Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Review - Ryan Coogler crafts a worthy sequel

The biggest fear I had when I stepped into the theater to watch Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was that since this is the last movie in the fourth phase of the MCU , it would be forced to set up the next step phase, thankfully director Ryan Coogler got to tell the story his way.

The sequel starts with the sudden and tragic death of King T'Challa and how this has demoralized his nation and his family. This also leads to many countries sensing vulnerability and wanting to exploit it.

The movie focuses on loss and how different people deal with the sudden death of a loved one, this is portrayed excellently by Angela Bassett as Ramonda and Letitia Wright as Shuri.

Both actors do an excellent job of showcasing the shock, sadness, and anger one feels when tragedy occurs and help us as the audience relate, thus giving the movie more of an emotional impact compared to other recent MCU movies.

The main highlight of the movie has to be Tenoch Huerta Mejía as Namor, the ruler of the undersea kingdom of Talokan and the main antagonist of the movie.

When MCU movies get their villains right, they often end up stealing the show and that is the case here as well. Namor is a complex villain and it is easy to see from his point of view, in a lot of ways his motivation and tactics reminded me of Killmonger.

Tenoch Huerta Mejía is intimidating whenever he is on screen, and his action sequences are some of the best in the movie, especially his initial attack on the capital city of Wakanda.

Letitia Wright manages to hold her own and is able to carry the movie and while I wish they showed a bit more of her struggle with her inner darkness, it was a well-written and performed character arc, and the movie did her role justice.

The movie also introduced Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams, who will be taking over the mantle of Iron Man in the future, and this movie acts like a small origin story for her character.

Ryan Coogler decided to make her a central focus of the conflict between Wakanda and Talokan and while this had a chance of backfiring, thanks to some good acting from Thorne and the sensible use of her screen time, that did not happen.

From a technical standpoint, the movie has some great production design. Special praise to Ruth Carter who once again designed some excellent costumes, and Ludwig Göransson for the amazing music.

Ryan Coogler crafted a worthwhile sequel that managed to pay tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman and moves the franchise forward.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is currently running in theaters.