The Woman King

The Woman King (2022) is a movie my wife and I caught in theatres last night. The storyline follows an African kingdom with a new(er) king in 1823 who posses the only female army in Africa. The leader of the female Army has a past that haunts her but the respect of her king, enough to be on his council. She strongly urges him to avoid the slave trade and find alternative methods of riches. Meanwhile, those who do believe strongly in the slave trade look to march on the kingdom and bring them down. A new recruitment class to the female army brings brashness, new ideas to defend the kingdom, and the female leader's ghosts back to the forefront...

This movie is directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball) and stars Viola Davis (The Help), Thuso Mbedu (The Underground Railroad), Lashana Lynch (No Time to Die), Sheila Atim (Doctor Strange: In the Mouth of Madness), John Boyega (Star Wars: Episode VII-IV) and Jimmy Odukoya (Mamba's Diamond).

This movie has so much depth and contains a great primary plot and even better sub plots. The writing is remarkable, thorough and very impressive. The character's inner demons are well portrayed as is their struggle to overcome them. The acting is out of this world across the board. You feel for every character; and if anything happens to anyone, you feel personally hurt. The villains were also excellent as is the outcome of each of them. The settings and cinematography is outstanding and there is impressive use of lighting. The action scenes are remarkable and the fight choreography is award winning caliber. My only complaint is an awkward love story that is obviously in here to show maturity and self discovery but I could have done without it.

Overall, this movie has literally everything you'd want in a movie - tremendous action, great villains, self discovery and character triumph. I would strongly, strongly recommend seeing this movie and score it a 10/10. We loved it.

When I went into this movie, I already knew very well the history surrounding the Agojie and the actions done by the African kingdom of Dahomey. But because I've almost always appreciated and liked the roles that Viola Davis chooses, I gave it a try.

After Viola Davis declarations about what it would mean if people didn't went to see the movie, a big part of me wanted nothing more than to not even see the movie. But I took her statements, as her making a huge mistake, that might hurt an actual good movie.

And as it turned out, I wouldn't have lost anything if I hadn't watched this movie.

From Viola Davis, to Lashana Lynch Izogie and others. The performances were for the most part solid, and the natural beauty of the African continent all helped to make the movie tolerable.

However try as they might, and they did try, history didn't happened that way. Not exactly. The Woman King gives you the Hollywood edited version of history, but it doesn't give you the actual history. The ugly side of the tribe that Nanisca (Davis) is portraying.

It's understandable why they did what they did, seeing the times they were living, and the movie should've owned that, instead of trying to embellish the truth. Anyone with an ounce of common sense would've understood, or at least tried to understand what was happening historically in that period of African history.

But apparently they are too ashamed to own to their own history. Maybe because the actresses and actors, didn't even bother to study the history of what they were going to be portraying.

The movie is not good, not really. It's watchable, not just because of the performances but also because of the beauty of the African continent, and also in part the culture as well. However they could've cut twenty minutes to the movie and you'd have lost nothing.

It has too many moments that are slow paced, and then it just puts in the fifth gear and doesn't slow down. To the viewer that doesn't know anything about what they're watching, they might be deceived into thinking they saw a a movie about female empowerment, and how to fight against oppression to preserve one's freedom. Because that's what the movie tries to sell.

And it's really because of the embellishment of a hard reality, that was the reality of those times, that I couldn't really appreciate this movie. It would be like applauding inaccuracy for the sake of creating a nice story, instead of owning the truth and show how many times sacrifices and hard choices need to be made.

I completely understand how some people might be more than willing to close their eyes to those things, but the dual standard isn't lost considering other historical movies were also a target of great scrutiny. And if memory fails you, then remember the criticism done about Kingdom of Heaven for not accurately portraying the Islamic side of history.

So if all other historical movies have been subjected to critic of their historical accuracy, then The Woman King doesn't get a free pass. At least not from me.

And then there's the story of the movie itself. Completely predicable from beginning to end, some of the dialogues were cringe as cringe can be, and some actresses like Viola Davis tried to sell their roles so hard that it came out as far over the top.

Twelve Years a Slave was a great movie, however The Woman King is not. It's watchable in a way that you can see it and pass the time, but without ever getting pulled into the story.

This movie will add nothing to the career of the actresses and actors in it. And it will add little to viewer, that spends the 135 minutes watching it.

And so there's no doubts, this movie lost me because a) the story wasn't good enough b) the story is too predictable c) some performances are just too over the top and d) the historical inaccuracy is unforgivable.

When murderers, rapists and slave traders are presented as heroes and liberators, it is disgusting. It is disgusting to see how some directors and actors try to present evil with good. How something terrible is twisted to make it look beautiful. It is as if serial maniacs and murderers who killed hundreds of people in the most brutal ways would be made noble and just heroes. He killed 30 people, dismembered and ate them, oh no no, he was a hero who helps children with cancer. It's disgusting and I want to vomit from such cynicism! The acting is mediocre, even below average. And the appeals of the main characters to visit cinemas to watch this cynical lie. Strong female characters, heroes that the public should know about, good and honest people - all this will be on the screens someday, but not in this film!

The Woman King sounds like a great movie on paper but fails to deliver big time.

The strength of the movie is it cast. Viola Davis and John Boyega are great well established actors who also look great as General and King respectively. Nawi (Thosu Mbedu) and Lashana Lynch (Izogie) were also both great. So, casting is on point.

The movie has good production design and wardrobe as well.

The movie falls flat on its face when it comes to it's Cinematography- there's nothing special about it- it's basic coverage, no cool telling of the story through great cinematography.

For an epic movie with war/battle scenes, the action scenes are very blah. No cool action set pieces or fight choreo at all.

Ultimately, I think the direction fails in telling this epic story. There is no sense of scale or no sense of how economically and morally draining to the local people the slave trade is. It is just lacking emotion. The strongest moment comes from Boyega's last speech. I think a different director could have done much better with the material of this film. It doesn't feel epic at all, when it really should feel epic and be epic.

Damn, it's hard to diss a movie that so much work went into, and where so many great performances were offered.

But the disgusting way that the writers have turned villains into heroes and sold a fake history lesson to the public cannot be overlooked.

This country was a despicable, slave-owning, slave-trading, totalitarian regime and its Amazon army, composed of girls who were themselves enslaved as children, were how the country captured its slaves.

Viola Davis is great as the fictional character she plays and the whole thing looks spectacular but none of this matters a damn because its all a cash-grabbing lie.