Movie Review: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Directed by Ryan Coogler.

Written by Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a movie with so much riding on it. It has to handle the passing of the fictional king T’Challa as well as the real-life king Chadwick Boseman, it has the pressure of being the sequel to the best MCU movie (yes it is, shut up), it’s the first MCU movie with significant Latinx cultural influence, the list goes on. I’ve heard Ryan Coogler speak about the pressure he felt with the first Black Panther, so I can only imagine the feelings he was going through this time. But you know what? Ryan Coogler is undefeated! The man just can’t seem to miss.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is the 30th film in the MCU, the sequel to the best film in the MCU, and probably the second MCU film that a whole generation of Black people will see. You know, our parents’ generation. The older Black people who couldn’t name a single Avenger, but saw Black Panther in theaters a few times. And that’s fair. The Black Panther movies are great at being their own self-contained stories. But let’s get into it!

Just like the first Black Panther, this movie has an abundance of delightful characters. Angela Bassett brings the most authentic regality possible to Queen Ramonda. Danai Gurira and Lupita N’yongo instill Okoye and Nakia with their own distinct blends of warmth and deadliness. Winston Duke manages to steal the show AGAIN as M’Baku, the world’s largest vegetarian. Martin Freeman still manages to somehow be a likeable agent of a despicable agency.

And that’s just the returning characters! We get introduced to Riri “yesterday’s price is not today’s price” Williams in this movie and she’s everything I wanted her to be. Dominique Thorne fills the role with levity and perfectly portrays the awe that we’d all feel if we encountered anything or anyone from Wakanda. Michaela Coel doesn’t get a huge amount of time as Aneka, but she makes every minute count. I also need to congratulate Tenoch Huerta on playing a version of Namor that I didn’t instantly hate! There’s such a warmth to him in certain scenes, that it almost makes you forget about the cold ruthlessness in the rest of the scenes.

But putting all that aside, I need to talk about the star of the show! Somebody get Letitia Wright vaccinated so she can go to the Oscars and get her Best Actress award! The acting is great across the board in this movie, but Letitia was goin’ OFF! Angela Bassett was the other stand out for me, as much like Shuri, Ramonda got some moments to really let it all out. But the focus here is primarily on Shuri and how she’s dealing with her pain. And woo boy, I was FEELIN’ it! Every bit of anger, sadness, and disillusionment that comes with grief. I’ve felt it, and anyone who has can probably feel it resonate when Letitia gives it on screen.

Grief. It runs all through this movie. On the screen, behind the scenes, in the audience, it’s everywhere. Heartbreak does NOT feel good in a place like this, Nicole! Anyway, one great thing about the way this movie handles grief is the way various characters get to show how they deal with it. Everyone handles it in their own way, and the movie does a wonderful job of reminding us of that. We see Ramonda sticking to her duty and tradition while trying to look after her remaining child, we see Nakia looking back with love and spreading that love to others, we see Okoye holding fast to the title that gives her a sense of meaning. And boy do we see Shuri go through it all. Another great, but more upsetting thing this movie can do is use the real-life pain of the cast to enhance the performances of the pain the characters are feeling. There’s a scene of Shuri lamenting the loss of T’Challa, and if you told me that was just Letitia talking about Chadwick, I would believe it.

You can probably tell from the runtime (TWO HOURS AND FORTY-ONE MINUTES!) that this movie does a lot. It’s not just grief that we’re dealing with here. We also have a story of colonization and the generational traumas that result from it, another Black Panther story about not letting vengeance consume you, the actual comic adaptation part about Wakanda vs. Talokan (Atlantis in the comics. They changed the name, surely in part due to DC beating them to the live-action punch where Atlantis is concerned. Which is ironic considering the fact that Aquaman is a Namor ripoff and this movie is so much better than Aquaman.), and a somewhat superfluous story about how the CIA sucks. I love Martin Freeman, and I love when the CIA gets called out for being evil, but if I would change something about this movie, it would probably be cutting the runtime down a bit by removing the CIA bits. Or at least a few of them. This is my overly verbose way of saying that Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole masterfully crafted a story that feels fleshed out in more than just the grief themes that we all expected. The other elements could have easily been put on the back burner to focus on the loss of Chadwick/T’Challa, but no, everything feels important. Ryan Coogler is undefeated!

Another area in which this movie shines is in the visuals. The Talokan scenes are GORGEOUS, and Wakanda looks as beautiful as ever, as do the people who live there. Man, Black people are beautiful, ain’t we? Angela Bassett was killin’ it in all her Black lady church hats. Just like last time, we get some fantastic action, and just like last time, the best action scenes typically feature Okoye.

And speaking of Okoye (and the Dora Milaje), the score! Ludwig Goransson! Also undefeated! He brought in the music we loved from the first movie and added some new heat to it in a way that only he could. I don’t care much for or about the Oscars (despite bringing them up twice in this review), but he needs an award as well.

I could go on and on about this movie, but I’m sure by the time I post this, our podcast episode about it will have gone up. And spoiler alert, we went on and on about it there, too. But the takeaway here is that this movie is the best of the year (so far) and Ryan Coogler needs to be honored in some way for his contributions to culture and cinema. If you liked the first Black Panther, definitely go see this one. If you didn’t like the first Black Panther, please explain yourself in the comments below.

Tl;dr: This movie has a lot on its plate, but it’s all handled fantastically. And I’d expect nothing less from everyone involved.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Creative Differences Episode 214 | Throwback Thursday – BLACK PANTHER – Movie Reaction

We finally got to do a Black Panther episode!

Movie Review: Death on the Nile

Death on the Nile 

Directed by Kenneth Branagh

Written by Michael Green

Man, this movie had more trouble coming out than Marco from Degrassi. First, there was a pandemic, and then people thought Armie Hammer might actually be Armie Hannibal, and that’s bad for publicity. Speaking of bad publicity, at least two other cast members had controversies of their own. Is Letitia Wright an anti-vaxxer? Is Gal Gadot a Zionist? What is a Zionist? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I do know that after Murder on the Orient Express, I was down to see another movie following Detective Hercules Porto’s, so here we are.

Remember at the end of Murder on the Orient Express, when that guy tells Hercule there’s been a murder “right on the bloody Nile”? Yeah, this is not that case. Hercule solves that case in between movies then goes back to Europe to party, then comes BACK to Egypt where there happens to be another murder. But this time we’ve swapped out the train for a boat. 

This time around we’ve got a whole new ensemble of wacky characters. And this time, no racists! Wait, no, there’s at least one racist? Or maybe reformed racist? It’s the 1930s, just assume someone is racist. Man, you could assume that now. Let’s move on.

Kenneth kills it again as Hercule Poirot, managing to be one of the best performances among a gaggle of talented actors. And Hercule has more depth to him this time around, probably due to us getting an origin story for his mustache. I’m kidding, but we do get that origin story.

Bouc is back, baby! And this time he’s not tryna be a floozy! Bouc is again, one of my favorite characters. He’s so charming and brings great energy and exuberance to these movies. At least until bodies start dropping. But yeah, Tom Bateman did his thing.

I promise I’m not doing a paragraph for every character, but I have to shout out Sophie Okonedo and Letitia Wright as Salome and Rosalie Otterbourne. Sophie brings all the Black auntie energy that this movie can handle and I wish we had more of her. She was my favorite part of the movie. I hadn’t seen Sophie in much before this, but when it comes to Letitia Wright I been knew she was a great actress. It was great to see her shine here.

There are no bad performances here. I maintain that Gal Gadot gets better with each movie I see her in, Armie Hammer is perfectly cast as yet another rich white man, and Russell Brand played well against type as a normal person. Not to say he’s not normal, but his characters are usually weirdos. Oh, and Emma Mackey is concerningly good in her crazy-eyed role. There are other talented actors I haven’t named, but naturally, when you have a whole army of actors to give screen time to, some people won’t get to shine. It be like that sometimes. 

This movie has all of the twists and turns it needs for a whodunnit with over a dozen characters, and fortunately, it didn’t try my patience the way Orient Express did. Hercule was reaching like Dhalsim in that movie and would be correct in theories that had little to no merit. “Oh, you stopped being a cop? You must have been in love with that specific woman who was wrongly convicted of a crime that time!” WHAT?! There are plenty of reasons to stop being a cop, especially since we had established by that point that Dafoe’s character wasn’t actually racist. But I digress. I think this movie did a great job of balancing the clues we needed to follow for the case and the clues we needed to follow for Hercule to flex his ego. Hercule was pointing out mad stuff that didn’t lead to the solving of this crime. But go ahead and flex on ‘em, Hercule. Do ya thang, boy. 

I didn’t love the ending, but that’s a minor thing for me. The answer to the mystery wasn’t annoying, just the bit that immediately followed it. Oh, and I hate that (spoiler redacted) died, but that doesn’t make the storytelling worse, it just upset me personally. 

This movie had some beautiful visuals, and I’m not just talking about how stunning Gal Gadot looks all the time. Great sets, great wardrobe, and great shots. They were REALLY having fun with the shots in this one. A few times I almost said, “Ok, I see you, Kenneth!” but that wouldn’t have been appropriate during the movie. 

Alright, that’s pretty much all I have to say on Boats ‘N Bodies. Kenneth got another hit on his hands, and if he wants to keep dusting off these Agatha Christie books, I’m down to keep watching. Personally, I’m rooting for And Then There Were None to be next. I read that book in middle school, and I don’t remember much about it, but I remember that it was dope. Anyway, if you like mysteries I recommend this movie to you. Unless you have something against over-the-top facial hair. 

Tl;dr: A great cast, impressive directing, and a captivating mystery all come together to make this an enjoyable murder fest. And the Black women are the best part of it. 

Rating: 8 out of 10

Creative Differences Episode 170: Death on the Nile, Kimi, Oscar Snubs, and the Worst Jurassic Park Deaths

Back at it again with the murder! (I realize this doesn’t make sense if you rely on my blog for podcast updates, because I forgot to post episode 169, which was Death on the Orient Express. Oh well, here’s the new one.)