Black Panther - Wakanda Forever - November 2022

[JPL]

Caught up on this over the weekend and thought it was absolutely terrible.

 

I thought the original was crap and was the beginning of Marvel’s decline for me, and this has come along and totally sealed the deal that it’s pretty much done.

 

There’s just so much wrong with it, I don’t know where to start. Boring, pointless story, terrible villain, too long, shit effects, uncharismatic lead, too many characters, etc, etc. The list goes on and on.

 

The only plus points I’ll give it were the tribute to Boseman and Angela Bassett’s display of grief. Everything else was a mess.

 

It doesn’t sound Ant Man is much better either, so I’ll wait for that to appear on Disney+.

[Gabe]

I honestly don't even know where to start with this, because obviously it was absolutely dreadful, but it just failed in so many ways; as an interesting standalone film, or as part of something bigger or a character piece it is just a miserable failure. This was also, by far, the most outright boring film I've seen in a long time - not just within the MCU, but out of anything I've seen in a long time. It could've cut an hour, easily, and nothing would've been lost. It just took far too long for very little to happen and then when it did, the CGI was less than convincing.

 

Shuri has also suffered from the fate that befell T'Challa in that when asked to lead a film - rather than be a side character - she was robbed of any charisma previously displayed (I still think T'Challa's best appearance was his cameo in Civil War). She basically spent the whole film pulling Daily Mail sadface and it wasn't a good look.

 

The only even vaguely positive thing was the way they worked-in the bits where the cast were speaking directly to the loss of Boseman, and although it didn't tug on my heartstrings at all, I'm sure for it resonated for some people.

 

As I say, it was easily the most boring film in the MCU, but I'm not actually sure if it was the worst. It doesn't really matter I suppose, pondering that won't give me my evening back.

 

More specific spoilers:

Spoiler

So, Shuri then. I don't remember the finer details of the first film, but I remember Shuri being the light-relief in that outing. Obviously, given her journey and the fact she was now in the limelight that meant a reframing, but even so she was so...empty. I got nothing from her performance, she had no presence (even less so when she became the Panther) and just didn't feel like a good lead.

 

Bassett's performance was...okay? Like the whole film, she was just so overwrought and I think it dragged everything down because the script and underlying story weren't good enough to carry the weight of it all.

 

The whole end fight at the end - apart from being incredibly dull - looked horrendous. I get that the bit on the desert had a filter to make it brighter to contrast between the sea and land, but it looked awfully cheap and like it had been cut from a completely different film. I actually was hoping they would both die at the end, but sadly it was not to be.

 

[Festoon]

One thing is for sure, Letitia Wright doesn't have the charisma for the role. Weird thing is, Lupita Nyong'o has shitloads of charisma, would plotwise make sense, and is just a better actor and they stuck her in a bit part.

[Gabe]

1 minute ago, Festoon said:

One thing is for sure, Letitia Wright doesn't have the charisma for the role. Weird thing is, Lupita Nyong'o has shitloads of charisma, would plotwise make sense, and is jist a better actor and they stucl her in a bit part.

Yeah, I haven't seen Wright in anything else so I didn't know if she actually has any acting chops or this was just a bad vehicle for her - but agree completely about Nyong'o, as soon as she arrived she brought some actual presence to the screen, as well as more than one expression.

 

Just reading back through other peoples' spoilered comments and I didn't even hear that

Spoiler

Ross & Contessa were previously married; when she turned-up I just expected her to tell everybody to f-off and ask Gary to make her a tea. I blame the fact my attention was drifting way before that point.