Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
The world is without a Black Panther. The nation of Wakanda is without a king. Above all for Shuri, she is without a brother.
In the opening moments of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Princess Shuri desperately prays for help to save the life of her brother, King T’Challa, also known as The Black Panther. He is dying from a disease and she is trying to use all of her scientific skills to save his life.
He dies. Shuri blames herself.
Now, we all know why T’Challa is not in this film. After Chadwick Boseman passed away in 2020, Marvel Studios made the decision not to recast T’Challa. This means the world is without a Black Panther. The nation of Wakanda is without a king. Above all for Shuri, she is without a brother.
A year passes and while Shuri’s mother Queen Ramonda is ready to finally release the memory of T’Challa, she is not. Instead, Shuri has been holding on to the pain, anger, and grief she feels from the passing of her brother.
It’s not hard to sit with her in it. The absence of T’Challa is felt in this film. This, of course, is by design. When we do see shots of him via flashbacks it's hard not to think of what a dynamic screen presence Boseman was in this role. He was a perfect vessel for the nobility and quiet power of King T’Challa, the Black Panther. As Shuri, Letitia Wright, has none of those qualities. Again, this is by design. Shuri is lost, angry, and fearful. Wright perfectly channels that in her performance.
It’s while in this state of grief that Shuri meet Namor, the ruler of an underwater nation. Namor comes to Shuri in…well, not exactly peace, but in an attempt to set up alliance between his kingdom and Wakanda. To say Namor is distrustful of the rest of the world is an understatement. He has seen “surface dwellers” commit heinous acts of evil and it has made him bitter and resentful.
Shuri is willing to hear him out, and even allow herself to be drawn to his way of thinking, until circumstances put them at odds.
This is a Marvel film so there is no shortage of set pieces, colorful characters, and an ever expand mythology, but co-writer and director Ryan Coogler never loses the core of the film. This film is firmly grounded in Shuri’s grief and every stage she moves through in it.
For those of us that had hoped for many more years of seeing Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever allows us to move through that sense of loss too.