I think it's fair to say that the recent Marvel films have been disinterested in telling stories about characters. Multiverse of Madness dismissed any idea of character growth for the Scarlet Witch in exchange for getting a movie full of Sam Rami doing his brand of horror schtick in a PG-13 environment. And the less said about Thor: Love and Thunder's pathological fear of being earnest or sincere even for a moment the better. Jane Foster has stage four cancer? Surely we can squeeze about ten minutes of comedy out of that!
Wakanda Forever is, in contrast, very focused on its characters: their motivations, their desires, their pain. Specifically, it's interested in how those living in Wakanda deal with the sudden loss of their king, T'Challa. But as a Black Panther sequel directed by Ryan Coogler, it's also interested in continuing to explore the legacy of colonialism the previous film engaged with. It is the tale of two nations: one that has never been conquered or colonized and is untrusted by the wider world, and one that was forced to redefine everything about themselves in the face of colonization and will go to any length to ensure it never happens again. And at the intersection of a nation recoiling from loss and a nation that refuses to ever feel it again is tremendous grief and anger. Hurt people hurt people, and when hurt people hurt hurt people, well...
I also feel obligated to point out how amazing it is that the film manages to make its villain, Namor, credibly threatening and sympathetic. Water themed heroes have had a rough go of it. From Rick and Morty to The Boys to Family Guy to implications of DC's own attempt to rebrand Aquaman in the 2000's, people have been riffing on the Namor/Aquaman archetype for years. And Namor in particular is hard to take seriously: he's a man in a Speedo with wings on his ankles and pointy elf ears who lives underwater. And yet Wakanda Forever manages to keep more or less all of that verbatim and still make him feel acutely menacing. He's framed like a horror movie villain for the first half of the movie, and it totally works to sell what could easily have been ridiculous in less talented hands.
That this film is as good as it is feels like something of a miracle. Chadwick Boseman's untimely death and the decision to not recast the role of T'Challa meant that the script had to be radically reworked in short order. Then production woes hit the film as Letitia Wright was injured (and, it is rumored, caused additional delays and problems on set with her refusal to get vaccinated). The fact that the film finds its emotional heart with Shuri isn't surprising, but given the drama surrounding Wright it does cast a bit of a pallor over the proceedings.
Despite all of that what Coogler has delivered here is a movie that, while not the cultural touchstone that was the original Black Panther, certainly is in the upper echelon of Marvel films (for whatever that's worth to you). It manages to say goodbye to both Boseman and T'Challa in a tasteful and satisfying way, and by allowing us to mourn alongside the characters it offers its audience closure too. There's catharsis here, with a helping of decolonization discourse on the side. And that makes it more worthwhile to me than any number of POV monsters and snap zooms or jumble of jokey jokes.