Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Review: 7 Ups & 3 Downs
Ups...
7. T'Challa's Death Is Emotional & Tasteful
There were so, so many ways to screw up contextualising Chadwick Boseman's tragic death within the MCU, but Coogler has done a generally excellent job of pulling it off in a way that makes dramatic sense.
Rather than overcomplicate T'Challa's death, Coogler has opted to borrow liberally from reality and in turn ensures that we, the audience, are basically on the same emotional page as the film's characters.
There are several delineated tributes to Boseman and T'Challa throughout the film, all of which clearly come from a deeply affectionate and heartbroken place, as viewers are likely to find incredibly moving and gratifying.
Boseman's death unavoidably casts a shadow over the entire movie, but rather than detail T'Challa's death and then attempt to immediately move away from it, Coogler instead boldly leans into it.
As such it's little surprise that many of the film's best scenes are moments of quiet reflection as characters process their grief.
We'll probably never know what Wakanda Forever would've looked like were Boseman still alive, but there's not a whiff of cynicism in how Marvel Studios has written T'Challa out of the franchise.