Released on Nov. 11, 2022, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” illustrates the beauty behind their recently lost lead actor, Chadwick Boseman.

(Spoilers)

At the beginning of the film, the people of Wakanda have a beautiful funeral for King T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman). The scene was filled with unique african makeup, tribal wear and intricate dances. This scene was very powerful when I was watching, which I enjoyed. I could feel the grief from the actors through the screen which made it even more emotional.

The film then jumps to a meeting being held in Switzerland, with all of the countries in the United Nations. The meeting is held to evaluate Wakanda’s place in the UN and other countries want them to distribute vibranium evenly. Queen Romanda (Angela Bassett) shuts down the idea of distributing vibranium but informs ally countries that there has been outreaches at their research facilities outside of Wakanda. 

A fight scene plays into perspective, an outside force of a neighboring country is trying to reach the vibranium but is quickly stopped by the Dora Milaje, led by the general Okoye (Danai Gurira). This scene was astonishing because of the visual effects. All these women fighting in this scene so powerfly was really cool to watch and instantly brought me back to the first movie. 

The film jumps back to the UN meeting where Queen Romanda and the Dora Milaje are revealing the identities of the attackers from the research facility. Queen Romanda sends a threat to the other countries that if another attack happens, Wakanda will stop at nothing to fight back.

The film progresses forward into a scene in the Atlantic Ocean where a team of Navy Seals and the CIA are clearly doing something suspicious. The viewers are informed that there has been vibranium spotted outside of Wakanda. A team of two seals go down into the Atlantic to retrieve the vibranium. Once down in the ocean they are star struck by the fact they found vibranium, but suddenly their power shuts down and everything is black except for their suits. The divers see a figure swim by and are trembling. One minute they’re there, and the next minute they’re gone.

The servers shut down on the boat and a figure is spotted in the water by a sergeant. He calls for backup but a soothing siren song begins as a hundred more mysterious figures appear. The sonic attack is forcing the boat workers to commit suicide by jumping into the water. The mysterious people in the water turn out to be blue and are decked out in headwear and beaded. The general escapes the attack via helicopter and is making a secure escape, but then is dramatically being pulled down into the water by an unknown source. When the helicopter violently hits the water, the camera pans up to a dark figure in the sky.

Coming back from the UN meeting, Queen Ramonda and Okoye have arrived in Wakanda. They go into Shuri’s (Letitia Wright) lab and are met with her bewildering attitude. The queen forces her to take her for a ride and we see them gathered around a fire on the beach. Surrounded by an unreal landscape and a herd of elephants, Queen Ramonda wants her and Shuri to both burn the garments from T’challa’s funeral. Queen Ramonda throws her in the fire, but Shuri refuses. Angrily she is making her way back to the ship, when the herd of elephants let out a big roar, hinting there is something in the water.

A flying man, like we have seen before, emerges from the water and flies straight to the surface of the beach that the queen and Shuri are now protecting with spears. Baffled by the fact he got into Wakanda, the queen asks him his name and what he wants. He addresses himself as Namor and informs them about the attack on their nation’s vibranium by the seals. He wants Wakanda’s help to find the mechanic who built the vibranium detector, and he wants the mechanic to be brought to him. 

At this point in the film, I am really enjoying everything I have seen thus far. The villain is obviously powerful and has an undeniable vengeance that is worthy of watching. The fight scenes and the CGI has been amazing and I was intrigued every second of the way.

After the threat from Namor the tribes of Wakanda hold a meeting about what the queen and Shuri witnessed. After a lot of bickering from all of the tribes, a decision was made that they will retrieve the mechanic and bring whoever the mastermind is back to Wakanda.

Okoye and Shuri go on the mission and end up at MIT, they have eye sight of the college girl and Shuri takes the lead on the operation. She meets up with the talented mechanic Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), and is impressed by all the machines she has built thus far in her life. Shuri warns Riri of the dangers of what she has built and how she needs to come to Wakanda where her safety is secure. With a lot of back and forth, she agrees and her, Okoye, and Shuri head to the lab where Riri builds all of her machines.

After being at the lab and witnessing the amazing capabilities of the child prodigy, the CIA surround the lab and all three of the women plan a sweet escape. Shuri and Okoye split up between a motorcycle and a car, and Riri flies out of the lab with a robotic suit she made by hand. They go on an ambitious yet exciting police chase with many officers, and when they escape a water bomb hits them like a truck and send all three girls flying across the bridge they were on. 

Once Okoye escapes from underneath the flipped car, she sees four strange looking blue people, like we have seen before, jump off of an orca and onto the bridge. Okoye challenges three of them, while the leader tries to get to Shuri and Riri, because they are still unconscious. After a long fight, the leader of the disclosed blue people throw a water bomb at Okoye and she goes flying into the water, and when she swims to the surface, Shuri and Riri ere taken by the blue people and heading into the depths of the ocean via whale.

Once Okoye returns to Wakanda and informs the queen about the kidnapping of the two girls, she turns to long lost spy, Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o). The queen reaches Haiti, where Nakia lives since the death of T’challa, and tells Nakia what has happened. After finding out about the kidnapping, she goes to an ancient village to find answers about this mythical tribe. After talking to an old woman about the flying man and tribe, she traces Shuri’s kimoyo beads to the depths of the ocean.

While Nakia is finding the locations of the girls, Shuri and Riri wake up in the underwater village of Talokan. When the girls wake up they are met by Namor with open arms. He takes Shuri with him and gives her a tour of the village. They go through rigorous currents of water touring the village, and we see them talking one on one. After Namor shares the backstory of how he and his people came to be, he sends a threat that he needs the genius mechanic because of everything he has to lose.

When Namor is called by his peers for a discussion, Shuri returns back to Riri and after sharing the news of danger to her, they see Nakia there to rescue them. When she makes her appearance in Talokan she is spotted by the blue people and fires a shot at one of them. Once the guard is knocked down the other woman guarding the princess grabs her and holds a knife to her neck. Without hesitation she fires off a shot, and ultimately kills her and takes the princess and Riri with her.

When Namor gets back and sees what the Wakandans have done to his people, he is enraged. He gathers the people of Talokan and sets up for war on the surface world.

When all three of the girls get back to Wakanda safely, Shuri tells Queen Ramonda everything Namor has told her about attacking the surface world.

The film stops their conversation, and pans to Nakia and Okoye catching up on their lives. They are walking through the villages in Wakanda when every house, pipe, and wall is flooded with water by the people of Talokan. While Wakanda is under attack every special force is required, battleships take off and everyone is armed. 

This fight was my favorite scene in the movie because we really got to see the potential and star power of the people of Talokan like we haven’t before. I also appreciate that Marvel made Namor such a strong villain with many capabilities and strategic logic when fighting.

While the village is under attack, Namor makes his way to the castle where Queen Ramonda and Riri are protecting themselves. Queen Ramonda and Namor stand face to face with each other with only a glass window blocking them. Namor gives her a look of betrayal, then throws hundreds of water bombs at the glass. He makes a sweet escape with his people, and the viewers see Riri and Queen Ramonda drowning in her own home. 

While rescuing civilians Shuri, Okoye, and Nakia see the water bomb explode, and flood the home of the queen. They rushed back there but it was ultimately too late. They were able to save Riri’s life, but for Queen Ramonda it was too late. The people of Wakanda had an emotional funeral for the queen, and Shuri was left with no one.

This scene was totally unexpected for me, I would have never thought that Marvel would kill the only family member that Shuri had left. But ultimately it made for an emotional and dramatic scene.

Powered by betrayal and vengeance, Shuri compromises with her own thoughts and embraces herself in becoming the black panther. Without a ceremony or the nation’s medical professional, she does the ceremony on her own. Right after she ingested the herb, she is taken to an alternate universe where she meets her mentor that was a former black panther. Assuming to see her brother or father, she sees Killomonger (Michael B. Jordan). Brutally enraged and confused as to why he is here, he gives her his unwanted advice when she is facing Namor. His advice was to finish business, and to be powered by the way he has hurt you, he tells her to not be noble like her brother, and take care of business like he tried too.

When Shuri wakes up from the ceremonial dream, she is consumed by the black panther and has all the powers that all the ones that came before her did. She designs a suit for her specifically, and makes a grand supreme entrance to the tribal meeting. She shares her words of wisdom as the black panther, and the nation of Wakanda ships off to the Atlantic Ocean for the ultimate battle against the nation of Talokan.

The film springs back to the nation of Talokan, and they have been informed that another vibranium detector has been spotted in their ocean. They head to the detector and when they get there, they are ambushed with loud music coming from the detector. They swim to the surface and a ginormous Wakandan ship is armed with hundreds of warriors.

The battle begins and it seems to be going fairly. The Dora Milaje as well as many other warriors are doing an excellent job of defending off the people of Talokan. While the big fight is happening below, Shuri and Riri are working on getting Namor out of the water and to the desert because he cannot get oxygen from the water to fuel his body. They successfully accomplish that, and he and Shuri are having a brawl on the jet. Surrounded by heat waves on the jet, he is losing his powers and fast. To slow down the jet, he thrust his spear into a rotator on the jet to crash them into the desert’s shore. When they both wake up from the crash, Namor is hitting Shuri with flying punches coming from everywhere imaginable. For her, fighting back does not seem like an option but she finally makes a move and cuts off one of his wings so he is potentially off balanced. 

The fight continues and the film pans back and forth between the two battles going on. While the Dora Milaje and the rest of Wakanda is getting slammed, Shuri is making progress on Namor. Without oxygen from the water, he is getting weaker and weaker as the fight goes on. Shuri finally hits him with the big explosion of fire that dries him out for good. With hum unable to walk nor barely even move, Shuri is about to end him but hears her mothers voice in her head. She speaks words of wisdom that read, “show who you truly are.” Between Killomger and Queen Romanda both in her head, she decides to spare his life.

With all of Wakanda going to be defeated on the boat, Shuri and Namor stop the fight by flying in at the last minute and declaring a truce between the two nations.

Overall, I loved this movie. The cgi was overwhelmingly good and some of the scenes they thought of were unimaginable. The emotion from all of the characters was amazing and it was consistent throughout the film. This movie matched up perfectly with the first one and was an exceptional tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman.

4.5/5