Black Panther:Wakanda Forever

 Black Panther:Wakanda Forever Spoilers  

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is rare that a movie sequel comes close to besting the original. Black Panther Wakanda Forever did just that. I’d argue that it is the movie of 2022. Top Gun 2 might make more money but it had years of nostalgia to play into ticket sales. It was a fun movie and one I've seen multiple times. That being said Wakanda Forever is one of the best acted movies I’ve seen in a long time. It’s portrayal of grief and continuing life in the midst of losing someone so close to you, the struggle of what it meant to bear such a responsibility of leading a nation and being the symbol of that nation as the Black Panther transcends the story on a screen. I’d venture to say it is much easier to put yourself in the place of feeling the weight of responsibility than it is to put yourself in the place of a pilot for the average person. Anyone that has a family can attest to bearing the weight of carrying on a name or continuing a legacy. The pressure and balance of doing what you are meant to do versus what you are expected to do. After all X,Y,Z has done it this way for years.  

 

This movie is a masterful balance of tension. It beautifully honors Chadwick Boseman while giving rise to the future that is Letitia Wright’s Shuri taking the mantle as the new Black Panther. A blend of tribute to the past and a look into the future. Much of the movie is focused on the pain of losing T’Challa but instead of feeling bogged down and slow it provides a realness and a humanity that opens up the story and lets you into it rather than makes you feel like you’re watching from the outside. I’d wager this is likely because the cast was so close so what we saw was actual emotion at honoring the man who dawned the suit and brought the Black Panther to life. In fact, the scene as Romanda and Shuri are supposed to be doing a grieving ceremony we get a glimpse of just what it means to Shuri to not have T’Challa and it is nothing like her mothers grief. She hurts differently. She hasn’t allowed herself to process losing him yet but even if she had she doesn’t want to grieve like her mother. It is a great juxtaposition of how no one goes through grief the same way.  

 

In the final scene of the film as Shuri sits on a beach performing that grieving ceremony as tears slip down her face for both her mother and her brother we see her coming to terms with death. But it happens on her time. You can’t rush grief. They did a great job at showing that and in doing so made these characters all the more human.  

Throughought the movie Shuri fights against taking up the mantle of the Black Panther. Even going so far as to tell RiRi Williams that Black Panther is dead. That is the weight that comes with carrying on a legacy you never asked to have. We watch her deal with this and try and get things done her way for more than two hours before we finally see her realize the mantle of Black Panther is hers alone to take up, but it’s her own recreation of the heart-shaped herb, and ceremony to speak with the ancestors that shows how much Shuri’s grief and resistance to the title is going to play into her character. Instead of seeing her brother or even her father she sees Killmonger. She takes the herb out of revenge, not nobility or responsibility. Having Killmonger be the one she speaks with was a fantastic twist that gives a clear break of the Black Panther as Wakanda’s Protector versus using the herb and suit for your own desires. It is in this conversation we see Shuri give a glimpse of her grief. It isn’t the helplessness of sadness. It is the fire and anger of revenge. She isn’t a little girl playing in a lab. She’s a young woman who is angry at the world and she wants to do something about it.  

Eventually we see that anger and revenge break her. In her fight with Namor as she nearly kills him her mother breaks through and reminds her who she is. She is not this angry young woman. She is so much more. It is a great look at how grief changes people. You don’t lose someone and stay the same person. Shuri is a great example of how people experience and adapt to that circumstance. I don’t think this is an instance of Romanda reminding her daughter she is a sweet young girl but that she is a strong woman. Shuri loses her family in a matter of years one right after the other and she pushes through that and she grows up, she becomes what Wakanda needs through this process.  

Wakanda doesn’t need a dictator. Wakanda doesn’t need someone who wants to retreat from the world. Wakanda needs someone who will forge a new path which is what Shuri accomplishes for the time being. 

And in the fantastic mid-credit scene as she meets her nephew which was a fantastic way to end this film, we see the grief give way to hope. Here is a reminder of her brother. She hasn’t lost her family. T’challa is proof that she isn’t alone.  

We see pain but we see hope. We see a picture of what it means to be human. We see ourselves in these people and perhaps better than any other Marvel movie we see that if you take away the suits and the powers all of them are exactly like us.