Filling a star-shaped hole

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is almost a good film. The sequel to the surprise 2018 hit repeats a lot of Black Panther's best elements: writer and director Ryan Coogler re-creates the vivid world of fictional country Wakanda with the same polished frisson; Ludwig Göransson provides another lively score; and Ruth Carter's shimmering costuming is back.

But where Black Panther was a Marvel movie imbued with a healthy streak of auteurism, Wakanda Forever is primarily a Marvel movie that comes with  dodgy CGI and anti-physics of the fights; Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) narrative threads needed for its next TV series, which pad an already juicy runtime; and a deadly dull villain, this time long-awaited antihero Namor, the Sub-Mariner.

Most of all, Wakanda Forever is missing Chadwick Boseman, the actor who brought the character of T'Challa/Black Panther to charismatic life four times before his untimely death in 2020. Forced into the role of accidental star of a billion-dollar MCU property, Letitia Wright — a great shot of snarky fun as T'Challa's genius scientist sister, Shuri — lacks Chadwick Boseman's physical presence, personality and gravitas. The weight on her shoulders is obvious.

The film (wisely) starts with Shuri desperately trying to find a cure for her brother's mysterious illness, and leads into Wakanda's mourning of its king and protector. Mountain-tribe warrior M'Baku (Winston Duke) is engaging with the rest of Wakanda, and the queen mother, Ramonda (Angela Bassett, spectacular as always), is back on the throne, dressing down the United Nations for its duplicity in sneaking across the Wakandan border to steal the country's precious metal, vibranium. Trouble comes from Talokan (Marvel's version of Atlantis) when the king, Namor (Tenoch Huerta), proposes a treaty of sorts on finding the same UN stooges poking around his realm. Ramonda rejects his plea for allegiance, and the two hidden kingdoms are set on a collision course.

To suggest the story, which clocks in at nearly three hours, is that simple would be a bald-faced lie. Wakanda Forever has a ton of stuff in it, some of it pivoting on how Ramonda, Shuri, Dora Milaje general Okoye (Danai Gurira), and T'Challa's girlfriend and superspy Nakia (Lupita Nyong'o) grieve. Coogler and co-writer Joe Robert Cole pack in a few jabs about the Eurocentric rules the world plays by and the legacy of conquest, but the idea is essentially meaningless without a payoff.

However, without sustained thematic storytelling or a villain who is relatable — not always likeable, not always right, but always understandable — what's left is a watery (sorry), slightly disjointed actioner that feels more like the conveyor-belt construction we expect of Marvel.

Panther's Erik Killmonger's motivation was logical to a fault: It's what made him such a menace. Namor, on the other hand, is angry at landlubbers? Wants a world of just ocean dwellers? Who knows, and really, who cares? It's easy to get distracted, with Shuri stomping around like a petulant child for most of the film. Not even the sight of Bassett swanning around in a purple gown giving military orders can save the day. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever isn't bad, per se; it just has enormous, Boseman-shaped shoes to fill.