I never thought the original Black Panther was anywhere near being the best solo Marvel movie, but I did enjoy it and T'Challa's character throughout his appearances. With that being said, when Chadwick Boseman sadly passed, I accepted that this franchise was doomed. I always believed that recasting T'Challa was the only way to go. It would've been incredibly hard to find a good replacement, but the character is very important to the Marvel universe. It is also simply too soon to pass the mantle of Black Panther on. When they confirmed he wouldn't be recast, I felt like it was a big mistake narratively.

Now does Wakanda Forever handle the death of T'Challa/Boseman well? Absolutely! Being able to respect the legacy of the actor while also metatextually connecting the event to an in-universe tragedy is definitely one of the movie's standout features. Regardless, I feel like the movie is a little too reliant on the audience being impacted by Boseman's passing.

Don't get me wrong, the fully silent opening gave me chills. They incorporated the death beautifully and honorably, but the result is what feels like two movies in one. You can clearly tell the original script was written before Chadwick's death. I really respect Coogler's decision to not recast, but I still wish T'Challa and Namor got to cross paths.

My issues spring not from the T'Challa-related parts of the film, but from how the rest feels lacking without his presence. I don't think Shuri works as the protagonist. She was a fun (yet underdeveloped) carefree tech nerd in the original movie and here she takes a 180 to being reserved and bitter. The changes to her character were perhaps necessary for this story, but it doesn't make them good changes for her. Some don't match her at all and her vengeful arc is just T'Challa's from Civil War with a less fitting character. She never struck me as someone who would willingly become the Black Panther and there isn't much impact when she does anyway.

Ramonda is a pleasant surprise in this movie. Her monologues are insane. Angela Bassett deserves all the credit she's been receiving. However, Okoye is the only character I felt really connected to and she is stupidly sidelined a third into the movie. She would've enhanced the film a lot if given more screen time. So would've M'Baku, who is completely wasted. Between them and W'Kabi, who is fully absent, we have three characters connected to T'Challa and it isn't explored how his death affected any of them personally. This is one of many missed opportunities that came with trying to focus the movie on both Talokan and T'Challa's death.

Some of the action scenes are awesome and some drag. As to be expected from Danai Gurira, Okoye's fight scenes are the tensest we've gotten from Marvel all year.

Namor himself is a pretty good villain. In a similar fashion to Killmonger, his actor sells the character for me despite his viewpoints being completely ridiculous. They somehow managed to adapt his crazy mutant powers to live-action in a cool way. Changing his kingdom from Atlantis to Talokan ended up being a really cool idea, even though the place and its people needed more elaboration. There are many more cool concepts they could've explored with the Aztec roots. Hopefully they are saving more about the civilization, the people's powers, and their technology for a Namor project.

Ironheart is an even more underdeveloped part of the movie, undoubtedly to save content for her upcoming show. Her character is just as dumb and not relatable as I expected her to be and her suit looks awful. A Black Panther movie didn't feel like the right place to introduce an Iron Man ripoff.

Also, Ross's entire storyline felt weird and unneeded. It's only included to add awkward colonizer jokes and set up future MCU films. If he and Ironheart were removed, there would definitely be enough room to have included more from the aforementioned underutilized characters.

By the latter half of this movie, the pacing really starts to drag. I've complained recently about Marvel movies like Multiverse of Madness and Love and Thunder being way too short, but this film had no reason to be 2 hours and 40 minutes and feel like it's over 3 hours. There's so much downtime between the action that when the final battle starts, the movie has already overstayed its welcome.

The things I'm disappointed they didn't include or flesh out have no excuse to not be here or be better implemented considering how aggressively long and slow the film is.

So this definitely isn't a bad movie per se, but it's not fantastic either. It's very bold but very flawed with iffy decisions on what to prioritize and how to structure this challenging project. I was pretty disappointed when I first saw it, but there's some great stuff sprinkled throughout. The lack of T'Challa, awkward pacing, and wasted opportunities easily made it worse than the first movie to me.

I am conflicted with this film and with Marvel.

Let's review the good first. There is a heartfelt tribute to T'Challa and obviously to the actor who played him. The emotions shown feel real and manage to move. The performances are good in this regard. Angela Bassett stands out above the rest.

I'm not one to oppose the replacement of Atlantis by Talokan, as this gives another excellent excuse to show some content that derives from universal culture in gigantic products like the MCU movies. Namor is an excellent addition to the ranks of Marvel superheroes immediately showing how powerful he is and what he is capable of.

The action sequences are entertaining, as Marvel has already accustomed us.

The wardrobe is also something to value in this film. There is a great effort and meaning behind each of the suits, which successfully try to mix the different cultures with the new times full of technology. This makes an excellent contribution to character design.

Now what I didn't like about the movie. The entire story feels too light and if you think about it, pretty ridiculous. Namor's motivations don't match his plans or his actions throughout the film. Marvel Studios again falls flat when writing and developing their villains. It all feels like a mere excuse for the characters to clash. There is nothing really of weight in the story, except for the death of T'Challa, which is also not well used, abusing the drama whenever they can.

I liked Riri Williams' introduction, but not Ironheart's introduction. The story devoured her as a secondary character and was relegated to the background when in fact the beginning of the film gives her much more importance.

The pacing of the movie is inconsistent. It's pretty monotonous until the action scenes, which are good, but short. Sometimes, there is too much information happening too fast without giving the opportunity to fully appreciate each sequence and each character involved.

Finally, the effects are good, as expected, but something is wrong with the composition of the cities. Both Wakanda and Talokan have a contrast and color problem that prevents them from being fully appreciated.

The final battle scenario also seems pretty bad to me.

Overall, the movie is entertaining if you just want to have fun with fights and visuals, but I think it's about time Marvel got serious about their movies and realized that adults are also consuming superhero movies.

Let's start with the good points - this film doesn't try to be all comedy and spectacle, like the recent Dr Strange 2 and Thor 4. In fact, there is almost zero comedy at all.

It does try to bring some drama, and to make some points about the responsibility of nations to use their wealth, resources and technology for global benefit, rather than national advancement.

Namor is different to the comics, but once I got past the initial differences, I think the portrayal was a good one. He isn't a one-dimensional villain, his people are descended from the Mayans, and he has proper motivation.

But the film has a lot of problems. Firstly, the pacing is all over the place - it should be at least half an hour shorter. The comic-book science is paper thin (Shuri extracts DNA from plant fibres on a bracelet that has been underwater for 400 years, but cannot do the same from the recently dead plant in her lab). Shuri takes a spear right through her stomach and out of her back, but gets over it after a short breather. The Wakandan ship is breached from undersea, tilts over by 45 degrees and then the next scene it is upright and apparently seaworthy again. The fact that Namor's people take mortal wounds but get up again is never explained.

And then there is still my biggest problem with Wakanda. Both Black Panther films promote the idea that Wakanda is a Utopian society, both technology and socially. Yet they still choose their leader by who is best at beating up other challengers.

I think there was a missed opportunity here. Namor would be more likely to say "join us, or if not, don't get in our way", as he plans to attack the rest of the surface world. This would present Wakanda with a far more interesting moral dilemma - standby by and watch untold millions die, or utilise their resources and technology to aid the nations who have been trying to rob them.