Thoughts on the Woman King?

Didn't find too much to like about it. I haven't seen her earlier work (which I strongly suspect is better) but between The Old Guard and this Gina Prince-Bythewood just doesn't seem like a good filmmaker to me, or at least a good filmmaker of these sort of bigger epics. To me there's just no cinematic eye here with the digital photography being particularly unappealing and flat. And it was a disappointment that Viola Davis (who's quite good) got a bit sidelined because of the various story strands (including one that's way overripe with melodrama) which made the whole thing seem unfocused and a touch clumsy. Not to mention rather dull.

Then there's the controversial issue of how the film deals with the dark aspects of the kingdom it depicts. Of course with it being a clean, almost Disneyfied Hollywood movie it's obvious that it doesn't deal with them in any substantial way but I've seen defenders of it say that the naysayers are wrong, that the movie does bring up slavery and even makes it one of the central issues of the story. Well, the problem is not whether slavery is brought up or not - it's how it's brought up. Only the rivals of Dahomey are portrayed as vicious captors who actually put people in shackles and throw them in cages. Only they are shown as greedy traders with nothing but evil on their agenda. While Dahomey is, of course, shown as a place of calm and normalcy, at least relative to that world. Since the film is so formulaic it creates a very basic good kingdom vs. evil kingdom premise which just a bunch of hooey - it really doesn't take long to read up on Dahomey and find out about their violence, human sacrifices, slave practices and so on.

But OK, instead of showing Dahomey doing this stuff they decide to talk about it a few times. And this is where another layer of phoniness happens - Davis plays a fictional general of the Agojie (female warriors) who's deeply concerned with the kingdom using people as goods and urges the king to switch to palm oil. I'm sorry but that just reeks of bullshit. I'm supposed to buy the leader of soldiers known for their merciless brutality and people-capturing practices as a propagator of human rights? Look, I know it's a movie but I can't suspend my disbelief quite to that extent. Putting today's values in the mouth of an early 19-century war general whose prime job would've been to kill and enslave is just Hollywood at its most dubious. Especially with her words ringing so hollow since we don't actually see Dahomey doing any of that. Surely a character like a young new recruit grappling with the violence surrounding her would've been a better mouthpiece for those ideas? Kind of like how John Boyega's Finn saw the reality of being a stormtrooper in "The Force Awakens"? Of course that character would've probably met a sticky end but at least that would've made the experience more believable.

There are bits here that are watchable on a basic level and the performances are all in all rather decent. Sometimes there's even some a flicker of emotional power going on. But what could've been a gritty, tough and complicated tale of a fierce and yet brutal female army becomes a toothless piece of formulaic studio filmmaking with a completely phony and faulty premise. I'm usually not in the business of trashing a film for something that it wasn't instead of what it was but to me it's warranted in this case. The whole thing should've been reconfigured.

I sort of reviewed this in the Who'll Get Nominated for Best Actress thread - the movie has some fine set piece battle scenes.......but fundamentally it is dishonest in the same ways that Till is also .....not a great year for "serious issues cinema about race" (or gender this year actually come to think of it) ........in recent years we've had some strong historical African American explicitly themed films - Judas and the Black Messiah for one ........which may have played a bit with facts but dramatically were sound and precisely drawn........not so much The Woman King which you actively feel is withholding facts and context that affect its "drama" or presentation thereof....

One of several movies this year that points to the disparity between "A Good movie" and "A "Good for you" movie" .......it's not awful but it's a giant bowl of middlebrow meh.....and it seems particularly off this year when the very best movies of 2022 have been smart fake-outs explicitly ......

It just can't measure up to "great(ish)" 2022 movies like ( Miracle / Miracol (2021 / 2022), Decision to Leave, Tar) which make it look much worse actually.......and worse than that make it look non-distinct and too easy to read

I finally got around to it last night, and yeah, I thought it was excellent. I love a good rousing historical epic and this one hit all the sweet spots for me. Gina Prince-Bythewood did a damn fine job staging the action; the battle choreography was particularly astonishing. I felt like there was actual weight to the combat that has been sorely lacking in movies like this of late. This might be my favourite Viola Davis leading performance to date; her steely gravitas serves her character very well. Thuso Mbedu does very well in a star-making turn, but for me, the real MVP is Lashana Lynch. Give this woman a half-dozen 007 movies already, dammit.