Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

I’ll be honest. I thought the first Black Panther was pretty good. Not great. I definitely didn’t feel like it was groundbreaking, outside of it’s presentation of an Afrofuturist world. That was certainly cool. And Chadwick Boseman was great.

Still, I wanted to see Wakanda Forever. I was fascinated by how they would handle T’Challa’s death, how they would integrate Namor, how they would build on everything else that has gone on in the MCU.

So, I liked this one a little bit less. The effects are certainly better. No CGI metal-plated rhinoceroses in this one, at least. The scope of the finale was bigger than the somewhat lackluster fight on a hill with 50 people that ended the first film. But, unfortunately, without Boseman as an anchor, and with some serious story problems, I found the film, in general, kind of a waste of time.

But what did I like? The film looked great. The performances were all great. A lot of the heavy emotional lifting was done by Letitia Wright and Angela Bassett, and they knocked it out of the park. The way practically the entire film is a tribute to Boseman worked. It could have seemed overblown and maudlin. It didn’t.

Now to what I didn’t like, and what generally pushed me out of the film. First, Namor. This character was too much. A four-hundred-year-old mutant who can fly because he has tiny wings on his ankles? No. This doesn’t pass the smell test. I accept the mutation thing, the “I can kind of breath air” thing. I suppose I could accept the “basically immortal” thing, but the ankle-wings killed it for me.

The other thing about Namor that truly grated was that his entire conflict with Wakanda was over Riri Williams, and how she was a threat to Talokan. Um… Namor, did you think Williams was captaining the ship you attacked? Did you think no one else knew how her machine worked? That no one would be able to follow her work? This is, simply, dumb. The vibranium-scanner device is now a thing that people can have. You’ve got to deal with that. You should be working with Wakanda, as your only natural ally, not against them. The writers should have put the Talokan/Wakanda conflict to rest in the first half of the film, and had them both fend off invaders from the outside. That would have made way more sense.

(This is where I put in my standard disclaimer: I never read the comics, and I don’t care if my suggestions contradict those comics.)

Also, side note about Riri. You’re telling me that the US (and probably other world powers) have known about vibranium for nearly 80 years and the only person to figure out how to scan for it is a student who has to hustle jocks for money? And, incidentally, is also the only person (that we know of) to independently develop an Iron Man style flying suit? Yes, Justin Hammer pulled if off after Rhodey stole one, and Ivan Vanko did the same, using blue prints his father provided. Riri Williams made hers from whole cloth… with essentially no money. Don’t. Buy. It.

But perhaps my biggest annoyance with this film is who they chose to put in the Black Panther suit. Shuri is a technician, a scientist. She has shown no evidence of any military training. The heart-shaped herb doesn’t magically grant you fighting skills, a la The Matrix — “I know kung fu.” It’s a level-up on your stamina, endurance, and strength. Steve and Bucky were already soldiers. As was John Walker. Probably Red Guardian, too. We don’t know about the Flag Smashers, but we have no evidence to contradict that they were already trained. Shuri shot her hand cannons at Killmonger a couple of times, and then again in Endgame. Putting her in the Black Panther role is not the best use of Wakanda’s resources. Okoye, Nakia, M’Baku. Any one of them would have been better. I get that it’s comics-accurate. I get that it’s relevant to the emotional journey of the character. And I get that it set up the best cameo in the film (which I will not spoil). But that’s not enough. And it was easy to fix. Maybe Shuri trained in martial arts during the year since T’Challa’s death. Have her family tell her she’s obsessed. Have the elders annoyed with her for abandoning her scientific research. That would make her discovery of how to synthesize the heart-shaped herb that much more exciting and heroic. And less like a necessary story beat because of the title of the movie.

I don’t know if Boseman’s death threw the production into such a state that they couldn’t clean up the story problems and still hit their date, or if this is exactly the film Coogler wanted to make. I just wish it was better.

Mission: Impossible — Series Discussion

I have a fascination with long-running film series. Whether it’s time traveling cyborgs rewriting history or a New York cop having ever more complex and unlikely run-ins with bad guys, the threads that run through these series I find very interesting.

I’ve looked at feminism in the MI series before, but I rewatched a few of them recently, and the common elements in each are worth a look. This will also serve as something of a prediction of how the next (seventh!) MI film will look when it finally hits theaters.

So, what are the common elements in these movies?

Former Government Operative is the Bad Guy

MI1 — Yup. Jim Phelps (Jon Voight), the hero agent from the 1960s TV show, has gone to the dark side. For him, it’s about money.

MI2 — Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) is presented as a sort of dark doppelganger of Ethan Hunt. Ethan is really not too surprised when it turns out he’s gone evil. “He doesn’t think he’s done his job unless he leaves a lot of hats on the ground.” It’s also about money for this guy.

MI3 — This one’s a bit of a cheat. The real bad guy is Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), but he’s helped along the way by John Musgrave (Billy Crudup), who works in the IMF. Musgrave has a warped sense of patriotism.

MIGP — I think this one counts. “Cobalt” is the code name for Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), a former analyst in the Russian government who’s all hot for nuclear war.

MIRN — Another dark mirror of Ethan, Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) is a British spy who might be smarter than Ethan, much to Ethan’s chagrin. Lane just wants to burn it all to the ground.

MIF — CIA agent August Walker (Henry Cavill) is not really very similar to Ethan. He’s more of a blunt instrument. He’s an apostle of Lane, so, burn it all to the ground, again.

Prediction for MI7 — Esai Morales is the bad guy. I assume he used to be a secret agent, too. Not sure what his motivation is. We’ve had two guys who are greedy, two guys who want peace at unthinkable cost, and two guys who want chaos. Let’s give this guy a new motivation. Something personal. Ethan destroyed his life and he just wants revenge.

One character returns that made their first appearance in the previous film

MI1 — I guess Jim Phelps?

MI2 — Luther Stickel (Ving Rhames)

MI3 — Wait. No one? Did we not want to see Billy Baird (John Polson) again?

MIGP — Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg)

MIRN — William Brandt (Jeremy Renner)

MIF — Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson)

MI7 — Wait. Two? We get White Widow (Vanessa Kirby) and Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett)? What is this, the Fast and Furious series?

Prediction for MI8 — I’m guessing Hayley Atwell will be back for the next one.

Agency superior that can’t control ethan

MI1 — Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny): The fact that he has had to wait until film 7 to return is unforgivable. I loved this guy.

MI2 — Swanbeck (Anthony Hopkins): I think he might be the only one who doesn’t ever question Ethan’s loyalty.

MI3 — Theodore Brassel (Laurence Fishburne): Is it possible that he seems both the most competent and the most easily frustrated of all the ones in this category?

MIGP — IMF Secretary (Tom Wilkinson): Our first time meeting with the oft-mentioned “Secretary”.

MIRN — Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin): After the shuttering of the IMF, the Director of the CIA is the one who Ethan has to evade.

MIF — After Hunley is made the new Secretary of the IMF, and is subsequently killed, Erika Sloane is Ethan’s new, questioning authority figure.

Prediction for MI7 — Maybe with the return of Kittridge, we come full circle? Maybe Cary Elwes is a new guy in British Intelligence? Nah. My money is on Shea Whigham as the new superior that Ethan has to convince of his loyalty.

Being all Flirty-Flirt

MI1 — Ethan flirts hard with both Claire Phelps, the bad guy’s wife (Emmanuelle Beart) and Max, an arms dealer (Vanessa Redgrave).

MI2 — This one is flirting that segues into total romantic subplot: Nyah Nordoff-Hall, a thief with a connection to the bad guy (Thandiwe Newton).

MI3 — Dang, this time he flirts his way into marriage, with nurse Julia Meade (Michelle Monaghan).

MIGP — The chasest of the flirtations is Ethan’s interactions with Jane Carter (Paula Patton) who is a fellow agent. It’s limited to some appreciative looks and one calculated kiss.

MIRN — You can tell Ethan is taken with Ilsa right away, but it doesn’t amount to much when you realize he’s still pining for his wife from two movies ago.

MIF — Ilsa returns! Julia returns! Wow! But the new flirtation is with the White Widow, which could be considered a little creepy, since she’s Max’s daughter.

Prediction for MI7 — There will be some sort of sparks between Ethan and Hayley Atwell. (I really hope she turns out to be a bad guy.)

Failed Mission

Each film has a mission that Ethan and his team fail. Most often, this failure leads to his superiors developing a loss of confidence in him.

MI1 — The mission at the embassy, where Ethan plays an old senator and he tries to get info on a traitor who’s stealing the NOC list, ends in the deaths of several team members, with Ethan left holding the bag as a suspected mole.

MI2 — The infiltration of the lab where belerophon/chimera was developed ends with the virus not destroyed, but injected into Ethan’s girlfriend, and the girlfriend in the hands of the bad guy.

MI3 — Ethan’s attempt to rescue new agent Ferris ends with her death, and suspicion that Ethan was hiding some sort of involvement with the bad guy.

MIGP — This is a biggie. Ethan and his team try to get some info on a nuclear extremist from inside the Kremlin. This ends with the bad guy free, the Kremlin in ruins, and the US and Russia nearly at war. The President shuts down the entire IMF!

MIRN — In what might be the best action sequence of the series, Ethan and Benji go to the opera in Vienna, fail to catch the bad guy, and worse, fail to stop the assassination of the Chancellor of Austria. Ethan and Benji are now terrorists in the eyes of the government.

MIF — This one happens right off the bat. Ethan chooses to risk the mission (retrieving stolen plutonium) to save Luther. The government never actually decides Ethan has gone rogue, but they are very wary of trusting him for the rest of the film.

Prediction for MI7 — Here’s a bold suggestion: I think it’s time to kill of Luther. It’ll light a bigger fire under Ethan throughout the film, maybe making him take questionable (well, more questionable) risks.

Ethan takes an enormous risk giving something important to a bad guy

MI1 — Ethan steals the NOC list (a list of agents and their identities) from Langley and gives it to Max in order to flush out the mole.

MI2 — When Nyah injects herself with chimera, Ethan doesn’t kill her, letting Ambrose have her.

MI3 — Ethan steals the Rabbit’s Foot and gives it to Davian.

MIGP — Ethan let’s Hendricks get the nuclear launch codes as a gambit to catch and stop him.

MIRN — Ethan memorizes the account numbers and passwords for billions of dollars and gives himself to Lane in exchange for Benji.

MIF — We have a two-fer here. In the opening scene, Ethan let’s the Apostles have plutonium to save Luther. Then he sets Lane free in a bid to retrieve the plutonium, losing both in the process.

Prediction for MI7 — They’ve done the nuclear thing twice, the biological weapon thing twice, agent identities and money. Not sure what the McGuffin will be this time. I vote for some kind of device that will give terrorists access to the US military network.

Mission: Impossible and Feminism

It’s hard to imagine being able to use a spy-thriller series to talk about feminism. Even the most progressive James Bond films still have the women in distress or wanting to bed Bond, and more often both.

But Mission: Impossible is an interesting case study, because the series has consistent stars and producers, but it’s been going for 22 years.

What I’ll do here is break down the major female characters and see if there’s a trend to be found.

Mission: Impossible — There are really only two women of note in the film: Claire (Emmanuelle Beart) and Max (Vanessa Redgrave). Max comes off better, as a self-possessed arms dealer with an agenda and the means to bring it about. Claire, on the other hand, is a pawn of both Jim and Ethan as the story progresses, and her only moment of defiance is when she begs Jim not to kill Ethan (because, I guess, she loves him?) and gets killed for her trouble. This is clearly a mixed bag for the women.

Mission: Impossible II — This film has but one woman: Nyah (Thandie Newton). Her opening shows her to be a gifted thief who has no problem walking away from Ethan. But soon enough she’s mooney-eyed over him. Then she finds out she’s needed, not for any skills she has, but for her past relationship to Ambrose. She makes some noise about how that’s unfair, but she still does it. She manages one decent pickpocketing, but then screws up the return of the thing she stole. Her big moment is injecting herself with the virus, rather than handing it over to Ambrose. That feels like the character exercising her agency, but the only result is that she’s left as the damsel in distress for the third act. It’s starting to look a little better.

Mission: Impossible III — We’ve got a bunch of women in this one. One is a gung-ho agent named Linday (Keri Russell) who has some serious skills–and is then killed. Ethan’s new fiance is Julia (Michelle Monaghan). She gets to do some medical stuff and shoot a couple of people at the end. So that’s pretty good. Lastly, we have Zhen (Maggie Q) who is an actual female IMF agent who survives the film! (A first for the series.) Unfortunately, her job seems to be to wear a slinky dress to the Vatican that one time, and other than that she blows up a lot of stuff.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol — For this film we have one woman who’s a good guy (Jane, played by Paula Patton) and one who’s a bad guy (Moreau, played by Lea Seydoux). Part of me thinks it great that Jane has an actual story arc. Then part of me is annoyed that her story arc is about the dude she thought was cute getting killed. Moreau is an effective antagonist, and the fight she has with Jane is brutal, and only involved their clothes getting ripped once. So that’s something. I guess.

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation — Now we introduce Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) who breathes life into this franchise. The film has no problem showing off her body in slinky dresses and bathing suits, but it isn’t central to her purpose in the story. She’s an agent no less effective and lethal than Ethan, and she even gets to save Ethan in one pretty spectacular sequence. Her final fight with the lead henchman is hers and hers alone; Ethan is off doing something else. If only there were any other women of note, we might have had a truly feminist entry into the series.

Mission: Impossible – Fallout — Sadly, Ilsa doesn’t fare quite as well in the next film. She’s still a bad-ass with her own agenda. But she’s also largely defined by her attraction to Ethan. Every time there’s anything mentioning or showing Julia, there’s a cut to Ilsa looking sad. Julia comes off a little better, I’d say. She has a new husband and while she still has a connection to Ethan, it’s not like she defines herself by her relationship to him. White Widow (Vanessa Kirby) is basically a copy of the Max character from the first film, which is great. And they add Angela Bassett into the mix as the CIA Director (?).

All in all, I think there’s a clear trend line (at least after M:I2), from movie to movie, toward more feminist portrayals of women. An argument could be made that Fallout is a dip on that trend, but the sheer number of women, all of whom have something to do in the story, is worth valuing.

Anyway. There you go.