‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ review: The best-acted MCU movie ever

The triumphant success of “Black 💦Panther: Wakan⭕da Forever” comes against all odds.

First, the sequel had to follow the hit 2018 film that became a worldwide cross-cultural phenomenon and a Best Pi⭕ctur🦩e Oscar nominee. And, more somberly, Marvel needed to craft the usual entertaining movie its fans have come to expect even after of the original’s star, Chadwick Boseman. 

Anothꦜer major follow-up with 𓃲two such mountainous hurdles doesn’t come to mind. 

And yet, the superb “Wakanda Forever” solidifies “Black Panther” as Marvel’s richest and most high-quality franchise. There are no noticeable symptoms of sequelitis in director and co-writer Ryan Coogler’s film. Every aspect — acting, writing, special effects, score — is a notch above its superhero peers. In the best possible sense, you forget you’re watching just another Marvel movie.

At the emotional start, T’Challa (the late Boseman, who we appropriately do not see outside of sparse flashbacks), dies of an unknown illness, leaving his mother Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) and sister Princess Shuri (Letitia Wright) bereft and the Kingdom of Wakanda r⛦udderless. 

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One year 🌃later, Ramonda stingingly accuses member states of the Uni♏ted Nations of attempting to steal Wakanda’s vibranium — the rare, all-powerful element only found in the African country. Or so they think.

Using a special probe, America discovers the blue rock present in the Atlantic Ocean, inciting the wrath of a new foe — the secret underwater people of Talokan, who also rely on vibranium and are led by Namor (Tenoch Huerta), essentially an aquatic Black Panther. The US blames Wakanda for the attack on their🏅 ship, but Namor threatens Queen Ramonda that if she reveals Talokan’s existence, Wakanda will be destroyed.

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In the absence of the title character, Ramonda and Shuri, who was previously a gadgets-and-gizmos sidekick, ascend to leading roles. And, especiall🍸y on the part of Bassett, we witness the best dramatic acting in an MCU movie so far. One of Bassett’s speeches is so forceful and stirring for the usღually milquetoast MCU, it’s like being served foie gras at Burger King.

Wright also goes admirably deep as Shuri, while her character wrestles with her royal role and adul👍thood now that T’Challa is gone. R𒁃arely do other Marvel actors so capably play both comedy and suffering as well as Wright.

Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), Okoye (Danai Gurira) 🃏and Aneka (Michaela Coel) al🐭l have distinct, thoughtful arcs. And a very funny helper is introduced in Riri (Dominique Thorne), a genius Harvard student who unwittingly goes along for the ride.

“Wakanda Forever” is the opposite of DC Comics’ horrible “Black Adam,” in which somehow no character mattered or was remotely mem♚orable. There are no loose threads here, and everybody ൲is involving.

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Huerta’s Namor makes a solid, complex villain — although not quite the showstopper of Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger — but the star is really all the Talokanil. Inspired by indigenous Yucatan peoples, Coogler and his team have built a different, submerged world as painstakingly detailed as Wakanda. Talokan is strikingly gorgeous, like Pandora of “Avatar,” and we develop an affection for it based on looks alone. That becomes important later on.

Coogler’s film, at 2 hours 40 minutes, is a long one, but there is no dead air; the locales are stunning, and the creativity on display is explosive. Checking the time at the end, I was pleasantly surprised by how late it was. That’s a credit to the director, who has a mastery of grand, portentous, earth-shaking moments that pull us toward the screen.

But it also speaks to the quality of the acting, which is an element the ballooning superhero genre has largely conditioned audiences to not care about. With an ensemble as committed and gutsy as this one — even donning full-body panther suits and wielding high-tech spears — you can’t look away.