[imagesource: Marvel Studios]

When Black Panther dropped in 2018, it smashed records around the world and here at home.

In its fifth weekend of release (March 16 to March 18) that year, Black Panther became the all-time top-grossing film in South Africa.

That was added to its previous records of the highest Saturday and February opening weekend and, of course, the biggest superhero film ever.

As the sequel’s release date drew ever nearer, teaser trailers racked up millions of views and discussions around how the franchise would deal with the death of Chadwick Boseman hit overdrive.

The film is now here and has become the biggest industry opening weekend of all time in East and Southern Africa. That doesn’t mean the reviews are all glowing, though, and some are downright brutal

The Telegraph gave the film a single star and labelled it “a drab, crushing disappointment”:

…this jewel in the franchise’s crown has sadly begat one of its drabbest, stalest, most incoherent sequels – a near-three-hour endurance run of gloomy photography and turgidly staged, emotionally empty two-way conversations, all seemingly designed to sap cast and viewers’ combined will to live.

Losing Boseman just eight months prior to when shooting was supposed to start led to a series of rewrites, and COVID-19 also caused further upheaval.

Not that the publication’s review is cutting the film any slack, adding that “the word ‘plot’ barely applies.”

Writing for City Press, Phumlani S Langa also went for the jugular:

Neither of the two Black Panthers are good enough. They aren’t even better than Avengers: Infinity War, which was by far the best movie in the Marvel multiverse, which itself needs to stop eventually.

I am perfectly aware that the first Black Panther is an Academy Award-winning film. Some of us are still flummoxed and astounded by that…

The film also has futile dialogue strewn throughout, and these feeble attempts at being emotive make it a chore to watch.

Obviously, whether you enjoy a movie or not has nothing to do with these reviews and there were plenty of critics who had kind words to say about the sequel.

The film’s official Instagram account made sure to highlight a few:

 

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Art is subjective and (aside from The Blind Side, which was objectively horrendous and Sandra Bullock stole an Oscar for it) we’ll be fair and feature some positive words.

This comes via The Guardian’s three-star review:

…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.

The Daily Maverick was very effusive in its praise:

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is not a movie without fault, but given the nigh-unprecedented challenges it faced, not to mention the unenviable task of being the capstone to the MCU’s divisive Phase 4, it’s hard to deny its soaring successes…

…[director Ryan] Coogler and his cast have managed to internalise the grief of losing a dear friend and then exploded that onto the screen in hugely moving character beats that elevate everything around them, overcoming its own faults and some impossible odds along the way, to give us some of the best Marvel fare we’ve had recently. That is superhero filmmaking.

The sequel was always touted to crush it at the box office and it has delivered on that front.

As of yesterday, it has a 10-day domestic US box office total of $288 million and has taken in $546 million worldwide.

Those numbers are likely to be at least rivalled by next month’s Avatar: The Way of Water.

[sources:tele&citypress&guardian]