Apart from being a heartfelt and organic tribute to the immensely talented and profoundly missed Chadwick Boseman, who passed away in 2020 of colon cancer, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever also checks all the MCU’s DNA markers. The 30th film in the MCU and a sequel to 2018’s extraordinary Black Panther, ...Wakanda Forever is gloriously thrilling, lithe and light on its feet just like its namesake.
Following the untimely death of King T’Challa (Boseman) of an unspecified disease, his sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) is shattered while his mother, Queen Ramonda, (Angela Bassett) is trying to hold it all together and present a strong front to the world even as they are greedily circling Wakanda for vibranium.
When another source of vibranium is detected underwater with a machine created by a young, genius inventor from Chicago, Riri (Dominique Thorne), it disturbs the fragile peace. It also hugely angers Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejía), the god king of the Talokan, who hail him as K’uk’ulkan, the feathered serpent god of the Yucatec Maya people.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
The Talokan left the Yucatán when the Spanish conquistadors came calling and took to the ocean. Being the first born in the new land, Namor has special powers including wings on his feet, ears that point skywards, and the ability to breathe through his skin.
He tells Shuri that when her brother revealed the presence of vibranium to the world, he put them in danger and the only way to neutralise the threat is by getting rid of Riri and her vibranium-detecting machine.
The battle lines are drawn as Namor sees the Wakandans either as allies or enemies with no middle path. Shuri has to process her grief, rage and loss to evolve into a person her mother and brother will be proud of. That she does it with the mandatory breath-taking stunts and CGI are just so many cherries on top of this already-overloaded cake. Surely no one will complain as one joyfully partakes of this cornucopia.
Apart from Wright and Bassett, director Ryan Coogler, Lupita Nyong’o (Nakia), Michael B. Jordan (Killmonger), Danai Gurira (Okoye), Martin Freeman (Everett Ross), Winston Duke (M’Baku) Florence Kasumba (Ayo) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Allegra de Fontaine), among others reprise their roles. I May Destroy You’s Michaela Coel joins the cast as Aneka, a Wakandan warrior.
Ruth E Carter’s return as costume designer guarantees further eye candy and awards. The way she has worked with drapes, embellishments, colours and embroidery has to be seen a couple of times to be savoured fully.
Apart from the overarching themes of death, loss, revenge and owning your destiny, and all the eye-popping battles atop barnacle-crusted whales and dolphins no less, on land, air and sea, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever works in the smaller, intimate moments too.
The story behind Namor’s name, and Riri and Shuri’s banter are just a couple of examples of that. Riri incidentally brings up a crucial point of movie villains offering a change of clothes to their prisoners, citing the examples of Princess Leia (remember her gold bikini in Jabba’s lair?) and the “white chick from Indiana Jones.”
Also while there is a poignant mid-credit sequence, there is no end-credit sequence. Had this reviewer not waited for the slide thanking patrons for their custom, this review would have reached you at least five minutes sooner.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is currently running in theatres
