Tag: MCU

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Black Panther: WAKANDA FOREVER | M’kylito’s Matinée | M’kylito’s Multiplex

Aside from the animated What If series, the last time we saw T’Challa was at the close of 2019’s Avengers: Endgame at Tony Stark’s funeral. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (hereafter Wakanda Forever) begins with T’Challa’s funeral.

Several reviewers have complained about the run time of Wakanda Forever, even though almost everyone agreed that this film had a significant burden on its shoulders. It had to explain what has happened in Wakanda and incorporate the real-life, real-universe death of Chadwick Boseman, who played T’Challa in four previous MCU films and several episodes of the aforementioned What If series. Many also felt it needed to bring some sanity to the disjointed Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Since Endgame, several years have passed. In the intervening time, T’Challa has contracted a fast-acting disease, and Shuri (Letitia Wright), who, to this point, has been unable to re-create a synthetic Heart-Shaped Herb, is desperately trying to cure her brother. She fails, and her brother dies because she doesn’t have the Heart-Shaped Herb, artificial or natural.

This is an example of how Ryan Coogler, as director, story author, and co-screenwriter with Joe Robert Cole, avoids taking shortcuts in weaving the tapestry that is Wakanda Forever. Coogler and Cole could have easily written around the total destruction of the Heart-Shaped Herb by Killmonger. Instead, they constructed a story element that incorporated an explanation.

Queen Ramonda, who has become the reigning monarch in the wake of T’Challa’s death, implores Shuri to recreate the Heart-Shaped Herb, but Shuri is still grieving her brother’s death, and we learn she doesn’t really believe in the Ancestral Plane. Ramonda is concerned that Wakanda will be attacked by outside forces trying to obtain vibranium.

Instead, Wakanda is threatened by a civilization unbeknownst to them. Namor, the leader of an underwater society known as Talokan, appears to Ramonda and Shuri. He tells them that vibranium was not only in The Great Mound of Wakanda but also under the sea in his nation. It seems the countries of the surface are not only trying to exploit Wakanda but Talokan as well. Namor wants Wakanda to ally with Talokan against the surface worlds, but Ramonda is reluctant.

Coogler and Cole’s storytelling is enhanced by the return of several Academy Award winners. Ruth E. Carter returns as Costume Designer, and Hannah Beachler as Production Designer. Ludwig Göransson’s score is weaved with songs from Rihanna and Baaba Maal.

I think of the film as a series of chapters, each dealing with a separate part of the overall story. One section of the story introduces Dominque Thorne as Riri Williams. A second section introduces Tenoch Huerta Mejía as Namor, Mabel Cadena as Namora, Alex Livinalli as Attuma, and the people of Talokan. A third section features Martin Freeman returning as CIA agent Everett Ross and a character we know but didn’t expect, which expands upon what we know about that character. Coogler and Cole weave all of this together with stories from Wakanda onto a grand tapestry.

The opening of Wakanda Forever is a moving tribute to T’Challa and the actor who played him. However, the film’s closing moments and the mid-credits scene will absolutely rip your heart out.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, action, and some language. It’s playing in theatres now.

I’m not unbiased, but I rate the movie a solid 10 out of 10, the equivalent of five stars. I recommend you see it. Now, it’s up to you to decide.

Matinée Review

Trailer

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Spider-Man: No Way Home

Forgive me if I take this out on Peter Parker, but Spider-Man: No Way Home suffers from many of the problems of modern intellectual property; that is that it’s not really modern at all. If I were scoring the film just based on my enjoyment, it would receive a 6 out of 10. If you saw the graphic above, you’ll know that I rated it 8 out of 10. I’ll explain why before you read to the end.

Much of modern intellectual property survives on two fundamental and related things. One has been going on for quite a while now. That’s the repurposing of script elements that we’ve seen in either prior films in a series or story devices that we’ve seen in other movies. So, for example, (using a scene we saw in the trailers,) when MJ falls off the scaffolding, that’s similar to things we saw in the 80’s Spider-Man films and the 90’s Amazing Spider-Man films.

The second thing is fan service.  Sometimes, fan service is desirable when used, for example, in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, which essentially were clip films without using clips. They used script elements that essentially recapped the previous 20 films without showing clips but building scenes based on what we saw in those films.

My problem with Spider-Man: No Way Home is that it is essentially a film that combined major story elements revealed in trailers with others recycled from previous Spider-films. It is a movie that Spider-fans figured out on social media. There wasn’t a single story element that took me by surprise. This is from a person who avoided social media about the film from the premiere until I saw it this morning. So, did I find it satisfying? No.

Increasingly, modern storytelling is dependent on familiar content and fan service. This has given fandom a sense of entitlement where if what they want to see in a film is omitted, then the film has no value, and there’s no impetus to see it.

Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers wrote the script for all three MCU Spider-Man films (as well as Ant-Man and the Wasp). Jon Watts directed all three as well and will be directing the upcoming Fantastic Four MCU introduction. Watts and photographer Mauro Fiore did an outstanding job with the material given. The writers attempted to generate pathos and, judging by the reaction of the audience I viewed the film with, they were apparently successful. However, I feel McKenna and Sommers have kind of written themselves into a box and I can’t wait to see how Feige and company get themselves out of it.

Tom Holland returns as Peter Parker and Spider-Man, as does the cast of the previous Spider-Man MCU movies. Every villain from the earlier Spider-films appears in this movie, played, with one exception, by all the same actors. So, it’s an all-star cast that’s we see on the screen throughout the film.

There’s not a lot I can say about the plot without spoiling it.
However, I can say that you’ve seen it all before in one form or another.

There is a mid-credits scene and a post-credits scene affecting both Sony’s Spider-Verse and the Marvel Cinematic University.  Next up is another film from Sony. Morbius premieres in January.

Trailer