by Nathaniel R
Presenting a task as impossible as hiding a futuristic country for centuries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Imagine having to follow up the phenomenon of Marvel's Black Panther (2018) which, like most explosive zeitgeist events, had ultra precise perfectly timed ingredients and arrived at the exact moment in culture when all of them would be most appreciated. Now imagine having to follow that up without its charismatic leading man, lost to cancer at the young peak of an already impressive career. Director Ryan Coogler was in an unenviable position. It's no surprise, then, that the sequel to Marvel's most popular solo adventure is a bit wobbly on arrival. Never mind that the sequel must bear the weight of all the absurd expectations and make sense of T'Challa's absence while trying to find new legs on both land AND at sea. Thank god for the latter. Whatever the movie's faults, it's not from attempting a simplistic retread...
Most of Wakanda Forever's best scenes are courtesy of its new antagonist Namor (Tenoch Huerta). In a thematically cohesive rethinking of the underwater comic book origins, the antihero is no longer Namor the Submariner of Atlantis but the "feathered serpent god" ruler of the underwater kingdom of Talokan. What stays the same is that he's referred to as a mutant (the Marvel Cinematic Universe is slowly opening the doors to let the entire X-Men collective in). In other words, the Talokan citizens may be powerful in battle but they can't fly and don't have super-strength to rival that of the Hulk as their leader does. Talokan makes a neat (too neat?) parallel to Wakanda in that it's also a scientifically advanced society / utopia that's remained utterly hidden from the world... until now.
As we discover in the first act, alongside a stunned Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) and Princess Shuri (Letitia Wright), Talokan has its own stockpile of Vibranium. Namor, in point of fact, is covered in it. Well, as covered in it as you can be when your costume is a green swim suit and the Vibranium is your accessories.
This early reveal is the film's smartest narrative rug-pull, instantly levelling the playing field. When your heroes are all-powerful like Superma -- a DC problem that's now infecting Marvel as the heroes become ever more godlike -- you gotta pull out the Kryptonite! While Namor is used somewhat sparingly, Huerta makes the most of his screen time with a mesmerizing masculine glower, as confident about his own certain victory as the Wakandas are accustomed to feeling about themselves in any battle. But no more. Namor offers Wakanda a deal that's more of a threat and the film is finally off to the races. (It takes so long for superhero films to get going these days though in this case, it's more excusable as the film had to narrativize T'Challa's absence.)
From Namor's entrance forward, though, it's more of the same as Marvel features go. As per usual there are questionable and uneven visual effects. Narratively the typical Marvel problems appear like rushed character intros that accept your enthusiasm without working for it (Riri Williams is to Wakanda Forever exactly what America Chavez was to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness). Marvel Studios tend to favor episodic plottiness to structural elegance or complex characterizations and that is also emphatically true here. And finally, from at least the Sokovian Accords onward, the thematic ambitions of this sprawling series of films always end up at war with the realities of fantasy-escapism franchises. Wakanda Forever wants to be about the evils and legacy of colonialism -- all the wealthy countries on Earth want the resources of Wakanda and Talokan and are prepared to aggressively take them -- but it's not as if the fictional heroes in a Hollywood superhero picture are going to declare war on the very real countries where their fans live.
Director Ryan Coogler tries valiantly to make this all work and it does here and there. In the end his considerable gifts are arguably better suited to grounded human drama than superhero pictures. It's why Creed remains both his best film and the one with his best-directed action sequences. That's surely why the persistent human heart of Wakanda Forever is heard most clearly in its mother/daughter sequences in which opposing points of view are more exciting than any of the messy battle lines between Wakandans and their new Talokan enemies. It's also why the single best action moment is a small character beat in a flurry of violence. A cut from undefeatable Namor in surprised agony to a close up of one his bloody feathers in Black Panther's claws is pure movie magic, however brief.
The plot vs its politics and the funereal tone were unavoidable given the circumstances of the sequel and the original film. But there's still a hole at the film's center that's not healed. Letitia Wright is a solid actor and handles the dramatic demands of the grief drama well, but sadly she lacks the effortless movie star magnetism of a Chadwick Boseman or a Lupita Nyong'o (who is sadly sidelined again -- but what a sideline!) or even arguably a Winston Duke (who is lively fun again as M'Baku). While Black Panther Wakanda Forever has strong beats they rarely linger and the film doesn't flow and build from scene to scene as great movies tend to. Given the disappointment, eternal blessings to its twin MVPs for keeping the sequel on its feet and even lifting off a few times: The dynamic duo of actress Angela Bassett and costume designer Ruth E Carter. Both of these remarkable screen talents are experts at heightened registers. Together they sell the operatic narrative grief and the engaging high-fantasy patriotism of Wakanda in inspired stylish union. B-/C+