Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Came out; 2022
Time; 2 hour 41 Minutes
Watched: Disney Plus
Rated: PG 13 for sequences of strong violence, action and some language
IMDB Rating; 6.6/10
Rotten Tomatoes:
Tomato Meter 84%
Popcorn Meter 94%
Caution; Spoiler Alert
Staring;
Letitia Wright as Shuri
Lupita Nyong'O as Nakia
Danai Gurira as Okoye
Winston Duke as M'Baku
Angela Bassett as Ramonda
Tenoch Huerta as Namor
Martin Freeman as Everett Ross
Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine
Dominique Thorne as Riri
Florence Kasumba as Ayo
Story Line;
Queen Ramonda, Shuri, M'Baku, Okoye and the Dora Milaje fight to protect the kingdom of Wakanda from intervening world powers in the wake of King T'Challa's death. As the Wakandans strive to embrace their next chapter, the heroes must band together with the help of War Dog Nakia and Everett Ross and forge a new path for their nation
Thoughts:
Honestly not at all what I was expecting. The acting was great, the story line not so much.
It went so back and forth and was hard to follow. I know they had to make changes when Chadwick Bosman died but this was too much.
I love the Marvel movies, but this one wasn't it
CAUTION; Spoiler Alert
T'Challa
(Chadwick Boseman), king of Wakanda, is dying from an unspecified
terminal illness which his sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) (The
princess of Wakanda who designs new technology for the nation)
believes can be cured by the "heart-shaped herb". Shuri
attempts to synthetically recreate the herb after it was destroyed by
Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan), but fails to do so before
T'Challa dies.
One year later, Wakanda is under pressure from
other nations to share their Vibranium, with some parties attempting
to steal it by force. Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) (The Sovereign
Queen regnant of Wakanda who is grieving the death of her son
T'Challa) implores Shuri to continue her research on the herb, hoping
to create a new Black Panther that will defend Wakanda, but she
refuses due to her belief that the Black Panther is a figure of the
past. In the Atlantic Ocean, the CIA and U.S. Navy SEALs utilize a
Vibranium detector to locate a potential Vibranium deposit
underwater. The expedition is killed by a group of blue-skinned,
water-breathing super-humans led by Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejía) (The
king of Talokan, an ancient civilization of underwater dwelling
people. Namor decides to get involved in the surface world after
T'Challa publicly reveals the truth of Wakanda at the end of the
first film, which consequently puts Talokan in "jeopardy",
leading Namor and his people to "take action to protect
themselves"), with the CIA believing Wakanda to be responsible.
Namor confronts Ramonda and Shuri, easily bypassing Wakanda's
advanced security. Blaming Wakanda for the Vibranium race, he gives
them an ultimatum: deliver him the scientist responsible for the
Vibranium detector, or he will attack Wakanda. Namor claims to have a
massive army with incomparable strength.
Shuri and Okoye
(Danai Gurira) (The general of the Dora Milaje, Wakanda's all-female
special forces) learn from CIA agent Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman)
that the scientist in question is MIT student Riri Williams
(Dominique Thorne) (An MIT student and genius inventor from Chicago
who creates a suit of armor that rivals the one built by Tony Stark /
Iron Man) and arrive at the university to confront her. Shuri tells
Everett that Wakanda had nothing to do with the attack on the mining
expedition. The group is pursued by the FBI and then by Namor's
warriors, who defeat Okoye before taking Shuri and Williams
underwater to meet Namor. Angered by Okoye's failure to protect
Shuri, Ramonda strips her of her title as general of the Dora Milaje
(and for siding with the KillMonger when he took over the throne of
Wakanda) and seeks out Nakia (Lupita Nyong'o) (A former War Dog, an
undercover spy for Wakanda, from the River Tribe), who has been
living in Haiti since The Blip
Ramonda contacts Everett, but
refuses to divulge that it was Namor who abducted Riri. Everett and
the CIA believes that it was the Wakandans again.
Namor shows
Shuri his Vibranium-rich underwater kingdom of Talokan, which he has
protected for centuries from discovery by the world. Namor says that
he comes from the Yucatan peninsula. In 1571 AD, the Spanish
conquistadors brought disease and war. Their shaman was given a
vision of a different world, and led to a blue plant growing in a
rock. The shaman takes the plant and grinds it into a paste, that is
taken by all natives, including Namor's mother who was pregnant at
the time. The plant took away their ability to breathe air, but gave
them the ability to draw oxygen from water. Namor was born in the
water and the plant gave him wings on his ankles and ears that
pointed to the clouds. He was a mutant. Namor returned to bury his
mother in her homeland and killed the European settlers. The
Christian priest calls him a demon, a child without love, or Namor.
Nakia tracks down Shuri to the same spot where the shaman entered the
water world for the first time.
Bitter at the surface world
for enslaving the Maya, Namor proposes an alliance with Wakanda
against the rest of the world but threatens to destroy Wakanda if
they refuse. Nakia helps Shuri and Williams escape, killing a
Talokanil guard in the process, and Namor retaliates with an attack
against Wakanda, during which Ramonda drowns while saving Williams.
Namor vows to return with his full army in one week's time, and the
citizens of Wakanda relocate to the Jabari mountains for their
safety. Meanwhile, Ross is arrested by his ex-wife, CIA director
Valentina Allegra De Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), for secretly
exchanging classified intelligence with the Wakandans.
After
Ramonda's funeral, Shuri uses a remnant of the herb that gave Namor's
people their superhuman abilities to reconstruct the heart-shaped
herb. She was able to do this with the bracelet that Namor gifted
her, which contained the remnant of the plant that their Shaman had
found in 1571 AD. Together Riri and Shuri figure out that Namor
derives his strength from the water. He can be weakened if dried out.
She ingests it, gaining superhuman abilities (but going into cardiac
arrest in the process) and meeting Killmonger in the Ancestral Plane,
who urges her to seek revenge. Shuri dons a new Black Panther suit
and is accepted by the other Wakandan tribes as the Black Panther.
Despite M'Baku's (Winston Duke) (A powerful warrior and leader of
Wakanda's mountain tribe, the Jabari) urges for peace, Shuri is
determined to exact vengeance on Namor for Ramonda's death and orders
an immediate counterattack on Talokan. Preparing for battle, with Ayo
assuming the position of general of the Dora Milaje, Shuri bestows
the Midnight Angel armor upon Okoye, who in turn recruits Dora Milaje
member Aneka (Michaela Coel) (A Wakandan warrior and member of the
Dora Milaje) to join her. Williams creates an Iron Man like powered
exoskeleton to aid the Wakandans.
Using a seafaring vessel,
the Wakandans lure Namor and his warriors to the surface with another
Vibranium detector as a battle ensues. Shuri traps Namor in a fighter
aircraft, intending to dry him out and weaken him. The pair crash on
a desert beach and fight. Shuri gains the upper hand, but has a
vision of Ramonda and implores Namor to yield, offering him a
peaceful alliance. Namor accepts, and the battle ends. Namor's
cousin, Namora (Mabel Cadena), is upset at Namor's surrender, but he
assures her that the new alliance will allow them to conquer the
surface world one day. Williams returns to MIT, leaving her suit
behind, while Okoye rescues Ross from captivity. Shuri plants more
heart-shaped herbs to ensure the future of the Black Panther mantle.
In Shuri's absence, M'Baku steps forward to challenge for the throne.
Shuri visits Nakia in Haiti where she burns her funeral robe in
accordance with Ramonda's wishes, allowing herself to finally grieve
for T'Challa.
In a mid-credits scene, Shuri learns that Nakia
and T'Challa had a son named Toussaint, whom Nakia has been raising
in secret. Toussaint reveals his Wakandan name is T'Challa.
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