‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ review: The best-acted MCU movie ever

The triumphant success of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” comes against all odds.

First, the sequel had to follow the hit 2018 film that became a worldwide cross-cultural phenomenon and a Best Picture Oscar nominee. And, more somberly, Marvel needed to craft the usual entertaining movie its fans have come to expect even after the incredibly sad death of the original’s star Chadwick Boseman. 

Another major follow-up with two such mountainous hurdles doesn’t come to mind. 

And yet, the superb “Wakanda Forever” solidifies Black Panther as Marvel’s richest and most high-quality franchise. There are no noticeable symptoms of sequelitis in director and co-writer Ryan Coogler’s film. Every aspect — acting, writing, special effects, score — is a notch above its superhero peers. In the best possible sense, you forget you’re watching just another Marvel movie.

At the emotional start, T’Challa (the late Boseman, who we appropriately do not see outside of sparse flashbacks), dies of an unknown illness, leaving his mother Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) and sister Princess Shuri (Letitia Wright) bereft and the Kingdom of Wakanda rudderless. 

Angela Bassett returns as Queen Ramonda in “Wakanda Forever.” ©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Evere

One year later, Ramonda stingingly accuses member states of the United Nations of attempting to steal Wakanda’s vibranium — the rare, all-powerful element only found in the African country. Or so they think.

Using a special probe, America discovers the blue rock present in the Atlantic ocean, inciting the wrath of a new foe — the secret underwater people of Talokan, who also rely on vibranium and are led by Namor (Tenoch Huerta), essentially an aquatic Black Panther. The US blames Wakanda for the attack on their ship, but Namor threatens Queen Ramonda that if she reveals Talokan’s existence, Wakanda will be destroyed.

A new foe — as strong as the Wakandans — emerges from the water. ©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Evere

In the absence of the title character, Ramonda and Shuri, who was previously a gadgets-and-gizmos sidekick, ascend to leading roles. And, especially on the part of Bassett, we witness the best dramatic acting in an MCU movie so far. One of Bassett’s speeches is so forceful and stirring for the usually milquetoast MCU, it’s like being served foie gras at Burger King.

Wright also goes admirably deep as Shuri, while her character wrestles with her royal role and adulthood now that T’Challa is gone. Rarely do other Marvel actors so capably play both comedy and suffering as well as Wright.

Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), Okoye (Danai Gurira) and Aneka (Michaela Coel) all have distinct, thoughtful arcs. And a very funny helper is introduced in Riri (Dominique Thorne), a genius Harvard student who unwittingly goes along for the ride.

“Wakanda Forever” is the opposite of DC’s horrible “Black Adam,” in which somehow no character mattered or was remotely memorable. There are no loose threads here, and everybody is involving.

A different character becomes the Black Panther. ©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy EvereThe warrior Okoye (Danai Gurira) has a tough road ahead. ©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Evere

Huerta’s Namor makes a solid, complex villain — though not quite the showstopper of Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger — but the star is really all the Talokanil. Inspired by indigenous Yucatan peoples, Coogler and his team have built a different, submerged world as painstakingly detailed as Wakanda. Talokan is strikingly gorgeous, like Pandora of “Avatar,” and we develop an affection for it based on looks alone. That becomes important later on.

Coogler’s film, at 2 hours 40 minutes, is a long one, but there is no dead air, the locales are stunning and the creativity on display is explosive. Checking the time at the end, I was pleasantly surprised by how late it was. That’s a credit to the director, who has a mastery of grand, portentous, earth-shaking moments that pull us toward the screen.

But it also speaks to the quality of the acting, which is an element the ballooning superhero genre has largely conditioned audiences not to care about. With an ensemble as committed and gutsy as this one — even donning full-body panther suits and wielding high-tech spears — you can’t look away.