WAKANDA FOREVER

By Joshua Xiang

This is the first marvel phase four movie that I watched in the cinema (China banned marvel after Spiderman 2) to me it is astonishing and probably the best marvel movie in phase four. It is a bit different from other Marvel movies, it focuses more on telling the story rather than presenting a heart beating fighting scene. If you wanted to find a similar film in MCU to Wakanda Forever, it has to be Eternals, but Wakanda Forever did a much better job on the plot and the design of the character.

The most commendable part of the movie is the costume design, character building, and music editing. The new black panther suit is very elegant and all the casual clothes are well designed (e.x the movie presents Shuri with around seven different casual clothes at a different time and most of Shuri's clothes are right shoulder clothing, different from the first movie, it is done for giving her more masculine and kingly temperament )

Also, the music editing is beautifully played, and the familiar drum sound and the tribal music just give us much recall from the first movie, even though it is 6 years ago. In summary, the costume and music are on an Oscar award level for showing the culture and charter of the movie. Last but not least, the whole arc of Shuri becomes black panther is well-written and performed.

In “Wakanda Forever,” the world-building is centered on Wakanda, but also on Talokan and its backstory, which is centuries old and built on real-world history.And there is a highly debatable topic about whether Talokan (Namor's hometown) is better than Atlantis (Aquaman's homeland). Honestly, both of them did a great job differently, Atlantis is more fascinating with shining and golden architecture and artifacts.

However, Talokan is more realistic and depicted more carefully (like it should be dark down in the deep ocean, rather than Atlantis glowing in the sea bed), there are very plumped background stories and culture uniform, and its introduction has more responsibility rather than Atlantis (since DC are mostly independent movies) since it is only one movie of the thirty movies in MCU, the technology and buildings have to make more sense. Also, It's hard not to think of the Na 'vi in the Talokan and the tribal culture that flourished in the film reminds me of a game called Horizon. These works help us to imagine what it would be like if tribal culture were instead a higher civilization on Earth. Life is closely integrated with nature, and special armor and weapon designs, such as Namor's general's helmet with the skull of a hammerhead shark and Namor's lion crown are breathtaking.

This time around, however, the movie’s visual effect needs more work to do. The fight scenes in the sequel, unlike those in the earlier film, are neither thrilling nor frightening; the martial artistry appears merely functional, and one complex chase scene, set in Boston, is rendered facile and disposable. And also it is disappointing that the movie is in such a rush for spending twenty minutes to show us Talokan, which compare to the whole film ( 2h40m) is not long at all, so the time distribution should be refined more.

Overall, I have to admit that this is the best tribute to Chadwick Bozeman, we can see his shadow across the whole movie, from the character's line, costume, and scenes to reminisce him and the event that Wakanda run for him (e.x funeral & ritual dual) we can see how much love and missing that the director and actor have on him.