[Black Panther 2: Wakanda forever] Movie Review — People Who Are Afraid of Losing

[Black Panther 2: Long Live Waganda]— people who are afraid of losing

Introduction

In the fourth phase of Marvel, [Black Panther 2] is considered a good performance; but it is just a little bit better.

What is more special is that the main problems of the optional [Black Widow], [Eternals], [Doctor Strange 2] or [Thor 4] in the previous series are that they did not create a convincing enough protagonist, in a sufficiently exciting way, handles events that are important or sympathetic to the audience;

[Black Panther 2], on the other hand, is more like putting in too many characters and story elements worth telling, causing the whole movie to lose its balance.

(Spoilers below)

The story tells that after the unfortunate death of King T’challa, the “Black Panther”, due to illness, and the Kingdom of Wakanda is in a tragic fog, the world’s powers even begin to covet Wakanda’s vibranium, resources, and high-tech. At the same time, the United States detected a pan-metallic mine somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean and was about to mine it, but unexpectedly it was attacked by a mysterious underwater tribe.
Princess Shuri (Letitia Wright) and Queen Mother Ramada (Angela Besser), will there be a way out of the pain of losing T” Challa? Facing the threat of foreign powers and unknown civilizations, will they resolutely go to war to protect the kingdom?

Strong weak nationality

First of all, the most distinctive and eye-catching thing about [Black Panther 2] is the setting of the underwater civilization “Talocan”.
Continuing the concept of “Afrofuturism” of “Black Panther”, this sequel, director Ryan Coogler designed another hidden high-tech civilization, but not from Africa, but from Central America.

In the 16th century, a certain American tribe, to avoid the Spanish invasion, moved to the deep sea and became isolated from the world.
The situation of “Talokan” is completely like another “Wakanda”, which has also escaped the colonization of Europeans, is also afraid of the invasion of colonists or outsiders, and also has more advanced technology.

However, “Wakanda” has a relatively mild style and always strives to “protect himself”. Even if he was offended by another country, he just warned the other side not to go overboard. Even the former villain Killmonger (played by Michael B. Jordan) only hopes to use high-tech weapons to support the world’s anti-colonial revolution, overthrow the powerful, and give the disadvantaged race a chance to fight for equal rights. To the point of destroying “others”.
But “Talocan” chose to protect himself more extremely. Its leader Namor (Tenok Ulta), after seeing the atrocities of Europeans in the colonization of Central and South America, has been on guard against the outside civilization. As soon as Talocan is discovered by outsiders, he will directly Declare war on all mankind, relying on the advantages of vibranium to annihilate other people.

“Wakanda” and “Talocan” seem to be two positions of “resisting the strong cultural aggression”: either try to maintain one’s self; With the villains of “Talocan” and Namor, [Black Panther 2] does extend the theme of the previous work well:

“If we are a weak nation with strong technology, how should we face this unfair world?”

The pain of losing a loved one

Another part of this film that has been drawn with great care is the heroine Shuri.
After her brother passed away, she blamed herself very much and couldn’t get rid of the guilt and powerlessness in her heart that she “couldn’t save her brother”, and even felt hatred to take revenge on the world for this. And this resentment intensified after Namor attacked Wakanda and hurt the rest of her family.

So the “New Black Panther” we see is not only not a calm, gentle, and graceful king like T’Challa; instead, it is an avenger who is swept away by anger and desire for revenge, but at the same time he is Avenger who has great ability and enormous power.
The movie spends a lot of space showing Shuri’s grief. She can’t let go of her brother’s death, and she can’t easily forgive those who hurt her mother. For this reason, she will do whatever it takes to get rid of the enemy who attacked Wakanda. In the face of such an imperfect “perfect”, like us ordinary people, there will be anger, hatred, and impulsive actions. The audience can not only deeply feel the character’s emotions and motivations, but also will Pinch a cold sweat. when she has to make a terrible decision.

It can be said that the two characters of Wakanda’s Shuri and Talocan’s Namor completely support the thickness of [Black Panther 2]. The audience sympathizes with the difficulties of both sides and understands that both sides have their reasons for fighting, so when the two sides fight, the audience will be somewhat nervous about this “no bad guys” war.

Divergent, top-heavy story

Too many branches

However, if you look carefully, then there are indeed many parts of the story of [Black Panther 2] that are not perfect. And most of the missing is that the film put too many elements, so many details can not be clearly explained.
In addition to the aforementioned protagonist line and main villain, the movie also has to deal with:
The death of the former protagonist T’Challa, so the audience spent some time watching the funeral of the former Black Panther;

Next, I will talk about how Western powers desire vibranium, so the plot will jump to the United States in particular, and use the interaction between Agent Ross and the Director of the CIA to present the United States’ attitude towards Wakanda;
Then the protagonists want to find Riri (Dominique Thorne), the genius girl who invented the vibranium, detector, to protect her from being captured by Namor;

In the middle, I experienced the departure of Okoye (played by Dana Gurira) and the return of Nakia (played by Lupita Nyong’o), the widow of T’challa;
When Shuri really took power, there was still a relationship between W’kabi (Daniel Kaluuya ). W’Kabi is the former head of security for Wakanda’s Border Tribe as well as T’Challa’s best friend.

Can’t take it back

There are so many sidelines, but after watching the whole movie, you will find that in fact, whether these parts are included or not, they will not have much impact on the main story. Many of these characters have since become obscure or even disappeared.

For example, the director of the CIA disappeared after that. In other words, there seems to be tension between Wakanda and the United States (the Western power) in the beginning and middle of the movie; but after the end of the war between Black Panther and Namor, it seems to have been forgotten.

In the same way, Riri, a talented girl, seemed to be in great danger at the beginning. She could neither stay in the United States to develop pan-metal detectors nor let her be taken away by Namor; but after the war, it seemed that Riri would continue to return to the United States to invent detectors...

W’Kabi is a fully functional role. He occasionally comes out and swipes in battle, and when necessary, tells Shuri some things like “You have to follow the direction of your heart”, and “You shouldn’t start a war and make the people suffer”. There is hardly any depth beyond the clichés.

The swing between bereaved brothers and mothers

The handling of the “Death of T’Challa” is also quite a pity.

There are so many regrets about her brother’s passing in front of her, she seems to be talking about “how to let go of the pain”;
But in the latter part of the movie, Shuri’s psychological motivation (that is, the movie’s) suddenly became “whether to avenge her mother”, and she began to say that she had to choose, whether to avenge the two people and bring the people of the two countries into the pain of war;
After Shuri suddenly could empathize with Namor’s “fear of loss/anger towards the hostages”, and then stopped the war, she suddenly came back to cherish her brother! Note that it is “only” in memory of my brother T’challa! It seems that the death of my mother is not important at this time.

Although people’s emotions and experiences are inherently rich and complex, in film and television works, creators are usually accustomed to letting the protagonist have a “single and clear” motive, and find ways to bring other things into this single and clear motive. In the motivation, let the audience feel that the story is focused. The situation of [Black Panther 2] is that the focus of the plot seems to have been swinging on both sides of “the death of T’Challa” and “the death of the queen mother”, and the meanings of the two events are not “clearly” linked, as if she finished reporting After the enmity, I don’t miss my mother, only my brother.

Therefore, in the end, I can’t help but feel that this film is a little divergent, and there is a kind of creative team that did not grasp the focus of the story clearly, which makes it seem anticlimactic.

Sleepy action scenes

Sometimes when it hits halfway or explodes, there is a sudden slow motion, which looks very beautiful; in the final battle, the female warriors are also quite stances when they are in battle formation. The rest, whether it’s hand-to-hand fights, special effects blasts, or car chases, are nothing special, so I almost fell asleep when they fight…
(Also, why did the Talocan respawn after being slashed by the vanadium in the front, but then die with a sonic gun?)

In addition, the first two action scenes were in the dark, and the camera was very close to the actors and kept shaking, so I often couldn’t immediately know what was going on when the camera had poor vision and dazzled eyes.
Therefore, it is suggested that the audience can find a theater with a brighter screen to watch it.

After watching

All in all, [Black Panther 2: Long Live Waganda], because the protagonist’s mood is depicted and the villain is designed with great care, the process of watching the plot will probably not be boring. However, if you are looking forward to the first episode of [Black Panther], the fighting is entertaining, the plot of the battle for the throne is exciting, and the characters are lovable and deep, then [Black Panther 2] probably cannot give Comparable to the stunning feeling of the previous work, right?

P.S.

p.s.1 There is only one hidden credit in this film.
p.s.2 In the original comics, the character Namor is actually from “Atlantis”, not “Talocan”.
p.s.3 In real history, “Talocan” is a legend of Aztec civilization, a heaven or an underground world where people go after death; the legend of the “Quathered Serpent” mentioned in the film also comes from Aztec. However, judging from the clues and geographical location in the movie, the Namor family is more inclined to the Mayan civilization, and the text they use seems to be closer to the Mayan text.