The aching absence of Chadwick Boseman, who played King T’Challa in the first Black Panther film and who died, aged 43, in 2020, is not something that can be filled in a sequel. And wisely, returning director Ryan Coogler doesn’t try to do so. While other Marvel pictures can multiverse themselves out of questions of mortality should they so wish, Coogler leans into the pain shared by Boseman’s colleagues and fans alike and crafts an unexpectedly sober picture that explores the grieving process. And while not everything works – the Wakanda nation is threatened by a cerulean-hued aquatic warrior race, led by a mutant god called Namor (Tenoch Huerta) who is rather bewildering and inconsistent in his motives for conflict – the emotional core is raw, credible and affecting.
This is largely thanks to the commanding work of a magnificent Angela Bassett, as the queen who must balance her bereavement against her duty to her people, and Letitia Wright, excellent as T’Challa’s younger sister, Shuri. Tortured by the knowledge that her gifts in science and technology were insufficient to save her brother, Shuri evolves as a character, from the impish prodigy to a woman who has been shaped by her sadness and loss. Filling the vacancy left for a teen girl science whiz is Riri (Dominique Thorne, floundering in an underwritten role), an MIT undergrad who has invented a vibranium detector and effectively signed her own death warrant at the hands of the angry blue fish people.
