Critics: Black Panther sequel is a worthy followup, even if it’s not perfect

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is the most exciting Marvel movie release in a while. Not only is this a sequel to the phenomenally successful Black Panther, but it has to reckon with the fact that star Chadwick Boseman died in 2020. Will it rise the occasion or buckle under the weight of its responsibilities?

Well, reviews are starting to come out, and in general critics are pretty happy with the movie. Let’s sample what some of them had to say, starts with David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter:

"Faced with the challenging prospect of following his $1.3 billion-grossing blockbuster without the charismatic lead actor who provided that first film’s noble heart, Ryan Coogler delivers an emotionally resonant tribute to Chadwick Boseman in the early scenes of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever that will leave no fan unmoved….It’s impossible for Wakanda Forever to match the breakthrough impact of its predecessor, but in terms of continuing the saga while paving the way for future installments, it’s amply satisfying."

That sentiment came up a couple of times: that while Wakanda Forever doesn’t quite live up to the original movie, it’s still a success. “Wakanda is still clearly a Marvel property, with all the for-the-fans story beats and secondary characters its ever-expanding universe requires, but it also feels apart from any one that’s come before,” Leah Greenblatt writes for Entertainment Weekly. “And while a Black Panther without Boseman is undoubtedly nothing like the film’s creators or any of its cast wanted it to be, the movie they’ve made feels like something unusually elegant and profound for the multiplex; a little bit of forever for the star who left too soon.”

Tom Jorgensen of IGN said something similar about the movie feeling a little ungainly given how much weight Marvel is shouldering it with, even if it does manage to rise about it and succeed:

"Wakanda Forever is an effective, emotional farewell to T’Challa – a meditation on forging one’s own future out of a painful past – but with a plot that has to introduce an entirely new nation and pave the way for a new wave of Marvel stories, it does struggle under the weight of all that expectation…Coogler’s efforts are at their most powerful when Wakanda Forever is in conversation with the loss of T’Challa – of Chadwick Boseman. The specifics of Wakanda Forever’s long-winded plot will likely leave little impact, but that doesn’t stop the new Black Panther from standing tall."

Ross Bonaime of Collider was more unambiguously positive. “With Wakanda Forever, director and co-writer Ryan Coogler has…created a fitting remembrance of both Boseman and T’Challa, an impressive combination of mourning, and a reckoning with legacy and loss, all within a superhero film that is one of the best Phase 4 MCU films,” he writes. “Wakanda Forever isn’t perfect, but its ability to handle this tightrope walk between exploration of loss and a larger superhero film makes this one of the most moving MCU entries so far, and one of the best films to come out of Marvel’s Phase Four.”

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is too long, but pays moving tribute to Chadwick Boseman

So most reviews are mixed but land on the positive side. David Erlich gives a backhanded review for Indiewire, docking Wakanda Forever for the formulaic parts that are inevitable when a movie is part of the Marvel machine, but giving it credit for going beyond the bounds of what that too often means:

"[F]or all of the film’s shuddery pacing, thoroughly mediocre action setpieces, and the clumsiness with which it’s forced to double as backdoor pilot for Disney+’s Ironheart series, Coogler’s subthread of the MCU continues to operate at a significantly higher strata of thought, artistry, and feeling than the rest of Marvel’s assembly line. Every major character in Wakanda is left to determine whether T’Challa’s memory will be a blessing or a torment, and the movie around them is so wracked by the same tension that even its most formulaic moments are heavy with a human weight that blockbusters seldom have the strength to carry."

Writing for Variety, Owen Glieberman points out the obvious: it’s hard for Wakanda Forever to be as compelling as the first without lead Chadwick Boseman. Watching Wakanda Forever, it’s almost unavoidable that we feel the absence of Boseman’s heroic dramatic center of gravity,” he writes. “The movie doesn’t have the classic comic-book pow of Black Panther, and it’s easily 20 minutes too long (we could probably have lived without the Talokan backstory). Yet Wakanda Forever has a slow-burn emotional suspense. Once the film starts to gather steam, it doesn’t let up…T’Challa is gone, but somewhere he is smiling.

Similarly, while critics think Tenoch Huerta does a good job as the new villain Namor, Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger is a tough act to follow. “Huerta cannot quite measure up to Michael B. Jordan’s raw charisma, but he makes up for it by projecting an imperial mien worthy of Namor’s status as a demigod among his people,” writes Jake Cole of Slant Magazine.

As you can see, even when critics take shots at Wakanda Forever, they’re still largely bullish on it. Let’s end on a purely positive blurb from Neil Pond of Neil’s Entertainment Picks:

"The movie has the muscle and heft of a comic-book blockbuster, but it also reflects profoundly on the human resonance of ancestry, remembering and moving on."

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever opens everywhere this weekend.

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