Marvel Studio’s second installment in the Black Panther series served as a nice tribute to deceased Black Panther actor Chadwick Boseman, delivered a much-needed upgrade in the quality of the MCU’s Phase 4 and even as an improvement upon the first Black Panther movie from 2018. 

Wakanda Forever takes place a year after the passing of T’Challa, the Black Panther and king of Wakanda; now, the Wakandan royal family is comprised solely of Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) and Princess Shuri (Letitia Wright). The royal matriarch is left to handle Wakanda’s dealings with the rest of the world as a member of the United Nations as there have been recent efforts to steal Vibranium, a practically indestructible metal known to only exist in Wakanda that has been used to manufacture Captain America’s shield and the Black Panther suit along with being the center of much of the technology used by the people of Wakanda. 

Their searching for Vibranium threatens safety and secrecy of a civilization unknown to the rest of the world (even Wakanda). This leads to conflict between the people of the underwater and Vibranium-rich kingdom of Talokan and a protector-less Wakanda. Shuri finds herself trying to fill the void in her life by the death of her brother while also needing to step into the gap in the leadership of her country also left by T’Challa.

This movie leans into how the country and royal family was affected by the death of T’Challa in reflection of how many Marvel fans and actors were affected by the death of his actor, Chadwick Boseman. Before seeing this, I was afraid this would only be about the death of Boseman’s character and would neglect to let any of the characters develop any sort of story outside of this, but luckily, I was wrong. While his death set the tone for the mental an emotional spaces many of the characters were in at the beginning, after the Talokans attack they had bigger fish to fry.

Namor being the first official mutant on the MCU big screen is a nice homage to Namor being debuted in the first ever issue of Marvel Comics back in 1939. He is one of the strongest parts of this film. Tenoch Huerta’s performance as the underwater-mutant king brought a certain intensity to the film that recent entries to the MCU have been lacking since Willem DaFoe returned as the Green Goblin in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021).

Changing the classic depiction of Atlantis to be of Mezoamerican origins was an incredible choice by this movie’s creators instead of keeping with a depiction that could’ve easily been compared to how DC is currently depicting the underwater kingdom. Veering away from the origin of a character in such a dramatic way is a risky move but done so well here.

There weren’t many weaknesses in this film, but in a nearly three-hour film there will be scenes the film could’ve gone without. The whole storyline with the CIA was a fun way to give more detail about what Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Val has been doing while popping up around Phase 4, but it felt like a whole lot of filler. Everything it communicated could’ve just been a fun cameo instead of multiple scenes creating an uninteresting B-story.

Riri Williams, played by Dominique Thorne, also known as Iron Heart, was introduced as a bored MIT student who enjoys developing her suit in a garage as a side project. Thorne’s performace of the young genius was great. She felt like a normal college student who is incredibly intelligent instead of a genius-level intellect character whose intelligence is her entire personality. Her being in the same age range as the MCU’s Peter Parker and Kate Bishop creates the potential for a fantastic Young Avengers lineup.

Some of the strongest performances in this film were that of Lupita N’yongo (Nakia), Danai Gurira (Okoye) and Winston Duke (M’Baku). The quality of the supporting cast will make or break a film. In the two Black Panther films, these three have delivered some of the most memorable performances in the MCU and deserve more credit and screen time moving forward, especially the gorilla ruler M’Baku.