Hey what's going on everyone! It's Dan here and today I'll be reviewing Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. I'm extremely late for this review but better late than never I always say.

Now first and for most, This sequel was very much in limbo following the death of Chadwick Boseman aka T'Challa aka the Black Panther. After his death, they had to rewrite the entire script and delay it since Chadwick was no longer able to perform his role. I will say I'm glad they didn't blatantly replace him with another actor like they did with Rhode aka War Machine or Bruce Banner aka Hulk and instead decided to go with the story of Shuri becoming the new Black Panther. I had a feeling they would go this route following Boseman's death which I felt was the right and respectful call. With that being said, it's now time to review the actual movie itself.

Now the cast for the Black Panther movie have all returned (excluding Boseman) and it's nice to see them all reprising their roles with the addition of Riri Williams aka Iron Heart (played by Dominique Thorne) and Namor the Sub Mariner (played by Tenoch Huerta). Letitia Wright was given more screen time as Shuri since she is the star of the movie, she is now dawning the mantle of Black Panther since her brother T'Challa has passed away due to a mysterious Illness (didn't specify, used to write him off since Boseman is no longer with us). As I said, I knew they would go with this route as Shuri being the new Black Panther.....at least that's how the trailers made it out to be.

Now the plot itself would have you believe that Shuri has taken on the mantle of Black Panther right after her brothers death right? not quite.....She doesn't really officially become the Black Panther until like the last third of the movie. This movie is like 2 hours and 41 minutes long and we don't see Shuri take on the role until like the 2 hour mark. Now if you've seen the Black Panther movie you'd understand why she can't just dawn it right away, that being said....the pacing is so slow. The first half of the movie I could barely pay attention because the pacing was so slow. After the funeral for T'Challa scene, it was hard to get invested into the story for the first half, it wasn't until the second half of it where Shuri and Namor have their scenes I was actually starting to focus and get invested into the narrative and Characters.

Now Shuri taking on the role of the Protagonist and new Black Panther is no small feat, She's filling in big shoes since her bother is gone. Now Shuri as the lead wasn't bad, it was actually interesting to watch. I did enjoy her inner conflict and turmoil throughout the film, it made her character interesting, as M'Baku implied, she's no longer a child and I agree. She's not the same happy go lucky snarky genius we saw in Black Panther or Infinity War, she's depressed and is expected to be as great as her brother. Like I said, Shuri did great, but her supporting cast fell a bit flat especially Iron Heart (Her suit looks like a straight up power ranger suit). Shuri was a great supporting character in the black panther movie, but as a lead she did okay, again it's her cast I'm not extremely fond of. M'Baku went from the god damn bad ass warrior to an uncle/godfather role model who's more of a brute than usual which I wasn't fond of. In fact, the cast was kind of like an all female version of the cast from the first film, Shuri is in T'challa's role and Riri is kind of like Killmonger but good.

Namor was a confusing character, it was hard to hate or love him, I was very mixed on him despite that he was suppose to be the Antagonist of the film. His origin story is tweaked a bit compared to the comics and I don't mind that since he hasn't been utilized in years for any Marvel media besides some animated projects. Though there are some plotholes in his story that I can't wrap my head around. Why was he the only one without blue skin? why does he only get winged feet and pointy ears while his people are just blue and water breathers while he can breathe air and water? I can forgive his clunky origin, but that doesn't help how they wrote his character, again he is the villain. But he's still somewhat sympathetic and doesn't come off as a malevolent type, he comes off more as Aquaman from Flashpoint where he's the King of the sea and leads his people to battle or War. I'm extremely mixed on him and I can't really see him as a villain, feels like he should have been an allie to Shuri. Towards the end, they do end up coming to a peace treaty (after a bloody near death battle) and become somewhat allies and it works well enough. Even after that, they try to make him come off as a devious individual waiting for his time to rise and it doesn't really work.

As mentioned, Shuri Doesn't take on the role of Black Panther until the end of the movie where she synthesizes up the flowers to give Black Panthers their powers. She even visits the Ancestral Plane and sees a familiar face, someone she didn't expect to see. I always saw her as the atheist of the family and I was right, she did not believe in any of the mystical stuff (at least to the same degree as her family) and she got a big surprise. Due to this, she was influenced to seek revenge against Namor for killing her mother and in the end she chose the noble path her brother would choose when he confronted Zemo after he had killed their father, Justice. I still believe the pacing killed the movie a bit and had they cut it back at least a half hour, it would have been better.

Overall, the movie isn't horrible, but it wasn't great either. Again, the script was redone because of Boseman's death and I can't blame anyone for that. For what we ended up getting instead was okay, but I think they should have worked on the characters and pacing of the movie. I understand they have a schedule to keep with the MCU, but I'd rather we get a better quality product even if it means taking more time on it.

Rating this movie I'm giving it:

6/10

The first half was slow and clunky, but it picked it up in the second half. It's okay for what we got but I personally don't care too much for it but maybe you guys will like it more. I recommend giving it a watch once.

That's all I got for today, see ya!