THB #251: Wakanda Forever: Black Panther (spoiler-free)

The most significant thing to say about Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is that it is very, very different from the original Black Panther.

This is not a judgement of quality. It’s just the fact. Amazingly, Ryan Coogler and co-writer Joe Robert Cole delivered a sequel to their own movie that is as much about female energy as the first was about male energy.

I’m not going to spoil anything in the movie for you, but Letitia Wright is absolutely the lead of this movie. Tenoch Huerta, as Namor - he pronounces it with the accent on the second syllable and everyone else in the movie pronounces it with the accent on the first syllable - would have to be considered the #2, though even his macho character is steeped in a gentility that is unexpected, influenced by his mother.

Angela Bassett, Danai Gurira, Lupita Nyong'o, Dominique Thorne, Michaela Coel, and another woman the mention of whom would be a spoiler feature significantly in the movie as well. Performances are excellent all around.

This…