I liked it

To be fair, Freeman's character did play a significant role in the first Black Panther film, which is the only reason he's in this one. He's basically the Wakandans' secret contact into who and what might be gearing up against them in the outside world---that's his main purpose. I happen to like Freeman as an actor, so it was still cool to see him in there. He only had barely 20 min. screen time anyway. It always cracks me up when Shuri and Okoye call him "the colonizer" though.

And yeah, there was clearly a lot more investment and thought put into the plot and these characters----that's what made it so compelling, like the first BP film. Frankly, it's nice to discuss the actual film with someone on these boards for a change, instead of people who haven't even seen it bashing it, and stupid-a** racists who just hate it only because it dosen't have a white guy starring in it, and spend whole threads whining about only that. Plus it was cool to see two entirely different groups of people of color (African and Mesoamerican) as the main characters representing themselves and their cultures in their own unique ways. That's another thing you rarely see in most superhero films, and that's also what makes Wakanda Forever unique from the others. Plus it's a good film, with an intriguing antagonist (Namor) and some actually funny humor and great action-packed scenes throughout it.