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Notes -
I want to talk about some of the failures of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
First, let me say that I thought they handled the death of their main actor about as respectfully and deftly as any blockbuster movie made by Disney could be expected to. The emotional through line of grief and dealing with the death of a loved one rang true, and I found myself tearing up a bit towards the end.
However, I feel like this movie is very messy and a lot of it comes from their unwillingness to be as daring politically or aesthetically as the original Black Panther.
My biggest complaints circle around Talokan and Namor.
Whatever else one might say about the concept of Wakanda, the idea of asking what Africa would look like without colonization, and the imagination behind its Afro-futurism is interesting and compelling. On top of that, the political questions at the core of the first movie, while not Citizen Cane, are fundamentally interesting: What responsibility do the powerful have to those weaker than them? Is a gradualist or revolutionary approach to change better? Isolation or conquest? Isolation or outreach?
It is also helped along by the fact that Killmonger managed to be a villain with a point - as a descendant of royalty and African slaves, a Wakandan who has seen the plight of African Americans and come away with a more revolutionary Black nationalist mindset as a result. He manages to be grounded up until the point they decide to make him just enough of an asshole to justify stopping him for trying to change things the wrong way.
But all of this falls apart with Namor. He is old enough to have personally been oppressed by Spanish colonists 400 years ago, and he even attacked a Spanish hacienda while burying his mother. He says he will "never forget what he saw." And yet... he just sort of let the rest of Spanish colonization and Mesoamerican history play or more or less the way it did in our world after that? He saw the rise and fall of Fascism and Communism in the 20th century, and he didn't lift a finger, but as soon as the surface world is on the brink of discovering Talokan, it suddenly becomes imperative to preemptively conquer the surface, since the system of White European dominance that American hegemony is the latest instance of would be all too happy to use neo-colonial policies against these two new superpowers.
However, the passage of 400 years really makes Namor feel way less justified in his crusade. Killmonger personally experienced life as a poor black kid in contemporary America, and learned the broader context of his suffering and the oppression of his people. Meanwhile, Talokan has been isolationist for the last 400 years and clearly hasn't bothered to stop oppression anywhere else. (He says his enemies call him "Namor", but who are his enemies? Aside from burning one Spanish plantation to the ground 400 years ago, what did he do for the Mayan people since then?) The passage of time has also made things more complicated. Namor would be most justified if his crusade was against the Spanish - but of course they haven't been a world power for a long time, so instead the movie uses America and, strangely, France as its two examples of White European colonizers in the modern world. (I suspect they wanted to do more with the Haiti-France connection in the original script, but it got cut for being too spicy.)
But in Namor's conversations with Shuri, he talks about how "you know how they treat people like us", and I have to ask whether the movie actually manages to say anything about race relations or the history of colonialism at all, rather than lazily referencing it. Like, sure small pox and Spanish conquista was horrible for many of the natives, and it sucks that Namor's tribe had to go through that, but none of that would really justify attacking the countries today, the people alive today. The time to act would have been 400 years ago, and it seems like the Talokanian people had the power and ability to fight back against the Spanish, and they did nothing really substantive to do so. They gave up after one plantation.
As an aside, I think it is simple realpolitik that America and every other halfway competent nation would be trying to get their hands on vibranium in the MCU. I don't actually think the hints of neocolonial critique really get off the ground here. MCU America doesn't want vibranium because Wakanda is a black nation, and wouldn't want it because Talokan is a Mayan nation. They want it because there are aliens and demons and gods in the MCU, and vibranium is one of the better tools for fighting back against them. As well as being responsible for miraculous advancements in medical and other technologies.
Overall, this just seems like another instance of Marvel not doing a great job with Hispanic countries and cultures, even as I tend to be fairly impressed with how they handle the African American experience. For a good example of the former, look at the Eternals. What exactly makes Druig stop his mind control scheme to bring peace between the Indians and the Spanish at a single city? Why didn't he do that to all the Spanish? For an example of the latter, see The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
Disclaimer: I haven't seen the movie.
Just from listening to your description I think I have a stronger, more workable premise for the movie:
Establish that at some point long ago in Wakanda's history, when we KNOW they were more aggressive and warlike, Wakanda invaded and briefly occupied Talokan to try to secure the competing vibranium resource. But then Wakandan forces abruptly withdrew (or were overthrown) when they chose to dissappear from the world stage. And have Namor actively remember and bear possibly literal scars from this event.
Then you justify why Talokan remained hidden even as other colonizers ravaged their continent. They were uncertain as to Wakanda's status and not wanting to attract their attention.
And Namor re-appears due to concern and distrust over Wakanda's emergence and perhaps wants to attempt a pre-emptive strike while they are in a more delicate position.
Now you've got an interesting new perspective with Wakanda having to grapple with its own brief history as colonizers. You can really dissect the concept of collective guilt and the bearing of grudges across long periods of time.
And then you can have Namor seemingly justified in personal animosity against the Wakandan Royal family since he was personally oppressed by their ancestors, and yet may be able to accept that he is dealing with people who had nothing to do with those previous actions and thus:
A) the sins of the father may not be justifiably repaid by their children's children's children's children's children's children, even if you can directly trace the bloodline.
B) They can become an overall force for good despite past misdeeds.
Surely he is owed reparations, though!
And this doesn't mean you have to drop the real-world race politics either, just have to make the Wakandans contend with their spotless image being a tad tarnished. Or if you want to absolve them, have it turn out that a rogue element of the Wakandan military actually carried out the occupation.
I dunno, seems to make for a more compelling narrative AND solves plot and character motivation issues.
Almost certainly would have made for a more interesting film. But of course, this would never happen because you're injecting even the lightest bit of nuance into the film's social message which is 'colonalism bad, western/white countries bad'. Having Wakanda actually be the one colonising another culture would never be allowed, let alone the message of 'let bygones be bygones'.
Honestly Black Panther is a narrative mess anyway since like even ceding 'they were noninterventionalist' means that they've happily twiddled their thumbs through a boatload of fucked up happenings on the continent.
Without even getting into the whole 'Yes, Compton is the greatest scene of African suffering in the world' hilarity.
Virtually the entire MCU has this problem, since it is increasingly being revealed that various heroes and superpowered beings were in and around earth and either didn't intervene in or actually 'allowed' certain disasters to occur anyway.
At least Steve Rogers has the excuse of being frozen for decades.
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