Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

The king is dead. Off-screen too, followed by one of multiple conversations that could be about something and instead are about an absence. Chadwick Boseman's passing was and is a great sadness, but a muted purple version of the Marvel Studios opening sequence with scenes of his from the first Black Panther and the handful of other MCU films he appeared in feels like a compromise.

It's not alone in that. The thirtieth feature outing for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the last of phase four the first section of the second saga. There are references to other properties, phrases like "Stark-tech", but there's a glaring lack of a mention of Ultron in the context of rogue AI. No scene after the credits, but plenty of other bits of cross over. There's a brief glimpse in a chyron of an Ant-Man reference, later in similar style a mention of a trade deal for New Asgard. More obviously, the first sign that there's something about Valentina Allegra de Fontaine should be the purple streak in a CIA director's hair.

Marvel Studio's Presents Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a bit of a mouthful, but as a construction it reflects how much the film is trying to do but also its occasional lack of grace. At 161 minutes it would test bladders even without endless amounts of water. Some of that compressed, water bombs constrained not by cheap balloon but some impressive dodecahedral dimensionality.

Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole co-write again, but it feels like the diktats of the Marvel Story Parliament have weighed almost as heavily as the loss of their star. More than you might expect return from Black Panther, but in the course of conversations between Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), Shuri (Letitia Wright), and Nakia (Lupita Nyongo) about their lost son, brother, 'it's complicated', some absences are almost too large to span.

This Black Panther is about something too - exploitation of resource, the 'developing' world versus 'the developed', but parallel quests to move on from (and replace) The Black Panther, to acquire (and protect) Vibranium, and to introduce (and cross-promote) new villainy start to feel laboured.

Our antagonist is Namor. A new etymology for that name amongst others, for a comic character going back to 1939. That's the same cohort as household names like Batman and Billy Bunter, and slightly later than The Addams Family and Superman. Despite, or perhaps because of the extent of the alterations from canons previous, this Namor (Tenoch Huerta) is further stuck between worlds. Neither fish nor fowl, man nor mutant, villain nor hero. In a film with enough moving parts that it almost makes sense that there's a fight that variously involves a killer whale and a Predator drone, he is a through line that connects everything from Iron-Man-a-like Iron Heart to secret agent divorces to a special session of the UN where it's almost a surprise not to see a tribute to Kruschev banging his shoe.

We do see plenty of shoes. Costumes remain a strongpoint of this subsection of the franchise and there are thousands on display. Some might provoke a more owlish reaction than others. There are references to other movie costumes too, Stark-tech, Belle from Beauty And The Beast and [verbatim] "that white chick from Indiana Jones". It's M.A.C. that are mentioned in the credits, but it's Fenty that gets a namecheck on screen. I lost count somewhere around a half dozen costume VFX houses, there might be three times as many in total even before what looked like subcontracting.

There are also plenty of music credits, and quite a bit of ADR. In addition to losing its eponym, Covid concerns allegedly affected filming. There are a few scenes where it seems that not everyone there was there at the same time and given the general air of unreality that pervades it's hard to tell if some seeming separations are products of composition or compositing. Polyglot and international, I can't say it's the only film I've seen with not one but two second second assistant directors, but there can't have been many. Aerial sequences and underwater scenes complicate things even before we meet Wakanda's aircraft carrier, the mighty Sea Leopard. It is perhaps an extension of the Kong Doctrine to bring flying machines to a brawl and then engage in hand-to-air combat.

The sprawling setpiece battle touches on confusion in its simultaneity. There are at least character moments within it, plenty of characters are sufficiently set on revenge that plenty of graves are dug. Other things are unburied, Martin Freeman returns but the earnest haplessness (and that relatively unshaky American accent) seems more of office than international politics.

There are some nice touches. Colour-coded subtitles are perhaps borrowed from comics but they work, and usefully. Given that we're meant to be the Multiverse Saga borrowing from comics or at least Into The Spider-Verse or weirdly parallel Spider-villain Venom/Morbius/Vulture continuity might have solved some structural problems. Black Panther wasn't quite an origin story, it wasn't about how T'Challa became Black Panther but about how he (and Chadwick Boseman) defined the role. That was brought about in reflection, variation, and the sequel doesn't have that depth.

There are still highlights. In only her third feature role, Dominque Thorne acquits herself well amongst a veteran cast. Many of the design elements of Wakanda remain strong, the X-bow tumblehome aesthetic of the Wakandan navy is pleasingly diverse in its inspirations. Less so some of the fighting, one intermittently aerial and aquatic attack reminded me more of Jupiter Ascending's Chicago battle than anything else. I did appreciate the presence of what appeared to be practical sets, but after a while one starts to recognise them as readily as certain CBS backlots.

It is manifestly unfair to criticise a film for what it is not, except perhaps that Wakanda Forever is not free of the constraints of the MCU. External circumstance removed from it the chance to start from status quo ante, even without the notional impact of Thanos or an alien invasion whose consequences seem invisible. External pressure has perhaps also removed from it the chance to do something truly diversionary, tangential. There's a mention of Princess Leia and after Carrie Fisher's passing it did seem like studios ought to have better contingency planning. That doesn't just include casting but tone. After The Last Jedi there was an opportunity to do something else new, rather than say "THESIS" again, but shouting.

While from the beginning there's a mention of re-printing something missing, it's never absolutely confident in it. It might get close enough to the spark, but it lacks a lightness. There is deep within this a further exploration of colonisation, of resource exploitation, perhaps even of intersectionality and definitely of shared struggles.

It's buried though, under empty soil and dark oceans, merchandising and franchise constraints. There isn't similar obfuscation in the credits, a message that Black Panther Will Return is all that awaits those who have sat through the litany of pixel-pushers and other craftspersons. There is a coda of sorts that further complicates things we've seen rather than resolving anything. That is emblematic of this not as a new thing but as a sequel. It's not doing nothing, but it is without lasting impact. We are told the Black Panther will return, but there was never any doubt.

That inevitability has a certain bleakness to it, and I'm not sure how intentional it is. I can't square the circle that says there's justice in fighting the oppressor and that things will, in feel if not in detail, always be the same. We might hear from different creeds along a rocky course but box office has a special ring to it. The King is dead, long live the Governor-General For Life.