 Let's take a second to talk about the late, great Chadwick Boseman. This is a guy who has received the respect of so many MCU fans, as it was discovered that he was actually quite sick while filming 'Black Panther'. Diagnosed with stage III colon Cancer in 2016, the man carried on, not mentioning his illness to many more than a few close family members. It is admirable that he kept going to film something like 'Black Panther'; a film that has gone down in cinematic history for black culture. Boseman was a fighter and an inspiration, and he will be missed.
Boseman's T'challa also marks (I think) the only MCU character not to be recast, but to have a story worked around his real-life death instead. Names that come to mind are Terrence Howard with Don Cheadle as Rhodes/War Machine, Ed Norton with Mark Ruffalo as Hulk, and recently the puzzle of casting that wnt to Cassie Lang, first by Abby Ryder Fortson, then by Emma Fuhrmann, and now portrayed by Kathryn Newton. One can simply make the argument that none of these are posthumous replacements - but take a look at the fact that Harrison Ford is to replace the recently deceased William Hurt as General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross. There seems to be a certain heavy respect for Boseman - but does it hinder the final product? The film quite literally opens with T'challa's off-screen death, due to an unspecified illness. While Shuri (Letitia Wright) tries like hell to synthesize a cure from the heart-shaped herb (the thing that gives the Black Panther power). To no one's surprise, it all fails, and Shuri is soon left with a broken heart, having lost her brother and probably best friend. A year passes, and Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) is faced with pressure from other nations to share their vibranium. The Queen refuses, and even makes some examples of people with the knowledge that so many of these nations are bound to weaponize it. This soon leads the CIA and US Navy SEALs to use a vibranium detector to find another potential deposit underwater. This is where the highly trained professionals are attacked by Namor (Tenoch Huerta), leading a group of blue, aquatic superhumans. Recognizing a vibranium race at hand, Namor easily blames Wakanda for the interference of their underwater realm. Namor offers an ultimatum - deliver the scientist who created the vibranium detector or begin a war with Namor and his overpowering underwater race. Soon enough, Shuri and Okoye (Danai Gurira) discover from Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman) that this inventor is Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne); an MIT genius, nothing short of Tony Stark, himself - in many ways, actually. And this is where the film turns into a bit of an "escort mission" movie, which is actually a criticism of mine. Don't get me wrong, it all makes sense in its execution. However, going through this, I definitely got reflections of 'Multiverse of Madness' in the sense that the film is mostly about protecting a brand-spanking-new character. There, we had America Chavez, and here, we have Riri Williams, aka Ironheart. I theorize at the point of writing this that they will eventually assemble a new, all-female team of "Young Avengers", who will include no less than Iron Heart, Chavez, Bishop (New Hawkeye), Ms. Marvel and maybe Yulena Belova (New Black Widow). Just a theory, but we'll see what happens with all of that. Anyway, perhaps the "escort mission" aspect is a bit of a nitpick on my part, as in both stories, it all makes sense. I just don't wanna see a whole bunch of it start happening now. On the whole, the film is perfectly decent and enjoyable, but I have to admit that I didn't appreciate it nearly as much as I appreciated the first film. I suppose the film's cleverness is the idea of a precious resource that people are willing to go to war over, and all that comes with that. And when it comes to something like vibranium in the MCU, that makes perfect sense, and I did appreciate that whole aspect. However, there were just too many nitpicks about the film I had along the way. In some cases, the film ends up being predictable - especially the answer to "who is this new female Black Panther we see in the trailers?" I, for one, never understood how that was such a mystery - but that's just me. Further to that, I wasn't too big on our villain here, thinking Killmonger left a hell of a lot more of an impact in the first film. I also liked Shuri, herself, way more in the first film. She was much more fun and charming then. And I GET why she has an air of super seriousness here now - it all makes perfect sense, but as I mentioned, this is me nitpicking. A lot of this was just me saying "I might have done that differently", not so much "that was dumb" or anything so negative. I think all in all, it's a decent watch, but it has nothing on the first 'Black Panther' film. With this, we bring "Phase 4" to a close, and I have to admit it's done so in a pretty sweet way instead of a brutal cliff-hanger. The film is a clear dedication to Boseman, and its heart is definitely in the right place. If I was to use a term to describe its overall execution: "bittersweet". MID-CREDITS SCENE: No Spoilers Until Release of 'The Marvels' 3/5
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