Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Review

Coogler had an impossible brief and met it with unusual honesty. Rather than recast, he opened on a death and let the film belong to the survivors, and the first ten minutes, a silent hospital scramble followed by a white clad funeral that turns into a celebration, are the most emotionally direct thing this studio has released. Angela Bassett is magnificent, playing a queen whose grief has curdled into fury, and the scene where she incinerates a council chamber with nothing but a speech is the best acting in the run.

Tenoch Huerta gives Namor a genuine grievance and a colonial history that rhymes with Wakanda's, and Talokan is a beautiful piece of design work. The cost is length and shape. At nearly three hours the film sprawls badly, the Riri Williams material exists to launch a television series, the intelligence agency subplot is dead weight, and the climactic naval battle is a murky nighttime wash that loses all the clarity the first film had. Letitia Wright is asked to carry a franchise and is far stronger in the quiet scenes than the loud ones.