Wakanda Forever movie review: Fitting tribute to late Chadwick Boseman

Hyderabad: The first Black Panther movie, part of the MCU, opened with incredible scale and scope. Not to mention its star cast and the vision of Ryan Coogler. A lot has changed since then. Chadwick Boseman who played T’Challa/Black Panther passed away due to colon cancer. Disney plus has almost taken over the MCU with […]

Hyderabad: The first Black Panther movie, part of the MCU, opened with incredible scale and scope. Not to mention its star cast and the vision of Ryan Coogler. A lot has changed since then.

Chadwick Boseman who played T’Challa/Black Panther passed away due to colon cancer. Disney plus has almost taken over the MCU with spinoffs and series connecting the MCU. We are into the Phase IV of the MCU. So where does Wakanda Forever stand?

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Boseman passed away in real life, but the character T’Challa still must be dealt with. What does Ryan Coogler do? Simple. T’Challa is dead by an incurable disease that even Wakanda cannot cure in spite of its technical superiority. T’Challa’s death has not only affected Wakanda, it has also affected his family.

Wakanda Forever opens with the news of T’Challa succumbing to “a sudden death from an undisclosed illness,”. A question mark hangs over what the present and future has in store for the world. T’Challa’s sister, Shuri (Letitia Wright) is grieving in her own way. She turns to science to cope with her loss. Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), who loved T’Challa, is no longer in Wakanda. T’Challa’s mother Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), turns to faith. The fearsome Dora Milage warriors lead by Okoye (Danai Gurira) are lost. Though T’Challa had promised Wakanda’s technology to the world, the UN is unhappy with the pace at which the knowledge is being shared. Countries like France and the US have taken it upon themselves to try and uncover Vibranium on their own, even if that means trying to clandestinely steal it from Wakandan sites. But this effort has caught the attention of another mysterious power–the hidden underwater domain of Talocan (Atlantis in the comics), a country even more hidden than Wakanda, and its king, Namor (Tenoch Huerta). The Talocanil greed for Vibranium has threatened to expose the underwater kingdom. Another threat to the underwater kingdom is from a young girl Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), who developed the world’s first Vibranium detector, which the US government plans to use to find Vibranium in the oceans. A lot is happening. How the paths of the characters interwind and what happens next is what the film is about.

Is this a visual treat? Definitely. Gurira, Wright, Basset, and Nyong’o deliver some knock-out performances both in their most quiet heart-to-hearts and their beautifully choreographed fight scenes. Gurira, particularly, shines in both her acting and her physicality. She has one of the most brutal fight scenes in recent MCU memory and she delivers.

Is this a fitting tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman? Yes and no. It is a 2-hour 40-minute film. Ryan Coogler makes even better use of its stars than he did the first time out. There is a lot of wisdom from Duke and Bassett, there is more quirkiness to Wright, and there is grandeur to Gurira. It is a grim movie with a darker visual range than its predecessor. It is, however, a messier movie trying to reckon with a messier range of feelings. There are moments in the film where you wonder whose side you are on. The radical elements trying to bring down the world justify their actions with compelling arguments. It is almost like trying to choose between raw unadulterated evil or a lesser evil. Choosing either will have repercussions that one needs to live with. This is contrary to T’Challa. This is contrary to the legacy of Chadwick Boseman.

Wakanda is forever. Watch it.