Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

A palpable low point for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever follows an assortment of Wakandans, including Letitia Wright’s Shuri, Lupita Nyong’o’s Nakia, and Angela Bassett’s Ramonda, as they attempt to protect their nation in the wake of T’Challa’s sudden and unexpected demise. Filmmaker Ryan Coogler, armed with his and Joe Robert Cole’s screenplay, delivers a pervasively uninvolving misfire that does, at a running time of 161 minutes (!), feel just about endless, as the movie suffers from a pervasive lack of forward momentum that’s compounded by a paucity of compelling sequences or three-dimensional characters – with the latter reflected most keenly in the disastrous decision to focus on Wright’s tiresome, less-than-dynamic figure. (And it doesn’t help, either, that the actress is completely lacking the commanding presence required of a leading performer.) It’s worth noting, as well, that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever‘s arms-length atmosphere is perpetuated by an ongoing emphasis on dimly-lit, hopelessly unexciting action sequences, and there’s little doubt, as well, that the inclusion of several aggressively tedious subplots, especially a mid-movie digression into the world of an underwater race of warriors, heightens the picture’s interminable feel. (This is all to say nothing of the second act’s preponderance of long, drawn-out conversations of an entirely uninteresting nature.) By the time the special-effects-heavy (and thoroughly anticlimactic) final stretch rolls around, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has confirmed its place as an often shockingly underwhelming endeavor that remains unable to capture the viewer’s interest and attention even fleetingly.

no stars out of ****

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