Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

 "Youtr brother is with the ancestors"

This is an interesting film, centred on Letitia Wright as Shura, yet full of thoughful subtext, full of lots of glorious Agfrican cultural imagery. Yet... it's average.

Sadly, Chadwick Boseman- a man my age-is dead. That usual Marvel spiel at the start makes a fitting tribute here, being entirely dedicated to him, is wonderful to see. And is more than just avtribute. Because this is a film defined by his absence.

Black Panther was one of the MCU's finest films at the time, and even more in hindsight. It's brilliantly Afrofuturist message and visuals have percolated into society and had a hugely positive effect within this world we live in, in which American police officers, supposed to protect the public, seem to routinely torture and murder young black peope, and where far too many black people in the west live in disproportionate levels of poverty and, indeed, imprisonment. The social legacy of slavery is real. And that's before we get into the legacy of colonialism in Africa as well as elsewhere. Black Panther is at once escapism from this depressing reality and a message of hope.

Yet Chadwick Boseman, an actor of huge charisma, is no longer with us, and cannot just be replaced. Recasting would, of course, have been repugnant. So this film, wisely, reflects this reality, being entirely about grieving and loss amongst an overwhelmingly black and female cast. Shuri takes on the mantle of Black Panther- and of queen- only with reluctance and after much grieving for T'Challa.

Wakanda faces a more hostile world without the respected T'Challa, with other powers openly jealous of Vibranium and quick to scapegoat the African nation for hostile acts with a highly suspicious eagerness. There's also a new power in the world, also with Vibranium, as the MCU finally introduces us to Marvel's oldest protagonist- Namor the Sub-Mariner, a bit less of a dick here than he is in the comics. Wisely, Namor's underwater kingdom is not called Atlantis but rather "Talokan", and is given a rather less silly origin with its roots in Meso-American culture and colonialism- thematic unity- rather than the Hyborean Age and the Great Cataclysm. It's great to see Namor at last, and Attuma too. 

The film perhaps lacks the sheer excellence of its predecessor, perhaps understandably. But for a film so bloody long I found this thoroughly enjoyable.

Black Panther (2018)

“It's hard for a good man to be king."

This is a hard film to review objectively. It's clearly a significant cultural artifact, far more so than a normal MCU film, and has connected with the African diaspora worldwide for its Afro-Futurism, a big part of a cultural movement that includes works such as Janelle Monae's ArchAndroid, and which constitutes a positive look at the potential of African achievement in spite of a background of colonialism and the Atlantic slave trade.

The central conceit of the character of T'Challa has been, of course, for 52 years, that he's the king of a fictional African nation- Wakanda- that secretly defies all African stereotypes to be the most technologically and socially advanced nation on Earth. It's an African paradise, yet the cause of a central debate between the traditional view of the late T'Chaka- Wakanda is for the Wakandans, not for all Africa or the world, and it must be protected; and the view-,expounded with militancy by Erik Killmonger, that Wakanda must share its bounty with the world. This is an interesting central dilemma, but one fundamentally divorced from real world concerns. And, while it's good to see a positive portrayal of Africa and Africans, it's also a little disturbing to see Wakanda presented as a mish-mash of various West African, East African and South African cultures, not all of them Bantu, as though they were the same- and they are not; sub-Saharan Africa is huge and impossibly diverse. I'm not sure that the message that African cultures are pretty much the same is fundamentally a positive one, whatever the merits of the film's upbeat message. Is it only white and Asian people who are allowed to have distinctly different ethnic identities?

Still, the film works as entertainment in the traditional Marvel mould, and Chadwick Boseman's lack of charisma is well compensated for by an awesome and largely female cast. Ryan Coogler has made a film that looks superb in every way, with nothing in the visuals that I can fault. But, much though I enjoyed the film, with its black female Q, its James Bond pastiche antics and the big final battle with war rhinos(!), the film is merely good, not great.

Fantastic Stan Lee cameo, mind, though obviously bittersweet...