Movie Review: Wakanda Forever (2022) *Very Minor Spoilers*

Movie Review: Wakanda Forever (2022) Very Minor Spoilers

For the first time since the start of the MCU, with exception to the Black Widow movie that was released when the pandemic was still a factor, I actively decided not to see a Marvel film in the cinema.

I liked the first Black Panther movie and, at the time, was really looking forward to seeing more of Chadwick Boseman's T'Challa, first seen in Marvel's Civil War Movie.

However the run time of Wakanda Forever (2 hours 41 minutes) combined with the reviews, that were great but described the movie as more 'heavy going' on account of Boseman's passing, weren't really setting me up with the promise of a great time.

Ultimately I decided to wait for it to come to Disney+.

After having seen the movie, I feel I made the right choice for me. I have no doubt Wakanda Forever would've been spectacular on the big screen in terms of the effects and action, but it's also, has an excessive amount of people shouting at or being angry with each other.

The film opens with the passing of King T'Challa. From there it becomes a power struggle between Wakanda and everybody else either trying to get their hands on or trying to stop them from getting their hands on supplies of Vibranium.

Almost all of the key cast from the first Black Panther movie return and arguably give better performances here, if only because they get to be much more dramatic. This time the movie centers around Princess Shuri (Letitia Wright) and her mother, Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett - who definitely deserves her Oscar nomination for this film. She does a lot of shouting and being angry!).

There are some really great action sequences, you get to see a lot more of Wakandan technology, and you get to see a whole new culture with Namor (Tenoch Huerta) and his people.

While Namor is a welcome addition to the MCU, especially with how well visualized his culture is, I didn't think his motivations were very well thought out. He seemed very willing to put his people's lives at risk without much thought at all.

If he'd just introduced himself and spoke rationally about his concerns right from the get go... I'm pretty sure Wakanda would've been united in his cause of making sure no one outside of their nations got hold of any vibranium.

But he didn't do that.

Overall Wakanda Forever is a well made film with lots to like, particularly with a lot of the new tech, and an origin story or sorts for a new character - likely to be a member of the young Avengers down the track.

I just don't know if I can describe it as an enjoyable movie. It feels long. The humor is quite minimal, and I definitely left it feeling they could've cut quite a bit out and you wouldn't miss it.

I'll probably re-watch it at least once more but I'm not in any rush to do so.

Comments

I'm Confused About Why People Prefer to Say Discombobulated?

D iscombobulated. Is a word that I think someone rediscovered about three or four years ago (maybe more because the pandemic years have thrown out my sense of time) and now I hear it a lot. It's not a new word by any means, but when I started hearing multiple celebrities using it in everyday sentences, I actively had to look up what it meant. Define it with as many synonyms as you like but essentially it's just another word meaning 'confused'. Seinfeld Quotes: Quotes.net The words are pretty much interchangeable. He was discombobulated by too many choices. He was confused by too many choices. My confusion is the length of the word. It's unnecessarily long with too many syllables. There are many other words that mean confused, and therefore also mean discombobulated. Most of them are shorter and easier to say. So why not just say 'confused'? Perhaps discombobulated sounds more intelligent, maybe? Hawaii Five-0 Quotes: Quotes.net I've noticed it gets us...

Social Media: It's All Fake News - Even That News You Shared, That Proves the Thing, Because It's Backed Up By a Credible Expert, is Fake.

Social Media profiles need a peer based rating system that locks you out for 30 days if your feed is one long stream of depressing boredom that bums everyone out. I don't watch or read the news anymore (mainstream or otherwise). From time to time, if something filters through that piques my interest, I'll take a bit of a dive to find out more. The recent US election is a good example. I even wrote a few opinion pieces in this blog. The Daily Show Is Not News Note that I don't count The Daily Show as news, because I did watch quite a lot of that during the US election. While they lean quite a bit toward the left overall, it's not a show you look to for context, since much of their humor is based on reframing context to get a laugh. The one thing The Daily Show does well is highlight how both Liberal and Right wing media latch onto one or two bullet point messages each day and run them through the mouths of every on screen commentator like they're all wind up parro...

TV Series Review: The Penguin (2024) No Spoilers

W hile we wait for an eternity (well an eternity in movie fan years anyway) for The Batman Part 2 , sequel to Matt Reeves acclaimed, The Batman (2022), we have, what is essentially a direct sequel with The Penguin , a limited. eight episode, TV Series set within a week or two of the end of the first film. Unfortunately it's a direct sequel to Colin Farrell's Penguin rather than Robert Pattinson's, Bruce Wayne/Batman. Fortunately that's the only real disappointment I have with this series. Right from the first episode The Penguin establishes itself as a show for grown ups who enjoy actual character development, that hooks you in, is thought provoking, and raises questions that you expect will be answered as the story unfolds. After the events of The Batman, there is something of a power vacuum left in Gotham's crime world that Oswald 'Oz' Cobb a.k.a. The Penguin, sets out to fill using his experience, quick thinking, and his ability to hustle his way into...

Movie Review: The Fall Guy (2024) Minor Spoilers

W hen I initially heard they were making a movie version of the TV series, The Fall Guy (1981-86) , I was definitely interested, as a person who tuned in to that series, weekly, when it originally aired. I had intended to see The Fall Guy in the cinema but, for whatever reason, didn't get there, and didn't prioritize seeing the film as the reviews, and more importantly, general information about the movie came out. Specifically, The Fall Guy makes no effort to capture whatever magic it was the TV show had that made it the show it was. A fact that is driven home by the reworked TV series theme song, played over the end credits and behind the scenes footage of stunts in the film, that removes all references to real world actors and replaces iconic line of "I'm the unknown stuntman who made Redford such a star" with the nonsensical "I'm the unknown stuntman who tries to win your heart." - sure... I guess... I mean, the original song is about never gett...

Movie Review: Memory (2023)

S omething a little different for me in terms of movies I usually review, Memory is a film I was invited along to see by my partner, and both of us didn't know much about the movie going in, other than it was a film where one of the leads has dementia. The basic premise follows adult, special needs social worker, Sylvia (Jessica Chastain), who leads a simple and structured life. When Saul (Peter Sarsgaard) follows her home from their high school reunion the surprise encounter profoundly impacts both of their lives. The film starts out very awkward and disjointed to some degree, which I feel is intentional, to reflect that Sylvia, who is also a struggling single mother, is fairly resilient, she is, in many ways, just barely holding everything together because she doesn't have any other option. When Saul sees Sylvia at their high school reunion it seems like some unpleasant memories from her past are fast tracked into the forefront of her life, and things move forward fro...

Boom Crash Opera Born Classic But Not Again

Boom Crash Opera are an Australian Band that reached the peak of their popularity in the mid to late nineteen eighties. They are a band that I knew about at that time but was never really excited by until they released their ill fated double album Born and Born Again in 1995 (Album cover pictured). At the time of its release I was very much into emerging Australian musical acts and was also looking out for new sounds that were different and had kind of a futuristic/electronic sound. Artists that I was buying at the time included; Swoop , Nine Inch Nails and Pop Will Eat Its Self . As well as a really interesting release by David Bowie, the concept album, Outside . Born was a fairly radical departure for Boom Crash Opera (BCO). The first single, Gimme , was often compared to the sounds of Gary Glitter, particularly his single, Rock n Roll part 2 , because of the pounding drum loops. Watch the video below. My favorite single from the album is dissemble which probably went now...

Movie Opinion: Love Actually (2003) Actually has Aged Just As It Should

S creen Rant ran an article by Bisma Fida , Love Actually: The 8 Storylines That Aged Badly, Ranked (Published Dec 10, 2021), which obviously was regurgitated into one of my newsfeeds because Love Actually (2003) is still one of the best Christmas movies ever made, that's why it's still topical in 2024. Bisma, who completely failed to get their profile page pro-nouns in order. Something that should be a priority for anyone commenting on what is accepted by modern audiences, who are all completely comfortable accepting preferred pro-nouns without question, because we're just that enlightened in 2024. F**K Screen Rant Full disclosure, I hate Screen Rant to the point that, if I do click on their click bait titles because I didn't see it was a Screen Rant story, I'll close the browser window almost immediately once I see what it is (which is why I'm not providing any links to their homepage). It's not because I dislike their articles. I would actually like to...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog