Rent The Woman King (2022)

Weak Action Adventure - The Woman King review by GI

This historical action adventure would have fitted perfectly into the 1960s. Its style, story and structure matches the films of that time so in many ways it's a very straight forward film. Mostly though it all seems too good to be true even though there's apparently some fact behind it. Set in the 1820s this is basically a story of tribal conflicts in West Africa focusing on one that has a regiment of fierce women warriors as a sort of Praetorian Guard to their king led by Nanisca (Viola Davis), scarred and emotionally damaged but with some much needed wisdom. The film has roughly two narrative threads that eventually intertwine. The first is the recruitment and training of new recruits that follows headstrong Nawi (Thuso Mbedu) as she joins, struggles, has attitude etc etc and the second is the war with another tribe and slave traders. There are battles and fighting and despite a lot of machetes and spears and throat cutting this is a surprisingly bloodless affair, with more emphasis on comic book style martial arts which weakened the film's impact. It's clearly trying to be family film or at least appeal to younger audiences who will perhaps receive it more as a superhero genre piece. The presence of John Boyega as the king made me realise that this is essentially a Star Wars narrative with Davis as the Jedi master and Mbedu as a Luke persona. There's a big bad baddie (the dark side) but he's somewhat underwhelming but the story is a very basic one of good vs evil. The attempts to discuss slavery are way too simplistic and skirt around the problematic matter that the tribes themselves traded captured slaves to Europeans. The presence of a beautifully muscled mixed race man to be a love interest to the young heroine and to offer a moral position on slavery are to be honest cringeworthy. A rather average and disappointing film that never really does anything other than a standard, predictable story and at times feels all a bit silly

Historical rewriting & cinema by numbers - The Woman King review by JD

Yes, the film looks good but it all seems like a Disney-esque rewriting of history. In truth, Dahomey was one of the African nations that supported and helped the slave trade by enslaving other nations. To say they helped bring about the end of slavery is arrant nonsense. They only stopped slavery when the French forced them to .

As to Disney-esque, it alludes to throat-cutting and so on, but the camera carefully pulls away so it's all out of shot. It also seems to take place in a strange reality where the bad guys (the Portugese) just stand and let themselves get attacked, never mind their inability to shoot straight.

Don't waste your time, watch The Lion King instead.

Refreshing Take on the Action Movie - The Woman King review by JF

Good performances, beautiful scenery and a decent story delivered a very watchable film that holds your attention all the way through.