‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ reviews: What critics are saying

Puchko says the film, while action-packed, is at its core about how people handle loss differently. This is particularly evident in how T’Challa’s mother Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) and his sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) quarrel over the future of Wakanda.

“Through their mother-daughter battles — born of love and broken hearts — Coogler poses questions that hit hard,” Puchko wrote. “What to we owe to those we’ve lost? Is their legacy our responsibility? Or are we responsible for our own legacies? Might their memory bolster us or blind us to what our futures could be without them?”

Wright, who spent much of the first “Black Panther” as comic relief, now takes on a more serious lead role, one that many critics praised.

“[Wright] handles this shift well, bringing a maturity to the pesky little sister without entirely losing her bear-poking edge,” Puchko said.

“Boseman’s T’Challa is a spirit that lovingly haunts the film,” Macdonald writes.

“It’s part of the great strength of ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ that it doesn’t shy away from that sadness; this is, after all, a superhero movie, and Coogler might have been forgiven for wanting to quickly cut to the chase, so to speak,” she wrote.

Instead, the filmmaker allows the characters and the audience to absorb the loss before flashing forward.

“There’s so much that ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ does right that it’s frustrating to blame it for the one flaw it can’t help,” she wrote. “But you watch it wondering about the movie that never got made, the story that never got finished, the life cut short too soon.”

Much like the first “Black Panther,” Coogler is being praised for filling the “Wakanda Forever” production with talented female actors and creators. Hannah Beachler and Ruth Carter, who won Oscars for production design and costuming for their work on the first film, are back and earning more raves.

“Their shared vision of Afro-futurism feels lush and joyful and beautifully specific set against the usual white noise of Marvel fanfare, even (or almost especially) in darker moments, like the pristine rituals of a funeral scene,” Greenblatt writes. “‘Wakanda’ is still clearly a Marvel property, with all the for-the-fans story beats and secondary characters its ever-expanding universe requires, but it also feels apart from any one that’s come before.”

Greenblatt also touches on how, without King T’Challa, Wakanda has become a matriarchy.

“Without their king, Wakanda has become a queendom from the top down, overseen by Bassett’s regal, ageless Ramonda, the gorgeously daunting Gurira, and Wright, who rises to fill her dramatically expanded role with feline grace and vulnerability,” she wrote.

She notes that while this sequel is likely nothing like what Coogler and Marvel had intended to create prior to Boseman’s untimely death, “the movie they’ve made feels like something unusually elegant and profound at the multiplex; a little bit of forever carved out for the star who left too soon.”

Critics also praised the performance of Huerta as Namor, also known as the Sub-Mariner in comics, and Coogler’s interpretation of the character. Campbell calls Namor “a unique antagonist.”

“He’s a highlight, an imaginative adaptation of the veteran comics character, one who here speaks truth with convincing venom. Coogler ties him to Mesoamerican history and Spanish colonialism, and there’s a sense — like Wakanda — of a tangible, real-world history.”

Campbell also noted that “Wakanda Forever” “can feel overly busy,” since Coogler had a lot of elements to weave into the film.

“It all sprawls into a messy last act that can feel at odds with the rest of the film,” he wrote. “But ‘Wakanda Forever’ ultimately lands on a poignant note. In bookends, it deals head-on with the passing of both T’Challa and Boseman, moments that pull the film into a moving, surprisingly personal whole. Even in his absence, Boseman holds ‘Black Panther’ together.”