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Critic’s Notebook

How ‘Black Panther’ Builds Complex Characters From the Politics of Colonization

In the original and in “Wakanda Forever,” heroes and villains are deeply layered, reflecting real-life issues facing people of color around the world.

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In a scene from the film, baldheaded women soldiers stand in a row, facing to the right. They are dressed in red and gold futuristic outfits and are holding spears upright.

By Maya Phillips

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What ingredients make a hero or a villain? Despite so many film franchises’ attempts at bringing nuance to the dichotomy between good and evil, their formulas for these characters, particularly in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, seem painfully reductive: Heroes make speeches about justice and fight to valiant, soaring theme music. Villains? God complexes and more stylish fashion.

A notable exception is the “Black Panther” films, which imbue heroes and villains with a complexity that derives from the politics around colonization and the African diaspora. In these movies, the line between hero and villain isn’t simply one between good and evil; it’s a boundary defined by the relatable ways each side reacts to the real enemy: the white nations and institutions that benefit from the enslavement and disenfranchisement of people of color.

“ Black Panther ” and particularly the new sequel, “ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ,” exhibit a reverence for their heroes that’s rooted in familial and cultural legacy. T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), the king of Wakanda with a superhero alter ego, is grounded in and supported by his lineage: not only do his mother and sister act as his moral foundation, but so do his father and the Black Panthers who have come before him. It’s noteworthy that the ceremony to become the next Black Panther involves being buried and speaking to ancestors for guidance.

“Wakanda Forever” begins with the death of T’Challa (from disease, like Boseman , who died from cancer in 2020). The movie honors T’Challa with a gorgeously filmed and choreographed funeral sequence. And it’s clear this is not just about building emotional stakes in the film. “Wakanda Forever” is honoring Boseman himself, showing clips from the first film and allowing the other characters to fully address their grief so that his death doesn’t become just another plot twist or issue that the narrative needs to work around.

In “ Black Panther, ” T’Challa’s typically even-keeled, empathetic personality is tempered by his occasionally less than resolute political stances. At first he follows his family’s policy of keeping Wakanda and its resources isolated from the outside world. Then his decision, at the end of the film, to reveal Wakanda’s existence sets off a chain of events that leads to the central conflict in the sequel. Boseman’s, and, thus, T’Challa’s, premature passing begs the question of how the Black Panther would have evolved as king: how would he have ruled Wakanda given his decision to abandon the nation’s isolationist attitude and open it up?

The sequel wisely poses that weighty question to Shuri (Letitia Wright), whom the film also entrusts to carry our rage and grief over T’Challa’s death. In order to become the Black Panther, she has to overcome these feelings — symbolized by the appearance of Killmonger, the first film’s antagonist, in a vision brought on when she eats the Heart-Shaped Herb.

Her grief is recognizable. In T’Challa’s absence, Wakanda begins to resemble so many Black communities in which the women are left to mourn and then take charge after the men die, the victims of poor health or violence. Of course Shuri feels wronged and spends the film being warned against her rage — “Wakanda Forever” is well aware of the enduring angry Black woman stereotype and surmounts it by having Shuri harness and work through her anger, ultimately evolving to become the hero in the end.

On the flip side, the villains of the “Black Panther” films aren’t clear-cut enemies but victims of structural racism: Killmonger in the original and Namor in the sequel are righteously angry men of color who are responding to the ways their communities have been damaged by several great -isms (including capitalism, colonialism and, again, racism). Killmonger, who grew up in Oakland without a father and with all the disadvantages that come with being a Black man in America, wants to use Wakandan technology to empower Black people all over the world. His plan is violent, but it’s not far from the Black Power movement’s extreme factions in the 1960s. (That’s when a group of Black Panthers with guns protested at the California Statehouse, proclaiming, “The time has come for Black people to arm themselves.”)

Namor, the king of Talokan, a hidden Atlantis-style underwater civilization of Indigenous peoples, is a direct victim of colonization who has witnessed the enslavement of his people. He fears that Talokan might be discovered now that America and its allies are searching for vibranium. Will his people be at risk of exploitation and violence from white nations as a consequence of T’Challa’s decision to reveal Wakanda and its resources?

On one level the conflicts in these movies are insular: communities of color are set against one another, which is so much more real than an evil robot or a big purple dude snapping half the universe away. But in “Wakanda Forever,” although the big battle is between Wakanda and Talokan, the actual villains are the countries searching for vibranium in their bids for power. In an early scene at the United Nations, Queen Ramonda confronts diplomats demanding access to vibranium; their countries have sent undercover agents to raid Wakanda’s vibranium facilities, and have searched the ocean for other possible stores of vibranium, aiming to use the precious metal to further develop their weaponry.

In “Black Panther,” the film tosses us a red herring in the form of Ulysses Klaue, one of Black Panther’s main nemeses and the son of an actual Nazi in the original comics. Klaue is perfectly set up as the bad guy: he’s a criminal mastermind, a shady profiteer who sells weapons and artifacts, many from Wakanda. A more predictable film would have maintained him as the big bad guy and brought Killmonger in as a villainous sidekick — a Black man misled by anger, but still likely to redeem himself by the end. With his murder of Klaue, Killmonger may have supplanted him as the antagonist, but the reality is that the fountainhead for Killmonger’s fury and militant politics are society’s racial inequities, exploited by Klaue, Europeans and others who see Black people primarily as a means to building wealth, tracing all the way back to the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

When Shuri is forced to confront Killmonger, which means confronting the part of her that’s angry and hurt and hardened by grief, the film implies that this is a common duality Black people embody today, that we must simultaneously hold our personal sense of dignity and righteousness, like a Wakandan royal, and our outrage and shame, like Killmonger. Does that make any one of us less than a hero? No, these films say, because in the end there’s still a Black Panther protecting the nation.

In these films, the true villain is a history of white oppression and power, but the enemy — whether another person of color or a Black person elsewhere in the diaspora — is on the same team.

Audio produced by Parin Behrooz .

Maya Phillips is a critic at large. She is the author of “NERD: Adventures in Fandom From This Universe to the Multiverse” and the poetry collection “Erou.” More about Maya Phillips

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Black Panther Reviews: More Than Just Another Marvel Triumph

TAGGED AS: Marvel , Superheroes

(Photo by Walt Disney Studios)

We are 18 movies into the Marvel Cinematic Universe , and the franchise is as hot as ever. Black Panther has been one of the most anticipated titles in the series, ushering in the world of Wakanda and its predominantly black ensemble of characters. And as we see from the first wave of reviews, Marvel does not disappoint even the highest of expectations.

Below is a breakdown of what the critics are saying about the action, villain, costumes, scene-stealing actresses and more.

How does Black Panther compare to other Marvel movies?

Black Panther is the best Marvel film thus far. – Joelle Monique, Polygon

Ryan Coogler delivers the best Marvel movie so far. – David Ehrlich, IndieWire

Marvel’s boldest movie yet, and fortunately, it’s also one of its best. – Haleigh Foutch, Collider

Not only holds its own, but improves on the formula in several key respects, from a politically engaged villain to an emotionally grounded final showdown. – Peter Debruge, Variety

This isn’t just one of the best movies in the MCU – it caps off the franchise’s best run of movies ever, which started last year with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 . – Angie Han, Mashable

One of the best superhero films I have seen in decades. – Clay Cane, News One

[Will satisfy] newcomers who probably haven’t seen a Marvel film but want to experience seeing Black excellence on the big screen. – Wilson Morales, BlackFilm.com

How is Chadwick Boseman in the lead?

Boseman dazzles as T’Challa, portraying him as the regal yet vulnerable character he is. – Tonja Renee Stidhum, Shadow and Act

Boseman, a stunningly versatile actor… digs so deep into T’Challa that you can feel his nerve endings. – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

An impeccable actor, Boseman brings the quality of belief he’s brought to playing real people like Jackie Robinson, James Brown and Thurgood Marshall to the role. – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles times

Boseman might be the least interesting part of the movie as the titular lead, which says a lot about how well the rest of the characters are written and cast. – Rodrigo Perez, The Playlist

(Photo by Marvel Studios)

How is the villain?

Jordan’s Kilmonger is the strongest villain in the MCU thus far. – Wilson Morales, BlackFilm.com

The most satisfying comic-book adversary since Heath Ledger’s Joker. – Peter Debruge, Variety

Jordan completely takes over Black Panther every single time he’s onscreen. We’re talking Jack Nicholson in Tim Burton’s Batman levels of domination, where the bad guy is so compelling he almost makes you forget that the movie is actually supposed to be about someone else. – Matt Singer, ScreenCrush

He is a menacing yet charismatic presence who thanks to a nuanced script is a character injected with a sympathetic edge. Even when he’s at his most terrifying and rage-fueled his anger is understandable. – Katherine McLaughlin, SciFiNow

I have never cared for a villain the way I care for Michael B. Jordan’s Erik Killmonger… He is the crown jewel of an incredibly wealthy project. – Joelle Monique, Polygon

Who else steals the movie?

It’s the women… ohhhh, the women, who truly help Wakanda shine. – Tonja Renee Stidhum, Shadow and Act

Played by Letitia Wright, Shuri is a revelation. Wright steals every scene with her bright smile and perfect comedic timing…I cannot fully express the joy of seeing a smart, carefree, nonsexualized young black woman on the big screen. – Joelle Monique, Polygon

There’s no beating the smarts and sass of the wonderous Letitia Wright, who brings scene-stealing to the level of grand larceny as Princess Shuri… Wright is a star in the making, who makes damn sure that Shuri will be a role model to young girls for years to come. – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Wright would be able to hold a Shuri Black Panther solo movie on her own. – Jamie Broadnax, Black Girl Nerds

It’s The Walking Dead ’s Gurira who steals the show as the ferocious Okoye, gloriously swinging her spear in a billowing red gown. – Emma Simmonds, Radio Times

How is the action?

The action scenes in Black Panther are definitely a step up from what I’ve seen in previous Marvel movies. – Jamie Broadnax, Black Girl Nerds

Black Panther features at least one sequence that out-007s the recent James Bond movies…among that sequence’s thrilling aspects is Black Panther riding on top of a driverless sports car. – Alonso Duralde, The Wrap

Even by Marvel’s standards, the action in Black Panther is subpar. – Matt Singer, ScreenCrush

It’s not just that the choreography in Black Panther lacks coherence, but also that every fight scene is undone by awful CG. – David Ehrlich, IndieWire

[The action scenes] almost feel obligatory. It’s obvious Ryan Coogler didn’t direct Black Panther to make an action movie. – Mike Ryan, Uproxx

How is Ryan Coogler’s directing?

Like Christopher Nolan, who was 35 when he reanimated the Batman franchise, the 31-year-old Coogler has a gift for putting his own spin on genre, for making popular culture worlds his own. – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles times

Coogler’s directing strengths are more intimate. There are sequences in Black Panther that may make you cry because of where they go and what they say, but also because of the sensitivity he brings to them. – Manohla Dargis, New York Times

How does the movie look?

Black Panther is alive with visual miracles. – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

From start to finish, costume designer Ruth Carter’s vibrant colors for the characters and Hannah Beachler’s dazzling production values makes this a beautiful film. – Wilson Morales, BlackFilm.com

As imagined by production designer Hannah Beachler, Wakanda is all bright colors, contrasting textures, and jaw-dropping tech. It’s fantastical enough to inspire wonder, and grounded enough to awaken yearning. It’s a tantalizing glimpse at what might have been, in some alternate reality not defined by white society. – Angie Han, Mashable

Production design, costumes, and of course, visual effects are all on point, and newly minted Oscar-nominee Rachel Morrison shoots every frame to embrace the sumptuous detail. – Haleigh Foutch, Collider

DP Rachel Morrison delivers a plethora of gorgeous vistas that wash over the screen and each one holds specific meaning. – Katherine McLaughlin, SciFiNow

What else is great about Black Panther ?

[This is] a Marvel film that actually feels like it takes place in the real world…you believe — maybe for the first time — that the MCU actually matters. – David Ehrlich, IndieWire

[Wakanda] is a fully realized world, worth visiting over and over… if Disney ever wants to give Marvel a truly immersive theme park treatment, it should start by creating a Wakanda expansion land. – Bryan Bishop, The Verge

It’s a testament to the writing that you could go long on each of these characters, who they are, their motivations and their emotional interiors; Black Panther knows how to give three-dimensional life to supporting characters with very limited space to do so. – Rodrigo Perez, The Playlist

There’s so much to enjoy about Black Panther that it is hard to know where to stop. – Joelle Monique, Polygon

Just how important is this movie?

What it means is everything , especially to any kid who has never put the words “African” and “king” together in the same sentence. Or to any young woman who was ever discouraged from chasing a life in science and technology. To anyone who was ever told “you fight like a girl.” – Marc Bernardin, Nerdist

It is the power of representation in its best form. It is empowerment on a higher level. It is inspiration to a different degree. It is black excellence exemplified that will leave audiences yearning to inhabit Wakanda forever. – Tonja Renee Stidhum, Shadow and Act

Black Panther is as powerful for Black women as Wonder Woman was for white women. – Clay Cane, News One

Race matters in Black Panther and it matters deeply, not in terms of Manichaean good guys and bad but as a means to explore larger human concerns about the past, the present and the uses and abuses of power. – Manohla Dargis, New York Times

It’s a vital moment in cinema history and a heartfelt, thoughtful exploration of the scars of colonialism and the hope for healing. – Haleigh Foutch, Collider

[This] feels like a turning point, one where the studio has finally recognized that its movies can be about more than just selling the next installment. – Bryan Bishop, The Verge

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‘Black Panther’ Reviews: What the Critics Are Saying

By Kirsten Chuba

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'Black Panther' Review Roundup: What the Critics Are Saying

Early reviews are in for Marvel’s “ Black Panther ,” and many critics are celebrating the diversity the superhero film brings to the comics universe.

Directed by Ryan Coogler and starring Chadwick Boseman , Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett, Danai Gurira, and Letitia Wright, the film is the first of its kind — a Marvel film led by a black director and a primarily black cast. Critics pointed out the importance of this diversity in today’s culture, particularly the film’s majestic portrayal of Africa following Donald Trump’s recent “s-hole” comments .

In his review for Variety , Peter Debruge noted how this diversity is not only racially inclusive, but representative of women and the LGBTQ community as well.

“While far more mainstream — and by extension, kid-friendly — than such blaxploitation classics as ‘Foxy Brown’ and ‘Cleopatra Jones,’ ‘Black Panther’ upholds the same tradition of celebrating strong, assertive black women,” he wrote. “At the end of a big rhinoceros battle, a male character submits to Gurira in the film’s single most iconic shot, while an earlier scene in which she tosses aside a bad wig ranks as the most gay-friendly Marvel moment to date.”

Reviews also praised Jordan’s portrayal as the villain, with some saying his evil performance is among the best the Marvel universe has ever seen.

Popular on Variety

“Black Panther” hits theaters Feb. 16. See highlights from the critical response below:

Variety ‘s Peter Debruge:

“Coogler makes good on the landmark project’s potential by featuring a predominantly black ensemble, casting some of the best young actors around — from Chadwick Boseman (who proved his dramatic chops playing James Brown, Jackie Robinson, and Thurgood Marshall in recent years) to Michael B. Jordan (even more buff, and twice as charismatic, than he appeared in the director’s two previous features, ‘Fruitvale Station’ and ‘Creed’) — as well as such legends as Forest Whitaker and Angela Bassett. But historical significance aside, what superhero fans want to know is how ‘Black Panther’ compares with other Marvel movies. Simply put, it not only holds its own, but improves on the formula in several key respects, from a politically engaged villain to an emotionally grounded final showdown.”

USA Today’s Brian Truitt :

“Chadwick Boseman follows up a memorable ‘Captain America: Civil War’ appearance as African ruler T’Challa (and his masked warrior alter ego) with a roaring solo adventure that unleashes James Bond-style spycraft, geopolitics galore and tribal intrigue a la ‘Game of Thrones.’ Yet while there are plenty of fantastical aspects, Black Panther is extremely grounded, dealing with the consequences of ages-old colonialism and exploring isolationism at a time when actual countries are building borders rather than breaking them down.”

The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis :

“A jolt of a movie, ‘Black Panther’ creates wonder with great flair and feeling partly through something Hollywood rarely dreams of anymore: myth. Most big studio fantasies take you out for a joy ride only to hit the same exhausted story and franchise-expanding beats. Not this one. Its axis point is the fantastical nation of Wakanda, an African Eden where verdant-green landscapes meet blue-sky science fiction. There, spaceships with undercarriages resembling tribal masks soar over majestic waterfalls, touching down in a story that has far more going for it than branding.”

Entertainment Weekly’s Leah Greenblatt :

“Coogler’s filmmaking isn’t flawless. The CG backdrops veer into screensaver territory, and the battle scenes are often shot in turbulent closeup; the last 30 minutes are so frenetic it feels like there are defibrillator pads sewn into the theater seats. But he infuses nearly every frame with soul and style, and makes the radical case that a comic-book movie can actually have something meaningful — beyond ‘boom’ or ‘kapow’ or ‘America’ — to say. In that context, ‘Panther’s’ nuanced celebration of pride and identity and personal responsibility doesn’t just feel like a fresh direction for the genre, it’s the movie’s own true superpower.”

Deadline’s Peter Hammond :

“It is remarkable how Coogler (who also wrote the script with Joe Robert Cole) has been able to give all these many characters, and others, their own story arc and weave them all together in masterful fashion. He fully meets the promise he showed in both smaller personal films like ‘Fruitvale Station’ and a larger canvas like ‘Creed.’ He is helped here enormously by a terrific production crew, with many key jobs filled by women including ‘Mudbound’ cinematographer Rachel Morrison, the first female to be nominated for a best cinematography Oscar; the colorful costumes of Ruth Carter; great production design from Hannah Beachler; and generally fine work right on down the line including an awesome visual effects team. This is about as diverse a massive studio production of this scope that Hollywood has ever seen, both in front and behind the camera.”

Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers :

“Thrillingly and thoughtfully directed and written (with Joe Robert Cole) by Ryan Coogler, the film lights up the screen with a full-throttle blast of action and fun. That’s to be expected. But what sneaks up and floors you is the film’s racial conscience and profound, astonishing beauty. Not just a correction for years of diversity neglect, it’s a big0budget blockbuster that digs into the roots of blackness itself. Coogler, 31, has proved his skills behind the camera with ‘Fruitvale Station’ and ‘Creed,’ but in ‘Black Panther’ he journeys into the heart of Africa to bring a new world to the screen. The result feels revolutionary.”

Indiewire’s David Ehrlich:

Mashable’s Angie Han :

“More than most superhero flicks, Black Panther feels like an ensemble piece – as if any character in this story might be the lead of their own, if only the film would shift its perspective a bit. Even the superhero’s mother (Ramonda, played by Angela Bassett) gets a chance to shine. (Every other superhero’s dead mom must be so jealous.) This generosity extends even to its big bad, Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan). Black Panthermarks maybe the third time in the entire 18-film MCU franchise that the villain has felt like anything approaching a real person, and Killmonger’s arc is surprisingly moving – he’s a man whose ache for a home he never knew has long since festered into resentment and rage.”

“To describe ‘Black Panther’ as a black superhero film doesn’t do enough to praise how utterly disinterested it is in appealing to a white audience. At its core, Coogler’s film feels like a love letter to every black person who will step into the movie theater to see it, be they be of American or African descent. It is a film that honors the history of black bodies on our entire continent, from the kingdoms they built, to the bondage they were shackled in, to the world that has treated them with cruelty at every possible turn.”

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‘Black Panther’ Reviews: What the Critics Are Saying

Early reviews are in for Marvel’s “ Black Panther ,” and many critics are celebrating the diversity the superhero film brings to the comics universe.

In his review for Variety , Peter Debruge noted how this diversity is not only racially inclusive, but representative of women and the LGBTQ community as well.

“While far more mainstream — and by extension, kid-friendly — than such blaxploitation classics as ‘Foxy Brown’ and ‘Cleopatra Jones,’ ‘ Black Panther ’ upholds the same tradition of celebrating strong, assertive black women,” he wrote. “At the end of a big rhinoceros battle, a male character submits to Gurira in the film’s single most iconic shot, while an earlier scene in which she tosses aside a bad wig ranks as the most gay-friendly Marvel moment to date.”

Reviews also praised Jordan’s portrayal as the villain, with some saying his evil performance is among the best the Marvel universe has ever seen.

“ Black Panther ” hits theaters Feb. 16. See highlights from the critical response below:

Variety ‘s Peter Debruge:

USA Today’s Brian Truitt :

The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis :

Entertainment Weekly’s Leah Greenblatt :

Deadline’s Peter Hammond :

Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers :

“Thrillingly and thoughtfully directed and written (with Joe Robert Cole) by Ryan Coogler , the film lights up the screen with a full-throttle blast of action and fun. That’s to be expected. But what sneaks up and floors you is the film’s racial conscience and profound, astonishing beauty. Not just a correction for years of diversity neglect, it’s a big0budget blockbuster that digs into the roots of blackness itself. Coogler, 31, has proved his skills behind the camera with ‘Fruitvale Station’ and ‘Creed,’ but in ‘Black Panther’ he journeys into the heart of Africa to bring a new world to the screen. The result feels revolutionary.”

Indiewire’s David Ehrlich:

“‘I have seen gods fly. I have seen men build weapons that I couldn’t even imagine. I have seen aliens drop from the sky. But I have never seen anything like this.’ So mutters astonished C.I.A. agent Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman) as he first sets eyes on the shrouded African country of Wakanda, a veritable El Dorado that mined a meteorite’s worth of vibranium to become the most technologically advanced nation on Earth, and the host country for the best Marvel movie so far, by far. He speaks for us all. Nobody has ever seen anything like ‘Black Panther’ — not just an entire civilization built from the metal stuff inside Captain America’s shield, and not even just a massive superhero movie populated almost entirely by black people, but also a Marvel film that actually feels like it takes place in the real world.”

Mashable’s Angie Han :

The Daily Beast’s Ira Madison III :

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‘black panther’: what the critics are saying.

Ryan Coogler's Marvel movie sports a 99 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes.

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'Black Panther' Reviews: What The Critics Are Saying

The future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is in Wakanda .

Reviews are in for Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther , and they are easily the best for a Marvel Studios project to date, with almost everyone left in awe not only of the movie’s ambition, but its success in achieving that ambition on the big screen. As of Wednesday evening, the film has a 99 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes with just one “rotten” review out of 76.

“There’s no mistaking you’re still in the Marvel universe here, but this entry sweeps you off to a part of it you’ve never seen: a hidden lost world in Africa defined by royal traditions and technological wonders that open up refreshing new dramatic, visual and casting possibilities,” writes The Hollywood Reporter ’s Todd McCarthy in his review. “There are vistas, costumes and settings that keep the images popping off the screen, even though this Marvel offering is not in 3D.”

“It’s as if everyone enlisted to bring the project to life understood the magnitude of what Black Panther , the first comic-based studio movie with a black hero at the center since 1998’s Blade , would represent,” critic and writer Marc Bernardin wrote for Nerdist . “The chance to fill every corner of their fictional Wakanda with the same level of craft and detail usually reserved for British-star-studded period pieces. An opportunity to tell a story about black lives, which matter and are not defined by their pain but, instead, by their glory. An answer to a culture’s question, ‘When will it be our time in the sun?’”

Rolling Stone ’s Peter Travers agreed, calling the movie “an epic that doesn’t walk, talk or kick ass like any other Marvel movie — an exhilarating triumph on every level from writing, directing, acting, production design, costumes, music, special effects to you name it. For children (and adults) of color who have longed forever to see a superhero who looks like them, Marvel’s first black-superhero film is an answered prayer, a landmark adventure and a new film classic.”

'Black Panther': Film Review

Feb. 7, 5:31 p.m. Updated to reflect that Black Panther no longer has a 100 percent Rotten Tomatoes score.

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Black Panther reigns with style, a stellar cast, and real-world relevance: EW review

The arc of the Marvel universe is long, but it’s finally bent toward Black Panther . It always seemed counterintuitive that the same sprawling cinematic realm that (along with DC) so readily welcomed creatures blue and green, Ant-Men and Wolverines, took so long to put a black superhero at the center of the screen. Now that the moment has arrived though, it feels like nothing less than a sea change: a wave started by Wonder Woman last year and grown to full swell in Panther ’s moral weight and real-world currency.

It’s also really, really fun. Chadwick Boseman ( 42, Marshall ) stars as T’Challa, newly anointed king of the fictional African nation of Wakanda and heir to its secret wonder, Vibranium, a meteor-borne metal so powerful it can redirect energy and so rare — outside its homeland, at least — that its value is almost incalculable. And where fetishistic objects of desire go, very bad men must follow: chief among them arms dealer Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis, having a ball with his gold incisors and wheezy lunatic’s giggle) and Michael B. Jordan’s brooding mercenary Erik Killmonger.

T’Challa may have the crown and the Vibranium-enhanced Panther suit — and he’s working on the girl, Nakia, played by a luminous Lupita Nynong’o. But he’s also still reeling from his father’s recent death, and not entirely prepared to take on new enemies. Thank God (and great casting agents) for the women beside him, including his regal mother Ramonda (Angela Bassett), brainiac baby sister Shuri (Letitia Wright), and fearless warrior-protector Okoye (Danai Gurira).

They’re indomitable, and so gorgeously, vividly drawn that Boseman sometimes feels like a supporting player in his own story. (The effervescent British import Wright and actress/playwright Gurira, especially, feel like they could easily hold their own films; it’s hard to remember the last time any females, let alone women of color, even came close to creating such fully formed roles in a cineplex tentpole.) Martin Freeman is great too as CIA agent Everett Ross, a Bisquick-blond Boy Scout who spends about 90 percent of the movie just looking awed to be there. But it’s hard to find a weak spot in the stacked cast, even the ones who only have a few brief scenes: Forest Whitaker, Sterling K. Brown, Daniel Kaluuya, John Kani.

Ryan Coogler, the 31-year-old director whose brief resumé already includes an acclaimed indie drama (the 2013 festival breakout Fruitvale Station ) and an underdog triumph (2015’s stellar Rocky reboot Creed ), clearly fought hard to get Panther to the screen the way he envisioned it: Not as a boilerplate blockbuster window-dressed with African-American faces, but a story fully, joyfully rooted in black culture. It doesn’t feel like an accident that a chunk of the movie’s most important action happens in his hometown of Oakland, only blocks away from the real-life events of Fruitvale . And Jordan’s kinetic Killmonger is no cat-stroking cartoon villain; he’s a genuinely tragic figure, a self-appointed warden of social justice irreparably warped by the wrongs done to him.

Coogler’s filmmaking isn’t flawless. The CG backdrops veer into screensaver territory, and the battle scenes are often shot in turbulent closeup; the last 30 minutes are so frenetic it feels like there are defibrillator pads sewn into the theater seats. But he infuses nearly every frame with soul and style, and makes the radical case that a comic-book movie can actually have something meaningful — beyond boom or kapow or America — to say. In that context, Panther ’s nuanced celebration of pride and identity and personal responsibility doesn’t just feel like a fresh direction for the genre, it’s the movie’s own true superpower. A-

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Black Panther Review: the Marvel Universe Finally Shows Us Something New

By Richard Lawson

My chief complaint about Marvel’s unending stream of superhero movies—one echoed by many others—is probably that these films have all started to feel and look so same-y. Sure, you’ve got your minor tweaks here and there; one’s a 70s conspiracy-thriller homage, another’s a kicky space opera (well, several are). But they all pretty much stick to the same form. The latest entry in this sprawling saga, Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther, arrives, then, as a welcome refreshment, adding mythic tones and chords of classical drama to the Marvel Universe.

Of course, Black Panther is also a nice change of pace—and hopefully a new precedent setter—in that its cast is largely black, with many women who are given a chance to be heroes. Black Panther champions, and makes champions of, underserved demographics in a way that’s somehow both casual and defiant, a statement of strength that proudly insists it needed no stating to begin with. Coogler has assembled a crackerjack team of actors to be the vessels of that message—a spirited ensemble that deftly maneuvers the movie’s shifts between high drama and amiable humor.

Chadwick Boseman, as T’Challa, warrior king of the secretive African nation of Wakanda, holds the center of the film with regal gravity. But as is often the case with leads, everyone around him gets to have more fun. Michael B. Jordan marks his third fruitful collaboration with Coogler as the movie’s villain, Erik Killmonger, a lost son of Wakanda who’s never known his ancestral homeland. He’s full of the rage and pain of an abandoned child finally getting his revenge on the world now that he’s grown.

Jordan tears into the role, complicating all the character’s evildoing with an aching pathos. By the end of the film, we’ve come to sympathize with poor Killmonger, whose mission is both compellingly political and deeply personal. (More on those politics in a moment.) Past those warring kinsmen, Lupita Nyong’o and Danai Gurira ably play two fierce fighters loyal to T’Challa’s cause. Coogler is careful to give them more than just sidekick stuff, and they have a winning chemistry together. I’d happily watch them lead the next Black Panther movie (for there will be another one), if Boseman wants a break.

Hopefully they’d take Letitia Wright along with them. As T’Challa’s brainy kid sister and gadget supplier (she’s Q to his James Bond), Wright bounces off with every scene she’s in, providing many of the film’s biggest laughs with sprightly, piquant charm. She eventually gets out of the lab and into the action, a show of this film’s egalitarian approach to its characters. Everyone gets to do their part, from Angela Bassett as T’Challa’s proud mother, to Daniel Kaluuya as a shifty ally to Andy Serkis as a side villain who lands some good, oddball jokes. Coogler’s script, co-written with Joe Robert Cole, generously provides texture to each of its roles.

It also gives us in the audience a lot to think about. Black Panther is in some ways a fantasy, and in others very much grounded in the real world. Looking at social justice and foreign policy through its Afrofuturist lens, the film also does something most Avengers films don’t. Many of those other movies are about what these heroes can stop, thwart, and in some cases destroy. They’ve fought over that call to power over and over again. But Black Panther is about what Wakanda and its resources—technology, chiefly—can provide the world, not what it can shield or take away. The film stages an interesting debate about Wakanda’s isolationism—its tradition of self-preservation over global outreach. Both sides make good points, an ambivalence the film handles smartly.

It also doesn’t shy away from the fraught question being posed about what responsibility Wakanda has to the broader—white, colonial—world. Killmonger would say that what’s owed is a reckoning, a violent and necessary reshifting of power. T’Challa instead warily sees the potential benefit of peaceful outreach, of sharing ideas to heal past and current wounds. It’s complicated stuff, and not anything that Coogler offers an easy answer for. Watching these issues mulled over in a big superhero spectacular is quite something—it elevates the level of Marvel’s political discourse considerably.

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But this is still a Marvel movie—and as is often the case, Black Panther is at its weakest the bigger and sloppier its action scenes get. As he showed in Creed ’s stunning boxing sequences, Coogler has a fine command of kinetic energy. A car chase in Busan, South Korea, has a dizzy, zipping grace to it, punctuated with perhaps the movie’s best sight gag. But when Black Panther is forced to go more maximalist than that—there must be a final showdown, of course—it loses its personality, as is true of most of these movies. They’re guided by capable, interesting directors, until they have to shoot the big stuff for the trailer. Ah, well.

Black Panther works best as a dynastic drama, and as a musing on global politics from a perspective we don’t often get. Despite familiar action-scene wobbliness, it’s easily the most engaging Marvel film in a long while. Because—finally!—it has something new to say. More like this please, Marvel. Oh, and, of course: Wakanda forever.

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Black Panther elevates superhero cinema to thrilling new heights while telling one of the MCU's most absorbing stories -- and introducing some of its most fully realized characters.

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Review: In the shadow of grief, ‘Wakanda Forever’ forges messily but valiantly ahead

Letitia Wright in a scene from "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever."

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The end comes right at the beginning: swift, expected, crushing. King T’Challa, the Black Panther of Wakanda, is grievously ill, and his brilliant scientist sister, Shuri (a forceful Letitia Wright), is working desperately to engineer a cure. The clock ticks and the camera races, but for all the tension there’s predictably zero suspense: T’Challa is soon dead, leaving the princess and the queen mother, Ramonda (Angela Bassett), to grieve with their subjects. That we never see even a flashback to T’Challa’s face — the face of the late Chadwick Boseman — in these opening moments adds to the sense of finality, of an absence that reverberates beyond the parameters of fiction. We share the characters’ devastation but not their shock; unlike them, we’ve had some time to prepare.

So, of course, have the filmmakers. And from the opening scenes of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” director Ryan Coogler’s tact, intelligence and discernment are more than apparent. He wants to honor — without exploiting — Boseman’s memory, and he knows that he doesn’t have to push hard to earn our tears. He also knows that, as a matter of narrative opportunity as well as philosophical principle, every end really is a beginning. And so even as he guides us on a hushed procession through the streets of Wakanda and through a series of eerily beautiful funeral rites, Coogler maintains unflagging forward momentum and quickly puts a grief-stricken empire on high alert. There are already new adventures — and yes, fresh occasions for grief — on the horizon.

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The story Coogler tells is unwieldy and strange, sometimes thrilling yet inescapably somber. As diplomacy fails, secrets change hands and forces clash on land and at sea, you never quite forget that you’re witnessing not just a busy narrative juggling act but also an imperfect solution to an impossible problem. Not long after Boseman’s death in 2020, speculation ran rampant as to how the much-anticipated sequel to 2018’s “Black Panther,” one of the most commercially and culturally significant blockbusters of all time, would shoulder such a blow. Would T’Challa be recast? Would some ghoulish digitally confected version of Boseman’s character live to fight another day? Those options were rejected, and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” is now something entirely different from what its makers must have once envisioned: an entertainment and an elegy, a blurring of tragedies on- and off-screen, a story both misshapen and ennobled by once-unthinkable loss.

Angela Bassett in the movie "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever."

And why not? The power of Coogler’s first “Black Panther” movie — what made it such a singular oasis of emotion, meaning and political imagination in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — lay precisely in its real-world friction, its refusal to shy away from grief and pain. Here was a comic-book fantasy both despairing and utopian, rooted in an extravagant superhero mythology (first concocted in the ’60s by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby) that served to deepen, rather than depart from, the audience’s consciousness. Technologically advanced and vibranium-fortified, the kingdom of Wakanda emerged fully formed as what the New Yorker’s Jelani Cobb called “a redemptive counter-mythology” — a powerfully imagined corrective to the white colonization of the African continent, if also a kingdom situated at a strategic remove from the ongoing struggle for Black liberation worldwide.

“Black Panther” ended with Wakanda agreeing to lower its isolationist shield and join the international community. As the new movie opens, the kingdom is witnessing the costs of that concession, thanks to the global hunger for vibranium, the all-powerful metal that fuels Wakanda’s techno-supremacy. There’s something unmistakably resonant about the idea of a nation that has never known the threat of colonization or conquest suddenly finding itself beset on all sides, its position even more compromised by the untimely loss of its most cherished son. More resonant still is the image of Ramonda, played by Bassett with sublimated anguish and stunning fury, bearing the full weight of her moral authority as she steps fearlessly into the breach.

Ramonda’s presence on the Wakandan throne, with Shuri serving as her closest consort, builds on a feminist foundation that was already well laid in the earlier movie. For all its paternalistic Sturm und Drang (including Michael B. Jordan’s galvanizing villainy as Erik Killmonger), the first “Black Panther” reveled in the power of its women warriors and leaders, all of whom return here in full force and in some cases with key reinforcements. There’s a nifty early display of spear-whirling by the Dora Milaje, once again led by the loyal Okoye (the formidable Danai Gurira) and bolstered by a striking new soldier, Aneka (“I May Destroy You’s” Michaela Coel). Also leaping into the mix is Riri (Dominique Thorne), a 19-year-old tech prodigy who soars and tumbles like Icarus and wisecracks like someone clearly being primed for future Marvel outings.

Tenoch Huerta as Namor in Marvel Studios' "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever."

While Riri’s whip-smart energy gives the proceedings a welcome early jolt, the character feels increasingly like an afterthought, especially once Coogler and his co-writer, Joe Robert Cole, usher in a few paradigm-rattling twists. Enter Namor (the charismatic Tenoch Huerta), the ruler of an Atlantis-like undersea kingdom called Talokan that, like Wakanda, runs on vibranium and was until recently a very well-kept secret. A seductive bronze-chested demigod, Namor has pointy elfin ears and winged feet reminiscent of the Greek god Hermes, but this lesser-known forerunner of DC Comics’ Aquaman is actually descended — quite literally descended, given his watery home — from an ancient Maya community. There are traces of that heritage in the hieroglyphics carved into Talokan’s stony grottos, and also in Namor’s feathered headdress and intricate jewelry. (It’s less apparent in his subjects, whose bluish skin and fish-like gills suggest a more rubbery-looking variant of the Na’vi characters in James Cameron’s forthcoming “Avatar: The Way of Water.” )

The clash between the forces of Wakanda and Talokan — a mighty African kingdom and its Mesoamerican counterpart — introduces an intriguing new cultural-mythological dynamic and raises all manner of thorny questions about race and allyship among characters of Black, Indigenous and Latin American descent. (It also opens up new worlds of aesthetic possibility for costume designer Ruth E. Carter , production designer Hannah Beachler and composer Ludwig Göransson, all expanding beautifully on their Oscar-winning contributions to the first “Black Panther.”) Less interestingly, that clash also drives most of the action, and as with nearly every Marvel blockbuster, the many scenes of choreographed combat are by far the movie’s most workmanlike, absent any real visceral oomph and bogged down, especially at the climax, by too much frenzied cross-cutting.

Actor Tenoch Huerta is in the new Black Panther. He was photographed in Los Angeles on October 29, 2022.

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It’s telling that both the first “Black Panther” and this messier if seldom less engrossing follow-up are at their strongest when they resist or even flat-out ignore their franchise obligations. (The movie falls flat whenever it cuts away from Wakanda and Talokan to various CIA machinations I won’t reveal, not because of spoilers but because they’re too tedious for words.) At times, a sacrilegious and probably deranged-sounding question rises to the surface: Did “Wakanda Forever” even have to be a superhero movie? It gives away little to note that someone new will wind up inheriting T’Challa’s catsuit, carrying on the Black Panther mantle and, in all likelihood, taking her place in the next phase of the endless MCU soap opera. The baton pass is bracing without feeling particularly satisfying, not least because the anointing of another Wakandan figurehead ultimately feels antithetical to the movie’s democratic spirit.

One of the reasons Boseman was such a marvelous actor was his genius for self-effacement, his ability to hold the spotlight without dominating it. His generosity toward his fellow actors was particularly well suited to T’Challa, a character who wasn’t — and didn’t have to be — the most interesting thing about the world he came from. Happily, you see more of that world in “Wakanda Forever.” You see it in the regal ceremonial isicholo that Ramonda wears while meeting with a council of Wakandan elders, played by familiar faces like Isaach de Bankolé and the late Dorothy Steel (who died in 2021). You also see it in Winston Duke’s ever-boisterous M’Baku, that fur-clad bear of a tribal leader, and in Lupita Nyong’o’s superb, underused performance as the skilled spy Nakia, who returns to serve her country after a period in self-exile. She has reservations about the circumstances, but it’s still a welcome homecoming. You’ll know the feeling.

‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’

Rating: PG-13, for sequences of strong violence, action and some language Running time: 2 hours, 41 minutes Playing: Starts Nov. 11 in general release

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Review: Black Panther Is Truly a Movie for Everyone

M arvel superhero movies are no longer just a single entertainment option among many; they’re a manmade force of nature. Many comic-book fans love them, while others merely “love” them: For some, responding positively to these elaborate, costly pictures has become a grudging duty. In fact, the only thing wrong with Ryan Coogler’s stirring, imaginative Black Panther is that in some ways, at least, it’s required to fit snugly into the Marvel superhero-movie mold. What would this film have been like if its action scenes had been cut cleanly and clearly, instead of chopped into the usual wasteful, visually confusing slice-and-dice mashup? The whole thing moves a little too fast: There are so many gorgeous details—from Ruth E. Carter’s Afro-futuristic costumes to Hannah Beachler’s Emerald City-a-go-go production design—that you might find yourself wishing you could linger on certain images just a bit longer.

But Black Panther is still a cut above—perhaps many cuts above—any other recent superhero movie, and some not-so-recent ones too. Coogler’s picture—starring Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa, the ruler of the isolationist African country Wakanda, as well as, when kitted out in his sleek black superhero outfit, the principled and authoritative Black Panther—has a social conscience, speaking out plainly about the moral obligations of powerful countries, from sheltering refugees to sharing technology and science to dividing wealth equitably. Those ideas are the movie’s supple backbone, not just stuff that’s been added to make the whole venture seem important. (The script is by Coogler and Joe Robert Cole, based on characters by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.) And, most blessedly, this is that rare superhero movie in which absolutely zero cities are destroyed, or are even in danger of being destroyed. At a certain point, a villain threatening to destroy a city becomes a ho-hum threat, and Black Panther knows it. The movie is smart, lavish and fun without being assaultive.

The plot is relatively straightforward, and worked out with more care than most: T’challa returns from America to his home kingdom of Wakanda to assume leadership after his father, the king, is killed by a terrorist’s bomb (an event dramatized in Captain America: Civil War ). Even amid the grieving, it’s a happy homecoming: T’challa is greeted by his regal mother, Ramonda (the ever-fabulous Angela Bassett), and his riot-grrrl science-nerd sister Shuri (played by the marvelous newcomer Letitia Wright). He reconnects with his closest friend, W’Kabi (Daniel Kaluuya), and readies himself to meet the challenges of leading this small, rich country. (It sits on a veritable gold mine, a store of an extremely precious and potent metal known as vibranium, but those riches are kept secret from the rest of the world.) And he reunites, platonically, with the woman whom he still loves, Nakia (Lupita N’yongo), a fighter-activist who’s more interest in justice than romance. For now, at least.

There’s going to be trouble, of course, and it arrives in the form of Michael B. Jordan’s villainously complex Erik Killmonger, who storms into Wakanda for revenge and something more. The action in Black Panther includes lots of hand-to-hand combat, much of it taking place in a sacred pool—the editing of these scenes could be cleaner, they give the movie a nice jolt of organic energy even so. All the performances are terrific (Martin Freeman appears as one of the token white guys), though the women in the cast give the best of them. Danai Gurira (of The Walking Dead ) plays Okoye, a member of an elite group of valets and bodyguards known as the Dora Milaje: When she comes out swinging and ready for battle—her head shaved clean, her face a mask of don’t-mess-with-me attitude—only a moron would risk looking away.

But then, all of Black Panther, shot by Rachel Morrison—who was the cinematographer on Coogler’s 2013 debut Fruitvale Station, and who has just been nominated for an Academy Award for Mudbound —is simply splendid to look at, a marvel of jewel tones and shimmery grays with lots of natural greenery thrown in. And the Black Panther costume gets my vote for the most elegant superhero outfit ever, a lithe, supple stretch of black ink that allows its wearer to leap and strike at any moment. The mask, with its narrow eye slits, facilitates some great staredowns.

One of Black Panther’s attributes as a project, clear from the start, is that it meant roles for many actors of color. From the early to mid part of the 20th century, there was a small but important American industry of films made especially for black audiences, featuring black stars like Cab Calloway and Lena Horne. These weren’t extravagant pictures, but they offered both escapism and a view of life that wasn’t strictly, exclusively white: They reassured black Americans—and it’s a tragedy by itself that such reassurance would be necessary—that they, too, were America.

Black Panther is a modern expansion of that idea, a picture for everyone that stresses the necessary meaning of the word everyone . It’s pure pleasure to look at the screen and see the faces of both established actors we don’t get to see often enough (like Bassett, as well as Forest Whitaker as Zuri, a spiritual-warrior figure) and newcomers who leave us hankering for more (like the vibrant Letitia Wright). Black Panther is set largely in Wakanda, with a detour to South Korea. Still, there’s no shaking the feeling that this is what America looks like when it’s allowed to be its truest, freest self. That’s a superhero challenge if ever there was one.

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The triumphant success of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” comes against all odds.

First, the sequel had to follow the hit 2018 film that became a worldwide cross-cultural phenomenon and a Best Picture Oscar nominee. And, more somberly, Marvel needed to craft the usual entertaining movie its fans have come to expect even after the incredibly sad death of the original’s star, Chadwick Boseman.

BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER

Running time: 161 minutes. Rated PG-13 (sequences of strong violence, action and some language). In theaters Nov. 11.

Another major follow-up with two such mountainous hurdles doesn’t come to mind.

And yet, the superb “Wakanda Forever” solidifies “Black Panther” as Marvel’s richest and most high-quality franchise. There are no noticeable symptoms of sequelitis in director and co-writer Ryan Coogler’s film. Every aspect — acting, writing, special effects, score — is a notch above its superhero peers. In the best possible sense, you forget you’re watching just another Marvel movie.

At the emotional start, T’Challa (the late Boseman, who we appropriately do not see outside of sparse flashbacks), dies of an unknown illness, leaving his mother Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) and sister Princess Shuri (Letitia Wright) bereft and the Kingdom of Wakanda rudderless.

Angela Bassett returns as Queen Ramonda in "Wakanda Forever."

One year later, Ramonda stingingly accuses member states of the United Nations of attempting to steal Wakanda’s vibranium — the rare, all-powerful element only found in the African country. Or so they think.

Using a special probe, America discovers the blue rock present in the Atlantic Ocean, inciting the wrath of a new foe — the secret underwater people of Talokan, who also rely on vibranium and are led by Namor (Tenoch Huerta), essentially an aquatic Black Panther. The US blames Wakanda for the attack on their ship, but Namor threatens Queen Ramonda that if she reveals Talokan’s existence, Wakanda will be destroyed.

A new foe — as strong as the Wakandans — emerges from the water.

In the absence of the title character, Ramonda and Shuri, who was previously a gadgets-and-gizmos sidekick, ascend to leading roles. And, especially on the part of Bassett, we witness the best dramatic acting in an MCU movie so far. One of Bassett’s speeches is so forceful and stirring for the usually milquetoast MCU, it’s like being served foie gras at Burger King.

Wright also goes admirably deep as Shuri, while her character wrestles with her royal role and adulthood now that T’Challa is gone. Rarely do other Marvel actors so capably play both comedy and suffering as well as Wright.

Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), Okoye (Danai Gurira) and Aneka (Michaela Coel) all have distinct, thoughtful arcs. And a very funny helper is introduced in Riri (Dominique Thorne), a genius Harvard student who unwittingly goes along for the ride.

“Wakanda Forever” is the opposite of DC Comics’ horrible “Black Adam ,” in which somehow no character mattered or was remotely memorable. There are no loose threads here, and everybody is involving.

A different character becomes the Black Panther.

Huerta’s Namor makes a solid, complex villain — although not quite the showstopper of Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger — but the star is really all the Talokanil. Inspired by indigenous Yucatan peoples, Coogler and his team have built a different, submerged world as painstakingly detailed as Wakanda. Talokan is strikingly gorgeous, like Pandora of “Avatar,” and we develop an affection for it based on looks alone. That becomes important later on.

Coogler’s film, at 2 hours 40 minutes, is a long one, but there is no dead air; the locales are stunning, and the creativity on display is explosive. Checking the time at the end, I was pleasantly surprised by how late it was. That’s a credit to the director, who has a mastery of grand, portentous, earth-shaking moments that pull us toward the screen.

But it also speaks to the quality of the acting, which is an element the ballooning superhero genre has largely conditioned audiences to not care about. With an ensemble as committed and gutsy as this one — even donning full-body panther suits and wielding high-tech spears — you can’t look away.

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In 1992, a little Black kid on a makeshift basketball court in Oakland, California disrupts his game to glance up at the sky. Figuratively, he’s looking at the loss of hope, a departure represented by glowing lights drifting away into the night. As we learn later, those lights belong to a futuristic flying machine returning to the mysterious African country of Wakanda, the setting of “Black Panther." The young man was once told by his father that Wakanda had the most wonderful sunsets he would ever see, so he cradles that perceived vision of beauty through his darkest hours. When he finally sees the sun go down over Wakanda, it provokes a haunting emotional response.

That same response will be felt by viewers of “Black Panther,” one of the year's best films, and one that transcends the superhero genre to emerge as an epic of operatic proportions. The numerous battle sequences that are staples of the genre are present, but they float on the surface of a deep ocean of character development and attention to details both grandiose and minute. Wakanda is a fully fleshed-out, unapologetically Black universe, a world woven into a tapestry of the richest, sharpest colors and textures. Rachel Morrison ’s stunning cinematography and Ruth Carter’s costumes pop so vividly that they become almost tactile. You can practically feel the fabric of the hat worn by Angela Bassett as it beams in the sunlight on the day her son becomes king.

Bassett is just one of numerous familiar and up-and-coming actors of color who bring their A-games to “Black Panther.” Forest Whitaker , Sterling K. Brown and “ Get Out ” star Daniel Kaluuya are just a few of the others. The entire cast creates characters with complexities rarely afforded minorities in cinema; these people are capable of contradictory human responses that have lasting consequences. Their feelings are deep, instantly relatable, and colored with the shades of grey not often explored in blockbuster entertainment. When the villain still manages to make your eyes tear up despite trying to murder the hero in the previous scene, you know you’re in the presence of great acting and storytelling.

The villain in question, nicknamed Killmonger, is played by Michael B. Jordan . Someday, the team of Jordan and writer/director Ryan Coogler will be mentioned with the same reverence reserved for Scorsese and De Niro. The duo have done three films together, and though this is the first where Jordan is in a supporting role, they still convey a cinematic shorthand that’s representative of their trusted partnership. A film like this is only as good as its villains, and Jordan deserves a place in the anti-hero Hall of Fame alongside such greats as Gene Hackman ’s Little Bill Daggett from “ Unforgiven .” Like Hackman, Jordan lures you in with his likeable comic swagger before revealing the shocking levels of his viciousness. He is hissable, but his character arc is not without sympathy nor understanding.

Coogler is the perfect fit for this material. It hits all the sweet spots he likes to explore in his films. So much gets written about which prominent directors should helm a superhero film next, but relatively few would be allowed to leave such a personal mark on a product so slavishly devoted to fan feelings. Coogler turns the MCU into the RCU—the Ryan Coogler Universe—by including everything we’ve come to expect from his features in the script he co-wrote with Joe Robert Cole . Like Oscar Grant in “ Fruitvale Station ,” T’Challa ( Chadwick Boseman ) is a typical Coogler protagonist, a young Black man seeking his place in the world while dealing with his own personal demons and an environment that demands things from him that he is unsure about giving. Like Donny in “ Creed ,” T’Challa exists in the shadow of a late father once known for a greatness he also wishes to achieve through similar means.

Coogler extends these same character traits to his muse Jordan’s Killmonger who, true to comic book lore form, has a “two sides of the same coin” relationship with the hero. Even their plans apply this theory. T’Challa wants to keep Wakanda away from the rest of the world, protecting his country by using its advanced technology solely for its denizens. Killmonger wants to steal that technology and give it to others, specifically to underprivileged Black folks so they can fight back and rule the world.

Additionally, the dual, reflective imagery of T’Challa and Killmonger is beautifully drawn to the surface in a scene where both men undergo the same spiritual journey to visit the fathers they long to see. But these similar journeys are polar opposites in tone, as if to prove the adage that one man’s Heaven is another man’s Hell. These scenes have a way of burrowing into your skin, forcing you to reckon with them later.

Coogler’s universe also isn’t male-dominated. In each of his films, there are women who advise and comfort the male leads while still having their own lives and agency. In “Fruitvale Station,” it’s Octavia Spencer ’s Mrs. Grant; in “Creed,” it’s Tessa Thompson ’s artistic girlfriend. “Black Panther” really ups the stakes, presenting us with numerous memorable, fierce and intelligent women who fight alongside Black Panther and earn their own cheers. Lupita Nyong’o is Nakia, the ex for whom T’Challa still carries a torch. Letitia Wright is Shuri, T’Challa’s sister and the equivalent of James Bond’s Q; she provides the vibranium-based weapons and suits Black Panther uses. And Danai Gurira is Okoye, a warrior whose prowess may even outshine T’Challa’s because she doesn’t need a suit to be a badass. All of these women have action sequences that drew loud applause from the audience, not to mention they’re all fully realized people. Okoye in particular has an arc that replays Black Panther’s central ideological conflict in microcosm.

For all its action sequences (they’re refreshingly uncluttered, focusing on smaller battles than usual) and talk of metals that exist only in the mind of Stan Lee , “Black Panther” is still Marvel’s most mature offering to date. It’s also its most political, a film completely unafraid to alienate certain factions of the Marvel base. It’s doing a great job upsetting folks infected with the Fear of a Black Planet on Twitter, to be sure. To wit, Wakanda has never been colonized by White settlers, it’s the most advanced place in the universe and, in a move that seems timely though it’s been canon since 1967, Wakanda masquerades as what certain presidents would refer to as a “shithole nation.” Coogler really twists the knife on that one: In the first of two post-credits sequences, he ends with a very sharp response about what immigrants from those nations can bring to the rest of the world.

Speaking of endings, Coogler is a man who knows how to end a movie. His last shot in “Creed” is a tearjerking thing of beauty, and the last scene (pre-credits that is) in “Black Panther” made me cry even harder. As in “Creed,” Coogler depicted young brown faces looking in awe at a hero, something we never see in mainstream cinema. “Black Panther”’s last scene is a repeat of the scene I described in my opening paragraph: In the present day, a little Black kid on a makeshift basketball court in Oakland, California disrupts his game to glance up at the sky. Figuratively, he’s about to gain some hope, an addition represented by a humanitarian hero with much to teach him and his fellow basketball players. The young man stares in awe, realizing that his life, and the lives of those around him will be changed.

It’s an ending rife with meta, symbolic meaning. Starting this weekend, a lot of brown kids are going to be staring at this movie with a similar sense of awe and perception-changing wonder. Because the main superhero, and almost everyone else, looks just like them . It was a long time coming, and it was worth the wait.

Odie Henderson

Odie "Odienator" Henderson has spent over 33 years working in Information Technology. He runs the blogs Big Media Vandalism and Tales of Odienary Madness. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Black Panther (2018)

Rated PG-13

134 minutes

Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa / Black Panther

Michael B. Jordan as Erik Killmonger

Lupita Nyong'o as Nakia

Forest Whitaker as Zuri

Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klaue / Klaw

Danai Gurira as Okoye

Angela Bassett as Ramonda

Sterling K. Brown as N'Jobu

Martin Freeman as Everett K. Ross

Daniel Kaluuya as W'Kabi

Florence Kasumba as Ayo

Winston Duke as M'Baku / Man-Ape

Letitia Wright as Shuri

Phylicia Rashād

Ryan Coogler
Joe Robert Cole

Cinematography

Rachel Morrison
Ludwig Göransson
Michael P. Shawver
Claudia Castello

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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Doesn’t Have the Answers

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever carries a series of burdens no one film could ever bear. Its director, Ryan Coogler, must grapple with the challenges and expectations born and influenced by the tragic death of star Chadwick Boseman. Coogler must craft an entertaining sequel to a billion-dollar blockbuster while working within the constricting Marvel Cinematic Universe. He must carefully balance the expectations of Black folks who have elevated the film to a celestial status — a pinnacle of Afrofuturism-tinged desires for a specific kind of Black power and representation onscreen. The film is called to respectfully introduce a new Black Panther and push the MCU forward with the introduction of Namor (Tenoch Huerta), an Indigenous Mesoamerican king-god figure of the undersea, isolationist kingdom Talokan — which has its own cache of vibranium and superhuman strength that makes Wakanda buckle. Perhaps most crucially, the film’s cast must act out grief while being mired in the experience themselves, which is especially true for Letitia Wright’s Shuri, who is tasked with shouldering the film’s most dramatic moments.

To say the film is overtaxed is an understatement. Regrettably, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever tries to do so many things that it comes across as threadbare and pallid — less a failure of imagination and more of circumstance, time, and narrative constraints.

I have complicated feelings around the original Black Panther, which was released to great acclaim in 2018. I’ve never gravitated to the mythos, primarily because T’Challa is a character of such noble stature that he can come across as uncomplicated, too perfect, and lacking the human foibles that make a character root themself in your memory. (In a surprising moment of self-awareness for the franchise, a cameo in Wakanda Forever says as much.) But Boseman rounded out T’Challa with a sweetness he aimed toward the character’s loved ones, which makes the actor’s absence in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever even more profound. Without him, the sequel struggles to hit the graceful emotional frequencies of its predecessor. The Marvel framework tends to falter when it comes to portraying genuine, complicated feelings, and what is more complicated than grief? It lacks a linear quality. It isn’t something you can overcome with a magic spell or godlike abilities. It breaks against the form and function of a Marvel property.

Wakanda Forever begins with the funeral of T’Challa — a sight tinged with joy and sorrow. Here, the film is at its most vivid and visually intriguing. T’Challa’s coffin is carried through the capital of Wakanda by the tearful Dora Milaje led by Okoye (Danai Gurira). The cortège and people of Wakanda are dressed in all white — a striking touch from costuming legend Ruth E. Carter. While the faces of T’Challa’s closest loved ones are solemn, the people of Wakanda move their bodies in an ecstatic dance slowed down to the speed of molasses. But the scene is all too brief. The editing, which gives the film a rushed quality here and a lethargic one elsewhere, works against what the sequence accomplishes. We’re soon jettisoned into the thrust of the story (although thrust is perhaps too forceful a word to describe such an anemic film).

In the wake of T’Challa’s death from an unnamed illness, his mother, Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), must help her empire navigate assaults from within and without. The true might of Wakanda is now widely known, and the film tries to spell out the geopolitical consequences of this new reality. In doing so, it turns to its lone white folks — Everett K. Ross (an annoyingly nondescript Martin Freeman functioning as living exposition) and Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (a hard-edge but not altogether engaging Julia Louis-Dreyfus) — and screeches into the land of boredom and obligation. They soon learn that an even greater threat than Wakanda is Talokan — led by Namor, who is eager to fight against the surface world in order to protect his kingdom. (How many isolationist societies of magical, powerful people of color can one cinematic universe have?) Namor isn’t so much a villain as a misshapen antagonist forced into violence by a script that requires it to push the plot along, yet he cares deeply for the barely sketched supporting figures of his kingdom.

The beating heart of the film is meant to be Shuri, who is pulled in as many directions as the story itself: between grief-fueled vengeance and growth, between chaos and peace. The sharp-mouthed, highly intelligent younger-sister archetype that Shuri filled never quite worked for me, but graduating her to a character saddled with so much devastation doesn’t either. Wright can’t find the intensity required, and she lacks the physicality to stand out in frames filled with more forceful actors. Lupita Nyong’o fares much better. I’ve missed the sight of her onscreen. Her brightness as Nakia infuses a few beautiful moments in the film. Other characters feel mostly surface-level in comparison: never fully rounded out with their own moments of bereavement or a fully rooted personality. Consider the spunky college student Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), who is weighted down by the clunkiest jokes of the film. Gurira and Bassett, however, when given the space to do so, capably provide the complex characterization that is otherwise sparse — as a stunning moment in the kingdom’s throne room, shot through with anger and deep longing, demonstrates.

There’s a lot of wasted talent onscreen. Michaela Coel’s character, Aneka, is missing the tricksy magnetism the writer-actor displays everywhere else. The look of Namor is beguiling — as are the ideas behind his Talokan lineage (he was born in the 16th century and witnessed, as a young child-king, the morally repugnant, heartbreaking violence of Spanish conquistadors). But despite the film’s nearly three hours, there is seemingly not enough time to flesh out his people and culture. It constructs a rushed origin story never focused enough on building out Talokan. Who are its people beyond their isolationism? What do they worship and delight in? What powers their beliefs in a world where a godlike being like Namor exists? Within this part of the film’s tapestry, no character possesses a hint of interiority. Rather than a sincere exploration of this Indigenous world, Namor’s character plays like a cunning decision to broaden Disney and Marvel’s target audience under the banner of representation (despite Huerta’s clear commitment and pleasure in the role). When Huerta is called to deliver lines with the word mutant , they land with a thud.

The action scenes provide little of the decadent thrills that can power even the emptiest of superhero narratives. In the first Black Panther, the action aims for a muscular kineticism that mostly succeeds when characters like Killmonger are unmasked or the camera is trained on Okoye and the Dora Milaje. The fight choreography of the original has clean, strong lines of action and emotional beats that bring with them a scintillating force that Wakanda Forever fails to achieve. Here, the muscular kineticism has been replaced with an ostentatious grandiosity. The final fight scene, in particular, is impressive in terms of the scope and amount of actors involved onscreen, but it lacks the precision and focus that would lead to standout moments. Scenes involving members of the Dora Milaje are blocked in ways that render their physical presence much less graceful, stifling any glimmer of characterization the movement of the first film provided. The choreography of the Talokan fighters isn’t distinct enough either — save for in fits and spurts like during a fight with Okoye on a city bridge. Namor is powerful, to be sure, but his introductions in scenes lack the regality that could make an undersea king feel fantastically unreal. The new Black Panther is meant to flex their muscles in the back half, but by then, an overstuffed quality has set in. The dexterous bliss that comes with the sudden explosion of superheroic energy is crowded out. Ultimately, Coogler and cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw lose sight of the rich color and minute detail that make this comic world alluring and, instead, allow their picture to feel as busy as the gold-and-black costume of the new Black Panther.

Wakanda Forever is too drab to work as a capable sequel, too unfocused to feel wholly consequential among the spoiling bombast of the larger MCU, too surface-level in its characterization and thematic entanglements to function as a worthy memorial to a star gone far too soon. It is neither developed enough narratively nor complex enough politically. It is a film not about Blackness or Indigenous identity, though it hides behind the sheen of both. Coogler is a strong director still relatively early in his career, but his voice isn’t evolving as much as it’s rattling inside the morass of the ever-growing MCU. Who does Coogler want to be as an artist? What does he have to say about humanity? Black Panther: Wakanda Forever doesn’t have the answers.

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Powered by JustWatch. The center of "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever"—the sequel to the hugely popular " Black Panther ," and a tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman —is sincere, even if the overall film feels manufactured. It begins with a funeral for the recently deceased King T'Challa. Shuri ( Letitia Wright) and Queen Ramonda ...
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