Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

• Directed by Ryan Coogler
• October 26, 2022 (Hollywood) / November 11, 2022 (US)

The nation of Wakanda is threatened by the underwater kingdom of Talokan.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a slickly done Marvel film with some stronger emotion than one would usually get from those films. But it is certainly not without its flaws. And unfortunately those flaws often involve lazy writing to help speed up the story. Given nearly three hours you think they could proceed logically. Let me offer some examples. And the first example comes shortly in the film.

I’m not exactly sure how parading prisoners into a United Nations meeting with an armed escort is really supposed to help ease international tensions. Especially if you’re a secretive nation that was previously believed to be Third World but is suddenly revealed to have advanced technology beyond that of anybody else on the planet along with the only source of a very valuable mineral. It is meant to make Wakanda look badass, but a minimum of thought reveals how illogical it is.

Then there is the element involving Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) and her vibranium detector. At one point Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejía) proposes an alliance with Wakanda to hunt down the scientist that created the vibranium detector. The first thing out of Shuri’s (Letitia Wright) mouth should’ve been to ask what good will that do? It’s highly unlikely that the plans only existed in Riri’s head. Taking out the scientist will stop nothing. Or should anyway. Nobody in the US government thought to get plans or take a good look at it so they could duplicate it before they used it? Again that defies logic.

One of Namor’s first moves in the film is to wipe out the entire expedition testing the device. How dumb is that? Admittedly his plan is to attack the surface world but why launch your opening salvo before you have an alliance that you want in place?

And CIA Agent Ross (Martin Freeman) just spills his nation’s secrets to the nation believed to have wiped out the CIA expedition because they are good people? Huh? He may be their friend, but that doesn’t mean he just gets diarrhea of the mouth and tells them whatever they want. The information he hands out is stated to be highly classified, but he gives it up pretty easily. Doing so though does move the story forward faster and avoid a need for the characters to do any discovery. They do virtually no investigation but rather engage in a series of stops for characters to just hand over information with ease.

And how does walking up onto a beach and vaguely threatening Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) make sense since she is the one he MUST win over to forge an alliance with Wakanda? He is playing nice with Shuri but threatening with Ramonda. Huh? Namor may not have done any international dealings but being a political leader he most likely negotiated with others in his country. In other words he knows negotiations. Or should. And to top it off, he eventually attacks Wakanda and demands they join him in his attack on the rest of the planet. Again that’s not how negotiations work. It feels like lazy writing to set up the epic final battle. And it is just that.

I am not a passionate consumer of all things Marvel. I have not seen every series. Nor have I seen every film-at least not upon release. I do not have the time and I cannot be the only person out there like that. I bring that up because the character of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) shows up here with little to no explanation as if all viewers are to be well informed on her. I know she showed in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Black Widow but as of this writing I have yet to watch either. I do not need a complete recap of her story to that point but just enough in story info to explain why she matters to things in the film.

And I’m not sure why the character of Riri Williams had to come into this movie. Oh yes I am. They needed to set up her TV show which ultimately makes this film in part a backdoor pilot for a streaming service series. Her scenes felt forced and her dialogue as well as the character was not exactly entertaining nor did it mesh well with much of the other story. She was great from the start with absolutely no issues or character arc. They were clearly saving that for the series and it left the character boring.

We got nothing about the character even though her invention is what causes the war. All we learn is that there is a YouTube channel dedicated to sightings of her in her armor which she built all on her own and her dad is dead. That last part comes very near the credits. There is zero characterization. She simply exists as a plot device. I guess she really is the next Iron Man. Tony Stark became more plot device than character before his death so Riri is picking up right where he left off.

The CGI looks worse here than it did in the last film. There’s one set they use a few times in here, and it’s clearly a set in a studio with the main city behind it inserted in some of the worst CGI I’ve seen since Thor: Love and Thunder. Admittedly the grandeur and futuristic stylings of the city could not be done in the real world, but this is a Marvel movie and it appears that they are certainly slacking on the quality of the CGI. The underwater stuff isn’t bad. It’s not on the level of Aquaman, but it’s not bad.

I just don’t think this movie deserves the praise that he gets. It’s good, but not great. And it feels as if much of it coasts on the memory of Chadwick Boseman rather than working to build upon his legacy. They certainly bring up T’Challa at every possible moment. It feels like rather than indicating the characters are mourning that they are trying to link this movie to the actor’s memory in order to get it across the finish line.

Despite the logical issues I have with the story, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever itself is entertaining enough. I don’t feel like it was a waste of my time or that it was too illogical to be enjoyed. While not great it is not a disappointing film.