It has been nearly four years since the monumental release of Marvel Studio’s “Black Panther,” which starred Chadwick Boseman as King T’Challa of the fictional African nation of Wakanda. The film was a resounding success and won Academy Awards for costume design, production design, and original score. After the devastating loss of Chadwick Boseman in August 2020, many fans were anxious to see where the direction of the Black Panther franchise would go without its leading man. Rumors circulated of a recasting or even reviving Michael B. Jordan’s character, Killmonger, to play the new Black Panther, but every possible solution seemed to be met with some sort of backlash. Finally, two years later, as the world has finally come to terms with the loss of a beautiful life, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” hit the theater screens on

November 11, and very few fans were let down. While the film is certainly a long one, running for nearly three hours, there is no doubt that the length was a necessity. This film places grief and healing at its forefront and handles it with such care that it would feel incomplete if it were any shorter.
In the absence of Chadwick Boseman, Letitia Wright takes the stage as the new main character of the franchise, reprising her role as T’Challa’s younger sister, Shuri, Wakanda’s head scientist and engineer. Wright manages to bring a much deeper level of agency to Shuri that the audience did not get to see in the first film. From her style to her humor to the way she expresses her emotions, it is clear that T’Challa’s death has drastically, and possibly even permanently altered Shuri.

Starring alongside Wright is her former costars, Angela Bassett and Danai Gurira, playing their respective roles as Queen Mother Ramonda and Okoye, the general of the Dora Milaje. Winston Duke reprises his role as M’Baku of the Jabari tribe, and the franchise gains a new star in the form of Tenoch Huerta, playing Namor the Submariner. Directed by Ryan Coogler, this film is a heartwrenching and heartwarming tribute to Chadwick Boseman, serving both him and his legacy nothing short of a beautiful Memoriam and one last goodbye for both his fans and his loved ones.