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 you look past the fact that the dohemy were responsible for slavery and were easily wiped out, and when I say easily wiped out, that's being kind, by French soldiers. That's likes making a movie about the confederate side in civil war and painting them in a positive while ignoring the whole slavery aspect. Not only did they lose in long range attacks, but also in hand to hand combat. So yeah, once you over look the inaccuracies, it's not a terrible film. Action in this film is great if you you don't understand simple physics or you over look it. The choreography is on par with great action films like John wick. Viola as always brings her A game. I just thought it was odd that she compared this film to a superhero film and already blaming people who don't see it, essentially hateful towards black women. Not worth the viewing in theaters just wait till it's available on streaming services.

The movie should be story of real life events as per description. However nothing that's presented here is real. Not only that but the kingdom of Dahomey's were actually a slave traders and they sold others to slavery. If nothing else this movie is idolizing slave traders.

The movie should be story of real life events as per description. However nothing that's presented here is real. Not only that but the kingdom of Dahomey's were actually a slave traders and they sold others to slavery. If nothing else this movie is idolizing slave traders.

The movie should be story of real life events as per description. However nothing that's presented here is real. Not only that but the kingdom of Dahomey's were actually a slave traders and they sold others to slavery. If nothing else this movie is idolizing slave traders.

Stripped of any context, this movie is decent if rather boring and formulaic action epic that's light on the action. Maybe 5 or 6 out of 10. But this movie isn't presented without context: it purports to dramatize a real group of people in a real historical setting. As such it has to have some connection with reality or the immersion will be broken. (And it only has to be a tenuous connection with historical reality to be enjoyable (e.g. Gladiator and Braveheart.)) The Woman King flies completely off the rails into cloud cuckoo land, characterizing the enforcement arm of one of the worst societies of its era (chattel bondage, human sacrifice, reproductive mutilation) as admirable and heroic. It's as goofy, ill-judged and nauseating as if Hollywood presented the homicidal lunatics running around Munich in black shirts circa 1939 as noble warriors who liberated Warsaw.

This movie makes no sense. The furore around it lead to me research the Dahomey origins on top of watching it. I normally don't mind minor revisions of historical tales if the acting and cohesion can pull through, but once again Hollywood seems to have fallen flat on its face with a rather bizarre take on what seems like the most dubious tribe for enabling slavery and one, that was obliterated time and time again. I'd rather not spoiler it and perhaps suggest you watch it if you want to compare reality but the wholesale value of this movie is action over substance. The fight scenes are good, I'll give it that, but I've personally never liked John Boyega, especially after Star Wars but that's another story. Viola I quite like and I think she probably held this one together, despite being close (but not quite) to an action packed disaster. It's one of those films that had it been more accurate, it wouldn't have been made, but to me it felt like they relied on the action to carry a poorly written revision, so as I say, it makes no sense, just like the title from a comprehension point of view.

I stayed to the end but I wouldn't watch it again. I think if you want to see the action on big screen it's worth a punt otherwise give it a miss.