Black Panther: Ramonda Forever
As we all remember, the year 2020 was an era of tremendous chaos and great tragedy. One such tragedy was the death of the great Chadwick Bosemon, who previously starred as the lead of Black Panther, T'challa, aka the Black Panther. The second film in this series, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, as much as it is a blockbuster, is a memorial to the late Chadwick Boseman. This sentiment echoes throughout the entire movie, and we feel his presence from beginning to end.
The Black Panther sequel stars Letitia Wright, who reprises her role as Princess Shuri. As most people know by now, Shuri goes on to take the Black Panther mantle following the death of her elder brother T'challa as a result of an unnamed illness. This plot directly mirrors real life, as Bosemon passed away after a long battle with colon cancer, and Wright was propelled to lead the franchise as a result.
The majority of the film follows Shuri, before embracing the Black Panthers’ legacy, as she ragefully mourns her brother’s death alongside her mother the newly-reinstated Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett). However, their bereavement is cut short when they are confronted by the lost kingdom of Talokan, led by King Namor (Tenoch Huerta), a mutant who presents them with an ultimatum: kill a certain scientist or Wakanda will be wiped out by his superhuman forces.
It takes very little discussion for the Ramonda’s council to decide against following Namor’s orders. Instead, they enlist the help of CIA agent Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman) to locate this mysterious scientist, who happens to be MIT student, and Tony Stark stan Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne). Their decision to protect the Riri, whose vibranium-sensing invention was accidentally used by the CIA to locate Talokan, immediately excites the wrap of both CIA and King Namor.
Namor’s warriors kidnapped Shuri, taking her to Talokan for a face-to-face conversation with the King. Meanwhile, Queen Ramonda calls upon T’Challa’s lover Nakia (Lupita N’yongo) who infiltrates Talokan, rescues Shuri and Riri, and kills one of Namor’s people in the process. A wrathful Namor leads an invasion of Talokan and murders the Queen. It is at this tragic moment when Huerta delivers one of the coldest lines in Marvel villain history: “Mourn your losses. Bury you're dead. You are queen now.”
Losing her last known family member pushes Shuri to embrace the Black Panther. But, instead of receiving either of the last known monarchs as her spirit guide, Shuri is reunited with her villainous cousin Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) who encourages her to seek revenge by killing Namor. In their final encounter, she overpowers the mutant. At the last moment, she hears her mother’s voice calling from the ancestral plane. Shuri spares Namor, sparking an era of peace between the kingdoms. The film ends with Shuri leaving the throne behind and visiting Nakia in Haiti where she learns that her brother left behind a son, also named T’Challa.
Wakanda Forever, in addition to being a tale of fictional characters processing their grief, transformed the cinema into a space for the audience to process their own. Words could hardly express the significance that Chadwick Boseman held to his family, his cast mates, and to the entirety of the Black diaspora. He represented us with dignity that extended far beyond what could be captured in any script. And his death at such a young age was a shock to us all. To honor him, we collectively agreed to wear white as we made our trip to the movie, and the whole room went silent when Rihanna’s Lift Me Up played in his memory towards the film’s closing act.
All that said, we collectively walked away from this experience with another name in mind, Angela Bassett, who gave a life-changing performance as Queen Ramonda. From her first scene until her character’s death, Bassett carried such power and grace that one could only stop and stare in awe. All of this builds up at the one-third mark when Shuri is kidnapped despite being under Okoye’s guard. At that moment, we saw Ramonda’s vulnerability. And in that vulnerability, we also saw her strength. This woman lost T’Challa three separate times, in addition to losing the rest of her family and not knowing Shuri’s fate. Bassett embodied these emotions beautifully.
Because of this, she became the first actor to be nominated for any major acting award in a Marvel movie, winning a Golden Globe and the Critics Choice Award. She also received an Oscar nomination, but her loss to Jamie Lee Curtis brought quite the scandal. It is no secret that, out of the actresses nominated for Best Supporting Actress, Curtis had the least impressive performance. Her completely unexpected win combined with Bassett’s lack of forced enthusiasm temporarily sparked a controversy that Bassett never entertained. Eventually, the scandal passed, but my bitterness at her loss will most likely forever remain.
Despite its strong cast and cinematic genius, this film came with several glaring weaknesses. The film suffered from sometimes corny lines and cheap-looking special effects. The larger battle scenes could have been more impressive, given the small number of people on set. That said, many of these weaknesses are a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a worldwide shutdown at the beginning of 2020, along with Boseman’s unexpected passing.
This movie, with all of its growth and glows, marked the conclusion of Phase 4 of the MCU. It was the passing of a torch from character to character, from actor to actor, and from storyline to storyline. Being one of the many fans who are still very satisfied with the MCU’s trajectory, I look forward to critically engaging with their upcoming projects as we usher in Phase 5. The old MCU is gone. Now is the time for us to process our grief over what past films once were so that we may enjoy where the franchise is realistically headed.
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