Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – Film Review

Queen Ramonda, Shuri, M’Baku, Okoye and the Dora Milaje fight to protect their nation from intervening world powers in the wake of King T’Challa’s death. As the Wakandans strive to embrace their next chapter, the heroes must band together with Nakia and Everett Ross to forge a new path for their beloved kingdom.

How does one even begin to describe talking about a film such as Black Panther: Wakanda Forever? This movie’s existence was put into question back in 2020 when the late Chadwick Boseman sadly passed away from colon cancer. As time went on, after the iconic actor was mourned, people started to wonder what would happen with the already-announced Black Panther 2.

It was eventually revealed that the then-upcoming sequel would be completely reworked with an entirely different story because they didn’t want to recast the role of T’Challa so as to honor Boseman and his legacy. At the time, many people were concerned that the film was going to be a hugely unnecessary film that didn’t need to exist whatsoever. You can’t do a Black Panther movie without the titular character, right?

Well… not necessarily, as returning writer/director Ryan Coogler has proven with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which is easily one of the top five best movies in the entirety of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), which is certainly populated after thirty movies. Not only that, but it’s also a slight improvement on its predecessor, which surely nobody saw coming. This movies serves as a wakeup call that we should not bet against Coogler and company.

This is a movie that genuinely touched my soul and made me feel so many emotions throughout the span of two-hours-and-forty-one minutes. Coogler ensures that every single second of that running time is put to good use, to honor Boseman. You can really tell that the people that made this movie possible seriously wanted to make sure that they made the late actor proud. If he is looking down on us right now, watching this movie, it’s safe to say that he is definitely quite proud of the final product.

If you’ve been reading my reviews for a while now, you’d know that I have loved quite a lot of Marvel’s Phase Four movies, which is a bit of an unpopular opinion. I absolutely adore Black Widow with my whole heart. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings felt like a huge breath of fresh air. Eternals was Marvel at its most daring. Spider-Man: No Way Home was a fan’s biggest dream. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was a hugely satisfying Sam Raimi horror superhero outing.

But despite all of that, Marvel hasn’t had a movie that felt like an event to me since No Way Home, from a year ago. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever feels like an event. This is a film that feels like it was crafted with so much care and precision which is so rare to see come from such a humongous studio.

Coogler’s direction, as well as his script with Joe Robert Cole, is phenomenal. The story here is incredibly interesting and moving in all the best ways, finding heartfelt ways to pay tribute to both Boseman and the character of T’Challa, as well as pave the way forward for the rest of this franchise going forward because it’s clear that Marvel is far from done telling stories in Wakanda.

It’s also an impeccably acted film, brought to life staggeringly strong, especially by Angela Bassett who genuinely deserves to be nominated for Best Actress at the Academy Awards. Her performance here is so unbelievably raw and gripping that it will command your attention in the theatre.

Letitia Wright also does a wonderful job returning to the role of Shuri with much more responsibility this time around. She’s the lead of this movie and she is asked to do a considerably high number of challenging things with this character. Shuri’s character went from being a fun side-character in the first film to being a show-stopping lead in the sequel. Talk about a wonderful thing to see.

The cinematography from Autumn Durald Arkapaw is truly a thing of beauty that’s further accentuated by the impressive musical score from Ludwig Göransson, as well as Coogler’s powerful direction. It’s without a doubt one of the best looking and feeling movies in ages.

Of course, seeing as how this is a Marvel movie, many people will go ahead and see this based on the action sequences alone, which is fine. If you’re one of those people, you can breathe a sigh of relief because Wakanda Forever has some of the most intense, grittiest action ever put to screen in a superhero movie.

At the end of the day, there was truly nothing about Wakanda Forever that bugged me. It was an extremely touching, emotionally gripping superhero adventure that deserves all the awards during the upcoming Academy Awards season. Boseman would be so proud.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is an impeccably directed, emotionally charged sequel told with care, serving as a touching tribute to Chadwick Boseman that also manages to wonderfully move the franchise in an exciting new direction.