Other than referencing previous Marvel movies, I will avoid spoilers.
After several years of quantum realms, multiverses, witchcraft, and time travel, Marvel delivers, in it's own way, an old-fashioned shoot-'em up with its newest Black Panther movie.
Oh, it has the typical Marvel plot holes (I've become accustomed to suspending disbelief and just going along for the ride). And yes, it has too many subplots, and WAY too much run time, clocking in at 2 hours and 41 minutes.
Between travel time, getting popcorn and sitting through 23 minutes of previews, count on the whole affair costing you in excess of three-and-half hours of your life.
That said, it delivers a character-driven, emotionally powerful story, with excellent performances – the most impressive of which was Angela Bassett as Queen Ramonda.
The story begins by addressing the death of the superhero Black Panther from the first movie – King T'Challa as played by actor Chadwick Boseman, who passed away two years ago from colon cancer. It is handled with incredible grace and the grief is palpable, which is not surprising given the cast and director Ryan Coogler's genuine affection for the actor.
From there, much of the story revolves around how T'Challa's sister, Shuri, deals with that grief and anger, the latter of which is directed at the film's antagonist, Namor, the king of an underwater civilization threatening the very existence of Wakanda.
It is ultimately a story of faith, redemption, compromise, vengeance, and lots and lots of vibranium, the magical metal that is the source of the movie's conflict.
Here's the thing, however, that I think you have to understand going into this movie in order to enjoy it purely as a piece of cinema: Leave all the partisan rancor and woke poison at the door.
If you don't do this, you will come out talking like this:
I have been a fan of Jason Whitlock for some time, and I have enjoyed his appearances on Tucker Carlson and his unapologetic Christian values and the importance of men and masculine values in our culture.
But I think our polarized, hyper-partisan times have broken him.
Sitting through 2 hours, 40 minutes of Black Panther 2 was torture. Let me save you the time. The movie hates black men, America, and the patriarchy. Racial idolatry is its selling point. Nothing else.
This is a weird take, one at which you could only have arrived had you brought a train load of baggage with you. Worse, it is a surrender to wokeness and its elevation of group identity as the defining characteristic of the individual.
How a movie that centers on the passing of a black man, almost to the point of idolatry itself, "hates black men" is beyond me, although I suspected the reason is that the movie has a focus on many strong women.
That suspicion was proven correct.
"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" ... is the dream of the woke feminist matriarchal class that Hollywood filmmakers love to serve.
...why black-centric films are all about celebrating women at the expense of men.
One of his guests, a black woman expanded on the point.
The domination of the women, is this also in the comic books because that's one of the things I hated as well and I'm seeing all of the these men running around, like "Wakanda Forever," and I'm thinking like in Wakanda you're a b****. What are you celebrating? Is this like what the comic book actually teaches too, that the women dominate and the men are just uh, like idiots, or you know, submissive?
Leaving aside the celebration of Chadwick Boseman's character, I cannot explain the central and heroic role certain men play without giving anything away, but suffice it to say that "submissiveness" does not come to mind.
Strong men are not threatened by depictions of strong women. Weak men are. Defeated men. Yes, "Wakanda Forever" features many strong female characters, including fierce warriors.
But this is hardly an original theme invented by Marvel social justice warriors. It has been a common narrative for eons, from the Valkyries of Norse myth to the legends of the Amazonians. It's an enduring and entertaining story precisely because it turns the notion of the primacy of men as warriors on its head.
Wonder Woman was Amazonian, after all.
Of course, there is a right way to do it, and a wrong way to do it.
As I outlined in my review, She-Hulk did it the wrong way: the man-hating way. I wrote that piece after having seen three episodes, and it did not get appreciably better as the series progressed. With maybe two exceptions, the male figures in the movie tended to be evil, cads, clowns, weird, or included just for comic relief. It was a series that felt like it had been written by unhappy women destined to spend their lives alone with their cats.
(Good for the cats, I suppose.)
Only two women in She-Hulk were presented in any negative way. One was a ridiculous super-powered influencer and the other, a perpetually drunk young woman that existed purely for comic relief.
As I wrote at the time, Ms. Marvel did it right. With largely Pakistani characters, the two full-on white males of any note were sympathetic, with one being a hero genius.
As far as I could tell, the story drove the choices, not equity check boxes.
Wakanda Forever does it right as well. It did not rely on showing how wonderful women are by tearing men down. That's a lazy, cheap, and ultimately boring way to do it. Instead, it depicts powerful, smart women, along with plenty of positive male characters (including a white guy). Heck, Namor, the bad guy, is an indigenous person!
This is how you do it.
You let the story drive the movie – not your agenda, not your hangups, not as a vehicle to indulge your personal psychoses.
Were the writers of this movie super-psyched about depicting a powerful African nation full of brilliant, noble, black woman? Probably.
But so what?
That was part of the attraction of Wakanda all the way back to the comics, again, turning the status quo on its head. That is what art does. The best art does it, not by creating absurd evil caricatures intended to demonize certain races, ethnicities, genders, or religions, but by creating interesting characters with complex motives irrespective of their group identity.
That is what Wakanda Forever does.
That's not to say it doesn't have its painful woke moments. This is a Disney movie, after all.
One of the principle characters, Okoye, refers more than once to "colonizers." However, it's done as a way that struck me as comical. At one point, when she refers to a white CIA agent as "colonizer," he gives her a kind exasperated, "what do you want from me" look. It's also something that the Okoye character would be expected to say.
There's another throwaway line in which a black MIT student notes that as a "brown women" she is underestimated. Okay, but she's attending one of the most elite universities in the world, so it's hard to cry a river of tears for her.
There is also a lesbian relationship that some, including Whitlock, are making a big deal of. Yes, we know Disney is slipping these things into their productions and that it is agenda driven, but in Wakanda Forever you'll miss it if you blink.
Overall, these moments are rare.
Yes, the American government is cast in a very dark light, but like the "warrior woman" trope, this is common fodder for just about every spy thriller out there (hello, The Bourne Identity?). But, heck, what is more American than being suspicious of your government?
Besides, we live in a time when parents interested in their children's education are being investigated as domestic terrorists, so, yeah.
There are also some very interesting things, some very likely unintentional, that the movie brings to light.
One is Shuri's faith journey.
I don't want to give too much away, but it's an interesting arc.
Let me be clear: This is not a Christian movie. The Marvel Universe has its own hierarchy of supernatural beings and if anything is multi-theistic. In fact, in Thor: Love and Thunder, it is suggested Jesus is just one of many gods.
It's a fantasy world, so I can't get any more worked up about it than I do over Star Wars and "the Force" as the main faith system. Again, art goes beyond the world we live in to explore the human condition in unconventional ways. Besides, that there is any kind of faith expressed at all beyond the here and now in our increasingly secular culture, is a little something and I'll take what I can get.
Another interesting treatment is the unflattering depiction of Spanish colonials and their treatment of indigenous people. But as I mentioned, the main villain is an indigenous person who also happens to be a genocidal maniac.
The noble people of Wakanda routinely run roughshod over sovereign countries, violating their laws at will, and using their monopoly in vibranium to do so. This is particularly interesting in light of one character wondering what the United States would do with such power (we certainly know what Wakanda would do already).
Wakanda's withholding of vibranium – and the advanced medical practices it has powered – condemns untold millions to death around the world from illnesses they could easily cure. Race idolatry? Not a lot to idolize there, but a lot to think about.
I guess if you're going to claim that slipping references to "colonizers" and lesbians into a movie is a subversive attempt to sway minds, then you have to accept that the movie also makes you think about how white people are not uniquely evil in the world and that the simple-minded Marxist oppressor-oppressed model of human society lacks subtlety.
I fully concede that I have an unhealthy obsession with Marvel productions, but I have been critical of the ones I thought deserved it.
I don't believe Wakanda Forever deserves it.
There is plenty to criticize in this movie, particularly if you are on high woke-alert. But for a woke Disney production, it has many non-woke themes.
Just be sure to check your grievances at the door, be a decent human being, see people as individuals regardless of their group identity, grab some popcorn, and enjoy.
