Black Panther: Wakanda Forever 4K 2022 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

After the death of King T'Challa, Queen Ramonda, Shuri, M'Baku, Okoye, and Dora Milage fight to protect Wakanda from world powers.

Review 4K Movie

At the heart of the story we have the death of the King, the loss of the Black Panther, and therefore the countless problems that must engulf Wakanda. The trouble is, swap literally two fragments within the story, key to the development of the story, and the story lines would end in the blink of an eye. Alas, the further the action progresses, the more Ryan Coogler piles on conventions that you, as the viewer, will have to accept if you long to see the denouement. And it is, much to the dismay of the audience, very frustrating.

Despite a couple of strong segments, the third act of "Wakanda Forever" is only disappointing, for the ending begs the damnable question, "What was it all for?" And the film's key secondary storyline doesn't close. Its continuation, most likely, the viewer will see only two years later - in the upcoming "Thunderbirds.

Returning to "Panther": it's too bad that the authors were unable to realize the potential that was on paper. The picture suffers not only on a semantic level, but also on a technical level. There's the lousy editing, the questionable camerawork accents, and the mediocre visuals, which is commonplace for Marvel films these days. But the biggest problem (of a technical nature) is the action, which is poorly staged and lacks any creativity. The action was certainly a problem in the 2018 original, but the sequel takes the worst of the first film and smears the second film with it. Not one decent action scene in an action blockbuster for two and a half hours - and this with a $250 million budget and enormous potential.

That said, the second "Panther" surprises in unexpected ways. The film is not devoid of rather strong emotional scenes, where the actors have to act - and they do, and they do it well. Tenoch Huerta as Namor was my biggest fear before the premiere, but surprisingly, the actor looks quite organic in the frame. He doesn't inspire fear, he has little in common with the comic book prototype, but within the "KVM Circus" framework the character turned out... okay. Yes, his decisions and goals are the film's weakness, but that's a question for the writers and director.

Riri Williams played by Dominic Thorne could also have been a problem, an unnecessary element in the narrative, but her story is rather well woven into the plot and the overall presentation of the character is solid. Riri is such a typical "megabrain from MIT" heroine, with the character surprisingly not annoying and fitting "okay" into the universe.

Probably what pleased me the most was Shuri. Before the premiere, I was afraid that the character, after going through a lot of dramatic events, would remain true to herself, the original image of 2018. However, and this is not a spoiler, Shuri is the protagonist of the film, and we watch as shifting reality changes the heroine. How Shuri, like her comic-book prototype, becomes more mature and firm, given all the weight of responsibility that has been heaped on the young princess. Toward the end, the confident, childlike, determined Shuri begins to resemble the key character in the first part - and I don't mean T'Challa at all. In her anger, in her intentions, the heroine almost turns into Killmonger - the one who caused a lot of trouble in Wakanda. But Shuri, who would doubt it, realizes the consequences in time and overcomes her inner thirst for revenge. It's corny, but it couldn't be otherwise.

Bottom line, Wakanda Forever is a very uneven film. It may catch Shuri's successful transformation from a minor character to a major one, but even so, there's a lot of things you'd have to turn a blind eye to. Most likely, the sequel lacked a strong core conflict, which, for example, the original did not lack. The deep story of the confrontation between the two antipodes pulled 2018's Panther hard. If anything like this is to be expected from the sequel, it is very likely to disappoint.