jbouieSo uh, what did people think of WAKANDA FOREVER?
Brian Vastag@jbouie I made it through all of 30 minutes, saw there was another two hours left and noped out of there.
Sujay@jbouie Good core but feels held back by MCU obligations and formula.
Ellen Teapot đ¨đŚđłď¸ââ§ď¸@jbouie Loved the tribute to Chadwick Boseman, enjoyed Shuriâs plot line with the Americans, but the Atlantean plot felt a bit hollow.
zeddy@jbouie has some strong moments tied to grief and power and Angela Bassett. But overall it's overlong, uneven and way too much of an infomercial for future MCU projects.
Marvel should have waited.
Blue Emu@jbouie I was blown away. The way they tied together the themes of grief and loss, faith vs. science, and the seduction of righteous anger was masterful. Letitia Wright was amazing. Music was amazing. Instantly one of my favorite Marvel movies.
Transient. Dim. Moist.@jbouie Mixed feelings. Some neat ideas, a very clearly heartfelt sense of grief, but I don't think it really gelled. Felt like Shuri was being sent through a set of emotional beats they needed her to hit. Riri was severely under-characterized.
@jbouie
(I think Riri, like America Chavez in MULTIVERSE, needed to be way more fleshed out as a character and a voice if they wanted her to be a consistent presence in the film. Both characters felt like they were just being dragged along in someone else's plot because they needed to be placed on the board for future projects, and it made them feel flat and lacking in agency.)
(I think Riri, like America Chavez in MULTIVERSE, needed to be way more fleshed out as a character and a voice if they wanted her to be a consistent presence in the film. Both characters felt like they were just being dragged along in someone else's plot because they needed to be placed on the board for future projects, and it made them feel flat and lacking in agency.)
@jbouie Also, killing off the queen felt weird juxtaposed against the death of T'challa--both because of the real world situation, and because it made the situation feel much more bleak and grim in a way that didn't really work for me.
Pxtl@MrReciprocity @jbouie imho the biggest problem with the movie's body-count is that this meant that Shuri had to pivot hard from being the comic relief character into the brooding protagonist, and it just didn't work for her.
Corey Atad@jbouie quite bad, i thought, certainly a disappointment following the first film. obviously hampered by Bosemanâs death, but so many scenes feel like they exist to convey exactly one plot point or idea, with a mind toward potentially cutting or rearranging moments in post, which makes it feel turgid.
@coreyatad this is where i am trending as well
Eric Kissack@jbouie @coreyatad Iâm pleased that they continued the refreshing trend of villains who kind of have a point, though.
@jbouie noticed it particularly in the scene where Shuri arrives as the new Black Panther, and it's almost like three or four distinct scenes all in a row within one setting, even having others leave the room at one point, and i kept thinking, this could all have been done in one rounded scene in half the time with more emotional punch
@coreyatad @jbouie Really? Maybe I'm stuck on the lizard-brain whiz-bang action but I liked it better than the first one. The first one had some amazing high-notes but also felt really uneven, and really botched the landing with a lackluster CGI duel between Killmonger and T'Chala. But part of my problem might be I'm the only person who can't stand Michael B Jordan's acting.
@Pxtl definitely agree with you on the last act, but that film had certain forward momentum to it, while threading through some complex thematic ideas in a more natural way. granted, i didn't think it was so great either, but then i generally quite dislike Marvel movies.
Darwin Woodka@jbouie watched it last night. It was kind of badly paced and far too long. Felt like two different movies mashed together really.
Jamie Baker Roskie@jbouie Not nearly as strong as the first (how could it be). Successful as a meditation on grief. Less successful as an action movie. Loved how Angela Bassett was centered. Happy to see it be much more oriented to the women of Wakanda. Am curious to see how they'll play out the US-Wakanda conflict they're obviously setting up.
ikwezi@jbouie
Con la Brisa is an amazing song
Con la Brisa is an amazing song
Millions@jbouie I liked the sort of âdouble character arcâ they built around. Getting the suit and powers isnât the final stop but something that propels the inner journey/acceptance of grief.
Zachary@jbouie It looked great and its take on Namor was amazing. But ultimately it played like what it is - a sequel to a movie that made too much money to just cancel after its star died.
Kate Cox@jbouie good concepts buried in lackluster execution and a really, really muddy -- like, visually messy, in form and function, on top of any content problems -- back third.
John McQuaid@jbouie Interesting that Coogler managed to work both themes of personal/public grief and the legacy of colonialism into this rigid formula (and even tie them together), yet it still falls apart.
@jbouie Enjoyed it! Bassett stole the show, the movie juggled a long list of plot threads and new characters without feeling bloated.
Excited to see more Riri in coming movies, although I disliked her Sentai armor.
Only real problem is how Shuri has gone from being the comic relief in BP1 into being grimdark Tortured Soul in BP2, and the actor doesn't have the chops for that, imho.
Loved how they worked Killmonger into the story.
And the whole movie is a hell of a love-letter to Boseman.
Tex@jbouie loved it, my only criticism is the same for a lot of movies in this genre where theyâre trying to do too much in one film. This could have easily been two movies
Emily St. James@jbouie Three movies awkwardly stitched together. I liked enough of them to like the movie overall, but I also haven't thought about it once since I saw it. The movie's main twist also feels curiously weightless, given the circumstances surrounding the film's very existence.
Namor extremely hot, tho.
James Callan@emstjames @jbouie âhavenât thought about it since I watched itâ is my main critique of most of the MCU after Endgame
Chris Broome@jbouie I liked it more than the first one but I have a soft spot for sprawling sci-fi/fantasy epics. Maybe I was just impressed that Coogler managed to make a good pic out of an absolutely dire set of circumstances
Jon Haile@jbouie Afro-futurism vs Mayan-futurism should have been, if nothing else, an aesthetic feast. But the current state of the Marvel gears made it surprisingly boring to look at (with a few notable exceptions). And not having that visual gloss to carry it through made the rest of the problems all the more apparent.
Willis Warren@jbouie well, since the first movie was more about the women than the men, I thought it was a worthy sequel. Itâs a bit sad that it wonât be judged on its own merits
john mirabella@jbouie underwater societies of human-like people just fundamentally donât work on screen. people are just too slowâ and canât properly communicateâ underwater. and how does anyone build anything? whereâs all that stuff they have and use manufactured?
the parts dealing with tâchallaâs death were well done but, uh⌠wouldnât the wakandans (and his family) have gone through all of that after INFINITY WAR when he âdiedâ the first time?
@jbouie
I'm not sure the character of Shuri (not the actress, the character) had the gravitas necessary to carry the role of BP. She'd been set up as the little sister in the first movie and wasn't given time in the Marvel Universe to make the shift. Remember we had a whole movie where Chadwick Boseman was introduced so we had some familiarity with him before the solo movie came out.
I'm not sure the character of Shuri (not the actress, the character) had the gravitas necessary to carry the role of BP. She'd been set up as the little sister in the first movie and wasn't given time in the Marvel Universe to make the shift. Remember we had a whole movie where Chadwick Boseman was introduced so we had some familiarity with him before the solo movie came out.
Dan Cameron@jbouie I messed up and expected too much, ie more/same as the first.
J@jbouie Solid movie, above average for recent Marvel stuff. Did not need Martin Freem/Julia Louis-Dreyfuss subplot.
@jbouie I thought it was going well until Angela Bassett was out of the picture. Sometimes marvel movies prove that movie stars are necessary, without Chadwick and without Bassett you were missing that star power to carry the film in key places. I really wished they had made Lupita the black panther it would b have helped the story.
Dan Pandre@jbouie One of the worst MCU movies to date. It's better than Eternals? And the Chadwick Boseman memorial is good. That's about it.
Andy Pearlman@jbouie I loved the design and some of the thoughts behind it. ButâŚthe Ironheart parts felt kind of shoved onto it â she should have had her TV series first, then the movie.
And they needed to show why some of decisions being made were being made by the characters. The end fights were baffling.