of care and detail that viewers will be accustomed to in Wakanda so, hopefully, this is not the last time Marvel Studios will use Talocan, though the credits saying “and introducing Tenoch Huerta as Namor” indicates that this is not the last time viewers will see Namor. Along the same lines, Ludwig Goransson continues to prove himself to be one of the best active composers with a fantastic score that builds on Black Panther and provides a totally unique sound for Talocan that still maintains thematic resonance.
Much like the original Black Panther and has been done in comics in many forms over the years (see Professor X and Magneto for over half a century), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has a central conflict where both sides have a valid point where the viewer can totally understand where both sides come from. Namor is a totally sympathetic villain whose motivations are tied to the reality of the situation in Talocan while Wakanda has to deal with their version of reality, tied to the steps that T’Challa took in Black Panther to open up Wakanda to the world while still not sharing Vibranium.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever salvages a lackluster year for Marvel Studios by delivering one of their strongest entries since Avengers: Endgame. It builds the world in interesting and unique ways, has its own self-contained story that feels most like a conventional solo film of their post-Endgame offerings, and pays tribute to Chadwick Boseman in a touching and heartfelt way. Even if the movie clocks in at over two hours and 40 minutes, it never feels to be as long as it is because of how well paced it is. It is worth a watch in theaters instead of waiting for it to move to Disney+.
Final Rating: 9/10
The following paragraph contains spoilers for those who are not caught up in the MCU.
A little endnote for Marvel fans, they show the trailer for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania before this movie since that is the next theatrical entry coming on February 17th, 2023. It is only worth mentioning because seeing it in Dolby brought a possible future connection to light. Beyond seeing Kang the Conqueror writ large on a cinematic level, the containment apparatus that he is in has the same markings and symbols that the Ten Rings had on them in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Ms. Marvel’s bangle had in Ms. Marvel. At the end of Ms. Marvel, her bangle starts to glow and she is swapped with Captain Marvel. Before this, the last time viewers saw Captain Marvel was in the post-credit tag for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings where she meets with Wong, Shang-Chi, Katy, and Bruce Banner to discuss the rings being of unknown origin and sending out a beacon somewhere they do not know but Captain Marvel was going to continue investigating the artifacts. Considering how Janet reacts to Cassie sending a beacon into the Quantum Realm and that being the inciting incident for the movie, between this and The Marvels in July, it appears that 2023 is shaping up to answer a lot of questions about where the franchise is going headed into Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars.
