As Vision said to Wanda, "But what is grief, if not love persevering?"
This sentiment held true in this Ryan Coogler helmed epic sequel where the grief and mourning of Chadwick Boseman and King T'Challa hung over the whole 161 minutes, and at times threatening to overpower and drown the narrative.
The plot itself was potentially so rich but an over-reliance on the meditation of grief and how it affects people differently can only work if this was not a typical MCU tentpole where there was no necessity to shoehorn MCU continuity (why did we really need Martin Freeman's and Julia Louis-Dreyfuss' characters?), the mandatory CGI battles, a backdoor pilot for Ironheart, introduce a whole new superpowered culture/people and also a homage to Boseman.
Too many subplots led to a messy, unevenly paced show that genuinely needed that whole bloated 2.5 hours + to fit everything in, but in so doing, it lost the originality and freshness of the first film that was unbeholden to all these (dead)weight.
The prologue and the opening sequence set a high bar for the film. A succinct moment of storytelling that involved more showing than telling, but the film just gradually slipped lower and lower from there.
Similarly, the first action sequence was stellar. Engaging, intriguing and thrilling. But everything else after was rote and anaemic. Except for perhaps the hand-on-hand combat between Danai Gurira's Okoye and the enemy, there were no memorable action sequences. The beautiful grace of the Dora Milaje was unfortunately neutered, and the big climatic final act fight was a boring, flat CGI "spectacle" that lacked urgency or immediacy.
Even the inevitable fight between our titular Black Panther and Namor was uninspiring.
Speaking of Namor, here we had an antihero, like Killmonger from the first film, who was an antagonist that was grounded in a tangible ideology. But unlike Michael B Jordan, Tenoch Huerta was never given the opportunity to develop his character. There was an attempt to give Namor some complexity in the second act, but it was too rushed and superficial, and by the third act, it seemed all had been forgotten. Similarly, the whole Talokan storyline was shortchanged with their entire introduction rushed through in an expository flashback and a muddled underwater introduction that somehow lacked the wonderment when we first glimpsed the Afro-futuristic Wakanda.
Further, in this film we had two tribes of colour - Indigenous and Black - pitted against each other, indirectly by white colonisers, and Coogler barely mined the complexity of this situation. Instead we spent time being introduced to Riri Williams, which as cool as she was and as well-intentioned the actress Dominique Thorne was, was essentially a superfluous character that lost her individuality once we hit the second act. Her presence only seemed to introduce to the audience Ironheart.
As the new lead, Letitia Wright has a lot on her shoulders and to anchor the film. However, as good an actress as Wright is, she lacked the screen presence to anchor an MCU film. Coogler et al also did her no favour with a character that was annoyingly one note and repetitive for the first two act and was rushed through a character evolution in the third act and the final moments that was unearned and jarring. And Wright just could not do much with what she was given, her grieve for her brother was repetitive and lacked nuance. Yes, we get it! She is angry that she could not save her brother. But is there more depth to that anger? Unfortunately, we never got to explore that because we had to go save Williams, and then go underwater to check out Talokan, and then save Wakanda. Everything that could have been mined was waved off with a title card that said "one year later". All in service to the MCU-mandated story.
On the other hand, we had the gloriously fierce and magnetic Angela Bassett who may the only one who deserve any sort of award recognition, an equally fierce and unexpectedly emotional Gurira, and the luminescent Lupita Nyong'o who was possibly the emotional centre of the whole film with her quiet strength and private grieving. These three women were the MVPs of the film and their screen time together were the best parts of the film. That singular scene between Bassett and Gurira was one of the most powerful scenes Coogler had done. Beautifully intense and achingly honest, these two actresses just owed it. However, one great scene was not enough to salvage this film.
And, what a waste of Michaela Coel. Absolute disgrace.
That brings us to the technical aspect of the first film. The music by Ludwig Göransson was excellent and gorgeously mixed in afro beats with latin influences. And again, Ruth E. Carter's costumes were on point, though more for the Wakandans than the Talokans. Also, Hannah Beachler's production design was astounding and rich, although there were scenes that did looked fat and artificial. Nonetheless, these three artists are likely to repeat their Oscar nominations. Don't count out Rihanna too for an Original Song nomination too for a song that worked well in context, better than as a stand-alone single.
However, cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw's lensing was perhaps not the best for the film. Maybe it was my theatre, but most of the film felt underlit and the underwater world of Talokan appeared muddled and uninspired. Which was such a shame.
Coogler tried to do too much with this film. Undoubtedly, Kevin Feige was to blame too. The three acts of the film should have been expanded to trilogy or even a miniseries, the first part dealing with grief, the second part as an introduction to Talokan, and the third part as the clash between the two cultures. These three storylines ought to be separated to allow them to breathe, but instead we ended up with a messy mash-up that did no one any service (except Feige's pockets).
