'Black Panther Wakanda Forever' movie review: Beautiful as a homage to Chadwick Boseman, it sinks as a film

With 'Black Panther Wakanda Forever', director Ryan Coogler had the herculean task of making a film after the death of the franchise's central star, Chadwick Boseman. The script was already finished, so it had to be rewritten and Boseman's character, T'Challa, had to be written out. Boseman's death, however, had to be worked into the script, which, I presume, was the only way to explain the absence of the character without a recasting. Coogler and his co-screenwriter Joe Robert Cole tried to not just craft a story that could stand on its own, but also pay a fitting tribute to the beloved actor.

This return to Wakanda is indeed a beautifully elegiac and emotional homage to Boseman, but it does not quite succeed at being a worthy sequel to the original.

In-universe, the king of Wakanda died of an unspecified disease. The plans to share vibranium technology promised by the late Black Panther are on hold. Western countries, however, are tired of the promises being fulfilled and are willing to steal the tech from Wakandan bases, something that Queen Mother Ramonda (Angela Bassett) exposes before the eyes of the world at the United Nations.

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Ramonda wishes her surviving child Shuri (Letitia Wright) to artificially create the Heart-Shaped Herb, the mystical plant that gives the holder of Black Panther mantle their powers, but Shuri is not a huge believer in traditional stories of magician plants and Ancestral Plane.

Meanwhile, a new threat rises from the waters. Apparently, it wasn't just the Wakandans whose land was blessed with the meteor that brought vibranium from the heavens. The people of Talokan, an underwater civilisation, also received the celestial gift. Their God-King Namor (Tenoch Huerta) is apprehensive about T'Challa's decision to expose the existence of Wakanda, as it may have ramifications for the Talokans, another hidden kingdom. He wants an alliance with Wakanda to wage war with the surface world, and if Wakandans do not agree, he will destroy them first and then continue with the rest of the world.

Not only is Wakanda's protector dead, but the nation also faces the power of an advanced civilisation armed with vibranium technology.

The film opens with T'Challa's funeral. The nation is in mourning. There is also uncertainty as to who will next become the Black Panther. Right from the first second, 'Wakanda Forever' presents a solemn, subdued tone. Even the Marvel intro, which appears after the prologue is devoid of any background music and consists of snippets of Boseman as T'Challa. It hits really, really hard.

There are several moments in the film that are meta, but not in the 'Deadpool' sense — the audience can genuinely empathise with the protagonists' grief regarding T'Challa. Ramonda, for instance, looks poignantly at a large mural of Boseman's face. Shuri sees T'Challa's face in flashbacks every now and then. These moments are sensitively done, and do not feel like the makers are profiting off of the fans' heartache over the actor's death.

For all intents and purposes, 'Wakanda Forever' is Shuri's story of overcoming her grief and her grief-fuelled, vengeful anger. She undergoes a journey of acceptance of her grief, and easing the friction between her detached, scientific mind and her nation's spiritual traditions and legends about grief and death.

There is indeed a fair amount of MCU's trademark irreverent humour, but this film is blessedly not drowning in corny one-liners. It is worth mentioning that the original also did not have a lot of those, but apart from a few moments, 'Wakanda Forever' is particularly grim.

But is it any good as a film? For the most part, 'Wakanda Forever' is watchable. Mostly, despite its run time that proves punishing in the end, it is okayish fun and carries a decent enough pace that you do not really care about its flaws. Shuri's arc is easily the best part of the film. Her story is saturated in the central themes of the film — grief and healing. Wright, who has landed herself in controversy over her anti-vaccination views, is more than up to the task. She is, in fact, superlative here, only slightly eclipsed by Basset, who absolutely steals the show in a relatively minor role.

But the plot is too rambling and incoherent for 'Wakanda Forever' to be anything but average as a film. A majority of the time needlessly bestowed upon supporting characters could easily have been sliced off to make it much leaner. After about halfway through it, I just stopped caring about what was happening. The film completely lost me when the typical MCU spectacle and action engulfed the screen.

Add to that, Huerta's commendable efforts cannot save from Namor coming across as a thoroughly uninteresting villain. He is simultaneously fearsome (thanks mainly to Huerta) and comical (the silly costume and feet-wings are to blame). Eventually, he ends up an underwater Killmonger, without much of the same charisma. Like Killmonger, he too wishes to ally with Wakanda to wage war on the rest of the world but his motivations do not carry the same heft. Weirdly, Talokans seem primitive, in spite of allegedly being armed with the same technology as ultra-futuristic Wakandans. Their powers appear more magical than high-tech.

So that's it. 'Black Panther Wakanda Forever' is a rousing tribute to Chadwick Boseman. But as a movie, it should be a just decent diversion for Marvel fans. It is intermittently fun and often rousing, but mostly dull. Its long run time does not do it any favours either.