I wish I wouldn’t get so excited to see a film. It can never live up to the buildup in my imagination. It can never be as grand and wonderful as I wanted it to be. It can never tell the full story. Why? Because I’m a book guy, and a book gives you as many pages as it needs to tell the tale. A movie clocks in at 3 hrs or lest for the most part. That is not enough time to tell the story of Wakanda. That was not enough time to build up to everything they wanted to do and resolve it in the way it needed to be resolved. It is not enough time to explore as many characters as they chose to fill the screen with and still feel like you’ve been told the story of each.
This is not to say this is a bad movie. It was good. I enjoyed it. That being said, it was not as much as I hoped, in spite of the length. I am happy I saw it and I will likely see it again at a much later date. It was not as good as the first movie, yet it was a deeply stirring tribute to the man who brought the Black Panther to life.
The mantle sits on new shoulders now, and it is worth it to see how this new Panther handles things. It is also worth it to see what happens to some of the other characters as we move forward. Wakanda is in good hands–Good enough that I look forward to what it does in the future.