Black Panther: Wakanda Forever <img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios-glyphs/20/000000/star--v1.png"/><img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios-glyphs/20/000000/star--v1.png"/>

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

A new Marvel film isn't quite the drawcard it once was. Aside from the Doctor Strange multiverse film, Phase 4 of the MCU hasn't really delivered anything of much quality. There were moments in Black Widow and Shang-Chi, even Eternals at a stretch, but the crackers from Phase 3 seem a long way back. Now, SPOILERS AHOY, but presumably Kev Feige and his acolytes hadn't expected Chadwick Boseman to pass away at the age of 43, causing the need for massive rewrites (or a reimagining at any rate). Incidentally, they probably chose the best way to deal with an actor's unexpected death. It was nicely handled, a fitting tribute to Boseman. The beginning was a deviation from the usual action splash, in order to make way for the sombre, but zesty funeral scene. It was an authentic tear-jerker too, if the young German & French international students in the cinema were anything to go by.

So, here's a film choc-full of grief and loss, which is only amplified by the mirror of real-life. That scaffolding is padded out with a story of politics and war-mongering, introducing the comic's 'first mutant', Namor (Aquaman with winged ankles). The introduction to these wet folk is pretty gnarly, wreaking havoc on an ocean rig, and their other-worldly menace is fun. I think the ground-laying of Namor (an impressive Tenoch Huerta) as a nemesis to Wakanda in particular, and the 'surface' in general is promising, as he has the potential for mayhem.

But onto the film's issues. With Boseman unfortunately out of the picture, the vacuum has to be filled somehow. It would seem logical and canonical to position T'Challa's younger sister, Shuri as the replacement. This makes sense, until it becomes clear that Letitia Wright, perfectly fine as a side character in the first film, doesn't really have the gravitas or charisma to take centre stage. The film hangs a lot of emotional work on Wright - she has to deal with loss, increasing responsibility, more grief, and leadership, while struggling with her spirituality vs science dichotomy issues - and this all feels slightly beyond her at the moment. She's a pretty good actress, but carrying a Marvel tentpole requires more star wattage.

But these qualms pale in comparison to one of the supporting actors. The student scientist, Riri Williams is played cringingly by Dominique Thorne - it's probably one of the worst performances in a Marvel film. It's hard to detail her level of crap acting, it's unnatural, awkward and riddled with affectations. Compare this to the times when Lupita Nyong'o or Winston Duke are on screen and it's easy see what real actors can bring (also, nice to recall these two as the couple from Jordan Peele's Us). Angela Bassett brings quiet power as Queen Ramonda and Danai Gurira as Okoye is kick-arse, though I didn't quite buy one key scene between the two of them.

There's an underlying thread of Shuri attempting to reconcile the whole 'technology versus tradition' thing. It's all a bit tiresome, and we know it's only going to end one way, this being an MCU project. The cut and paste emotional beats do carry an extra weight here considering the actual passing of Boseman, but there's still too much that we've seen before, for example, though Shuri flirts with revenge, she ultimately comes down on the side of stoic nobility. Incidentally, I don't see this as a spoiler because if you've seen any MCU film, you'll know they have a formula that even the 'edgy' indie directors and writers have to adhere to.

One curious note: a character refers to Namor's people as 'The Lost Tribe'. Is this a reference to the lost tribes of Israel? If so, why? Odd throwaway line.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is showing everywhere.

See also:

I'll continue to bang the drum for Us (2019), and Bassett was good in Kathryn Bigelow's interesting but uneven Strange Days (1995).

Comments

Digger

Including this new film, Alejandro González Iñárritu has directed only eight features, and his resume has its ups ( Amores Perros , The Revenant ) and downs ( Birdman ). But I make Digger his best. He shares a writing credit with a number of other folk (sounds like too many cooks but they get away with it), and it's shot by the ever brilliant Emmanuel Lubezki. Kudos firstly must go to the trailer editor to sell it the way they did - it's a really eyebrow-raising subterfuge. I was expecting Dr. Strangelove , with climate as the nuclear bombs, instead we get a blend of films like Synecdoche New York , Beau is Afraid , and Birdman , and it's superior and more accessible than all of those. Colour me gobsmacked. From the start, Digger was heading one way and, had it continued that way, this would be a very different review. Luckily, it pulled a terrific gear change. In a nutshell, the Cruiser plays Digger Rockwell, a mega rich oil man who ignores all warnings of an impending d...

Queen: Budapest

Pure class. A Hungarian director, János Zsombolyai, and his crew filmed Queen's concert at Népstadion in Budapest in 1986 with a fair number of 35mm cameras. It's recently been finessed for IMAX and the result is a bloody ripping concert film. There's a short preview promo featuring sit-down interviews with Brian May and Roger Taylor and then the concert begins. The band played this unprecedented gig at the end of July, just a couple of weeks after their Wembley sets, and as part of the Magic Tour. It was one of the first stadium concerts played behind the Iron Curtain by a 'Western' band, and apparently around 80,000 punters turned up, with more than half that number listening from outside the stadium. The band run through a typical set list of favourites, starting with One Vision , Tie Your Mother Down , and (my favourite from the gig) Seven Seas of Rhye . Other belting highlights include Under Pressure , Now I'm Here , Hammer to Fall , and Radio Ga Ga . Watch...

Resident Evil

This latest Resident Evil is a slight zombie viscera flick that doesn't really say much but is a bit of fun anyway. Director Zach Cregger impressed with Weapons , and folk have good things to say about his film before that, Barbarian , too (I'm yet to watch). His latest is a reboot, retool, reimagining, however you'd like to put it, of the film series spawned from the game in 2002, that eventually mutated to six entries, all gamely starring Milla Jovovich. Now before this new iteration, I'd only seen that first one, but quite possibly one or two more (like the creatures in the film, I'm guessing they all meld together). My gaming credentials are even more paltry - I seem to remember playing a version once years ago, but it could have been any zombie shooting game. So drawing a long bow, I'm going to say this one aims more for the shits and giggles than the others, borrowing from Cregger's previous life as a comedy actor/writer/director. Austin Abrams plays ...

Dune

Denis Villeneuve's long-awaited Dune finally arrives in Australian cinemas and it's a technical marvel. To start with, there's the amazing production design by Patrice Vermette. A lot of the sets and machinery have been physically created, to add weight to the visual effects. A highlight is the appearance of the 'ornithopter', a clunky, dragonfly of metal, that flaps its wings to fly. The scale of the buildings and cities is mammoth, many of them made on a studio lot in Budapest (see this Architectural Digest article for more). The cinematography, by Melburnian, Greig Fraser, is suitably magic, in keeping with Villeneuve's stylistic requirements, For example, desert scenes have a tendency to go all wind-whipped and blurry, but even when a dragonfly enters a storm, acuity is admirably maintained. The visuals are just a part of Villeneuve's signature language - the almost ethereal long shots across vast rooms and landscapes; the measured, even slow paci...

Coyote vs. Acme

While there have been loads of Looney Tunes feature films, this is the fourth to mix live action with the animated favourites. There are two Space Jam films, but if you can remember 2003's Looney Tunes: Back in Action , you're doing better than me. This new hybrid, directed by Dave Green, stars Will Forte and John Cena as opposing lawyers in a case brought against Acme by Wile E. Coyote. Oddly, this film is actually based on an article for the New Yorker magazine, written by Ian Frazier, about the downtrodden desert dog and his annoyance with Acme Corporation and their faulty products. I realise that some younger crew will have no idea of the content of the Looney Tunes Road Runner cartoons, so to sum it up: "Road Runner, the Coyote's after you. Road Runner, if he catches you, you're through." Yep, it's a classic, constant chase, and as this film posits, maybe the chase is the point. Logically, and in nature, the coyote would probably eat the bird, if i...

Life is Life

Here's another serving from the Italian Film Festival , this one set mostly in the fictional town of Bellesammama in Southern Sardinia, the beautiful Spiaggia di Tuerredda standing in for the beach paradise. The recognisable story goes that a rich company wants to buy up the land on the beach to build a resort, promising to create jobs and bring untold wealth to the struggling area. Everyone is confident things will be done and dusted in no time until the real estate company runs up against an immovable object, old farmer Efisio (Giuseppe Loi). Offered ever increasing sums of Lira, then as time goes on, Euros, he rejects all. This is his home, he doesn't need anything else. The townsfolk cajole Efisio and chivvy his daughter Francesca (Virginia Raffaele), hoping they'll see reason. The head of the Milanese real estate firm, Giacomo (Diego Abatantuono), sends a foreman, Mariano (Aldo Baglio) to sort things out, and even enlists the local mayor and police. No dice. Althoug...

Bad Apples

The British Film Festival is upon us again and it looks purely belter this year. The preview film at Palace Raine Square was a teacher's nightmare called Bad Apples . Note the plural, not one bad apple but many. The film opens with a bunch of primary school kids on a tour of a cider house, presumably in order to highlight the analogy, as we see loads of apples on their way along conveyer belts. One lark, Danny (Eddie Waller) has lost his shoe in the machinery, causing frazzled teacher Maria (Saoirse Ronan) to lose her shit. Less anger than anguish, to be fair, as it unfolds that this wrong'un has been boiling her piss all year. Back at school the next day, Danny sends a girl to hospital, and gets suspended. Maria needs to make sure he doesn't come to school, primarily to avoid the government Ofsted inspector, so she goes to visit his dad. He's clearly strung out as well, so isn't much help. On her way back to her car, she confronts Danny and this is starting to rea...

The Odyssey

Christopher Nolan is one of the few active directors who can entice punters to the cinema (along with Denis Villeneuve), and they've come out in droves for his latest, a retelling of Homer's The Odyssey . Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, the king of Ithaca who is co-opted to join his overlord, Agamemnon, in his attack on Troy. After near 10 years of siege, culminating in the Trojan Horse event, the silly bastard then decides to take the scenic route home, and gets plumb lost. What follows is a technically brilliant rendering of mythical nonsense made to feel real. Odysseus's mini-fleet of three ships and maybe 100 (?) men run into several hardships, notably the Cyclops; a small army of huge men called the Laestrygonians; the sorceress, Circe; and some salacious sea nymphs. These set pieces are fantastic, especially the Cyclops (played by TARS voice from Interstellar , Bill Irwin), and Circe's cottage, where she has a way with greedy menfolk. Samantha Morton is almost best...

Classmates

This solid, if not super original, slice of high school life in gritty Euro-environs looks to be a change of tack for director Umberto Riccioni Carteni. Much of his back catalogue appears to be on the frothy end of the spectrum, and oddly, Classmates is listed as a 'Drama, Comedy' in the festival programme. It's not all that heavy but it's a stretch to call it a comedy. It starts with English teacher, credited as Professoressa (Anna Ferzetti) arriving at her new school in a rough-ish area of north-east Rome called Rebibbia. The final year students of this class are generally downheartened nihilists, all carrying problems related to poverty, drugs or family. A more difficult start might have been expected for the Prof but most of her students respond well to her, due to a policy of treating them like humans, not the garbage they (and other teachers) believe they are. A familiar trope of students shouting at each other, insulting and threatening, soon shows itself to be...

Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Well, well, well. This thing has done some business. It's currently SIXTH in all time worldwide receipts, with Titanic in its sights. But, of course, it's problematic to rely on public opinion as a judge of quality. Or maybe that's just me. Because I found this new Spider-Man film to be just slightly above average. They are quite a few positives to take from it. Tom Holland has a winning presence, the omnipotent Zendaya is his equal (they have some nice moments together), and the cameos are fun - Mark Ruffalo's Hulk, Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova, and John Bernthal's Punisher big screen debut. Aside from the performances, the city of New York is almost another character, and it's portrayed lovingly here. The jumpy, swingy scenes feel more realistic than previous films, and there's a dark edge to the story as well, to do with change and maturity. The first grown-up Spider-Man? On that note, I read his situation as a late arrival at puberty. Bear with me...

Film Shapes

Search This Blog