The Woman King

Viola Davis offers us a compelling and emotional performance as the general of the highly trained and deadly, all-woman, bodyguard of the King of Dahomey (John Boyega). Increasingly embroiled in the ambitions of the European slavers and, to a certain extent, complicit in that trade themselves, the Agojie must face encroaching and modernly armed soldiers of the Oyo empire. On a personal level, this great warrior clearly has demons of her own and as she is introduced to the headstrong and courageous "Nawi" (Thuso Mbedu) she sees more of herself than she anticipated. When serendipity now plays it's hand the hitherto unshakable mettle of "Nanisca" faces an whole new series of perilous and personal challenges. The cinematography is beautiful, as is the whole look of the film in general. The political and social elements of the narrative are there to be seen but any comments made about them are levelled gently and at both sides who indulge, permit, and/or profit by the activities that made many very wealthy. The action scenes, the ensemble dancing, the singing - all are excellently presented in a colourful and plausible fashion; illustrating the sophistication of this legendary African nation and the shameless brutality of those who would be the exploiters. Lashana Lynch contributes well too, as the personable and feisty "Izogie" as do Sheila Atim ("Amenza") and Sivuyile Ngesi as the nemesis general "Migan". Annoyingly, I could not quite place the "Santo" actor until I realised it was none-other than the star of the truly mediocre "After" films - Hero Fiennes Tiffin - and he adds very little. It really benefits from the big screen experience, if you can - and is well worth a watch.

Oh come on with the good reviews, even if she wasn't an evil slave trader, the film comes across as a melodramatic propaganda piece from start to finish... ... but then again, it was a melodramatic propaganda piece from start to finish... ... but that's not why it's one of the movies with a huge disparancy between critic and user reviews on the more reputable sights. It was intentionally polarizing. Rational people are ripping into it because they turned a power hungry monster responsible for the slave trade and a fair amount of ethnic cleansing into an anti-slavery hero. It was a monumental rewrite of history from start to finish, one so extreme you can't even give it the excuse of artistic license. And it was intentional, there were a lot of other people that you could make a heroic movie about that fit the mold they were looking for to push meh message. But they chose this one because the point wasn't to praise the historical figure, the point was to praise the total rewrite of history. And make no mistake, that is the reason for the positive reviews. They don't care that it's a cheap poorly written over-acted political propaganda flick, they are praising the fact that they blatantly and knowingly rewrote history, and then turned around and said "we don't care, it's rewritten now, we have changed reality and, guess what, all of our goose stepping followers don't care either."

I liked The Woman King okay: the scenery and acting were fine and the music glorious, but why did I sometimes feel I was watching a different “King” movie by Disney? They danced as well as they fought; though to be fair, is it much different than the complex marches used by more modern armies? There was a bit too much violence for my taste, but perhaps it is needed for the target audience. The story was stereotypical in places, though for this progressive white guy, it was refreshing not to see white faces shoehorned into the story to placate the (only) White Lives Matter crowd, who were out in force with negative reviews. Here is a tip: if a four-star review points out positives but throws in complaints about historical accuracy and not enough Caucasians for the movies’ setting— okay, maybe. But if a one-star review screams about the issue, welcome to the Keep Movies White World. Are they just as offended by the thousands of movies that ignored or appropriated stories and roles of people of color in all white movies though the decades? I think not. So while this movie won’t make any of my lists of favorites, I am glad it was made available to women and girls and other less-thin skinned caucasians like me to enjoy.