"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" Chills

 


    When I first saw the teaser trailer for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever I'll admit that it moved me, I was not some giant Chadwick Boseman fan, but the mix of Alright by Kendrick Lamar and No Woman No Cry was so powerful in my eyes. Therefore, I had high expectations for this movie, I had already heard that it was not only a worthy tribute to Boseman, but it was also one of the few movies in this new stage of Marvel that people could confidently agree was excellent. 

    And I can safely say that, it reached my expectations, though frankly I left wanting a bit more from the movie. It's not that the movie is bad, it's just that in my eyes it is very difficult to justify a movie having a runtime of 2 hours and 41 minutes. It's not like I thought that some scenes were useless, it's just that it could have hit some different points that I thought were more important. Honestly, it felt like Shuri should have been more of a focal point? Personally, if I had it my way, it'd be a lot more Wakanda centric, because I felt like this idea of succession could have been explored more.

    Like, for context, they never refer to Shuri as queen, is it because they know about T'challa's secret child, is it because they never officially crowned her? Like even at the very end, when she has defeated the mighty Namor, they still refer to her as princess. Frankly, I was surprised to see her mother be referred to as Queen, so I thought it would have been cooler to see her grapple with the fact that she does not want to be ruler. In addition, I thought they could have explored the plotpoint surrounding tradition vs technology more, because as seen in the film, Shuri scoffs at tradition much more than her other family members ever did.

    Speaking of Namor, he was very badass, but I kind of expected him to do more? I don't know, it's just that he spoke of having all of this power, and then he was just kind of defeated relatively easy? I mean I thought the entire point was that he could survive without water, even if you took it away, he'd still be powerful. I loved Tenoch Huerta's performance of him, but I felt like he went down swinging too easy, especially considering two of the people on the Wakanda's side, Riri and Shuri, have not really been battle tested or trained.

Final Score: 70/100

    Either way, this movie was fantastic, if you want a super fun movie I don't think this will be for you, it's a bit on the long side, and thankfully it's serious throughout. I mean I had serious concern Marvel was going to muck it up like they usually do and cheapen the tribute to Chadwick Boseman, but we were saved from that. Like, from the music to the cinematography, it's all good, I had literal chills when Shuri revealed herself as the Black Panther to the elders, it just felt like an incredible moment for her character. Overall, I'm not sure how often I'd rewatch this film, but I'd say if you have to only one film out of this phase of Marvel, this would be a strong contender for my pick.

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