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BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER – Ludwig Göransson
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS PLOT SPOILERS. IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN THE SHOW, YOU MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER WAITING UNTIL AFTER YOU HAVE DONE SO TO READ IT.
The death of actor Chadwick Boseman in August 2020 resulted in an outpouring of grief and affection from the entire Hollywood community, but also necessitated wholesale changes to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the planned sequel to the 2018 blockbuster Marvel superhero film Black Panther, which was already in pre-production at the time of Boseman’s death. With the film’s lead gone, director Ryan Coogler, along with co-screenwriter Joe Robert Cole, re-fashioned the film to be not only a fun and interesting superhero action film, but also a surprisingly poignant meditation on death, grief, and legacy; despite not being there in person, Boseman’s presence weighs heavy on the film, giving it a depth and meaning that most films of this type do not contain. In terms of plot, Wakanda Forever sees Shuri, the younger sister of King T’Challa, having to step up and be a leader in her own right when her country comes under attack from a mysterious race of people seemingly descended from ancient Mayans, and who have a powerful leader of their own. The film has a groundbreaking headline cast made up almost entirely of black women – Letitia Wright, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Florence Kasumba, Dominique Thorne, Michaela Coel, Angela Bassett – with Winston Duke, Tenoch Huerta, Martin Freeman, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus in key supporting roles. Read more…
BLACK PANTHER – Ludwig Göransson
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The utter dominance of comic book action movies at the American box office continues with the success of Black Panther, the 18th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s the origin story of a character who appeared for the first time in Captain America: Civil War in 2016, and explores the history of the fictional African nation of Wakanda, which is the most technologically advanced civilization on Earth thanks to its unlimited supplies of the metal vibranium, but pretends to be a poor third world country to hide its power. Chadwick Boseman plays T’Challa, the new King of Wakanda, who takes up the mantle of the Black Panther after his father’s death in Captain America: Civil War; returning home to begin leading his country, T’Challa finds himself facing a threat in the shape of Eric Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan), a mercenary with ties to Wakanda, whose actions send the entire country into a civil war of its own. The film co-stars Lupita Nyongo, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, Sterling K. Brown, and Andy Serkis, and is directed by Ryan Coogler. Read more…
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