I have been saying for a while I was looking to get out to see The Woman King, and it finally came to pass. I had the time to get out and see the movie, and I took it. Besides, anything that looks like an action movie with 57 year old Viola Davis in the lead role has to be worth at least a look. Given her age and the costumes she wears for the movie, if nothing else, she has some pretty impressive abs for a woman her age.
I mean, I can’t even begin to make that claim as a man a decade or so younger than she is.
A friend of mine who doesn’t get to the movies as often as I do said that he thought, when he first saw the trailer for this movie, that it was actually for the upcoming Black Panther sequel. That isn’t a bad guess at first glance: the opening narration explains how the nation of Dahomey had an army of women called the Agojie, led by General Nanisca (Davis). These women fight using spears and machetes primarily and are highly acrobatic, and if they didn’t inspire the Dora Milaje, then I would be very surprised to say the least. As it is, Nanisca and her forces from the beginning of the movie are hitting back at the Oyo Empire. Oyo has been keeping Dahomey as a vassal state, but that doesn’t mean Dahomey is glad to let its people be stolen away and sold to the Portuguese as slaves. Right now, Dahomey has a new king, Ghezo (John Boyega, often projecting a bit of wisdom beyond his and the character’s youth), and that situation may be about to change if Nanisca can both get Dahomey out from under the Oyo’s thumbs and convince Ghezo to give up selling slaves in favor of other, more moral forms of exports.
Side note: I did hear about the controversy involving this movie that the historic Nanisca, or at least the historic Ghezo, were involved with the slave trade and maybe they shouldn’t be treated as heroes as a result. I will simply say here that I don’t know much about the history of the real versions of these people though I would gladly read a good book on the subject if someone pointed one out to me. Likewise, the movie doesn’t ignore the fact that Dahomey sold captives as slaves to the Europeans. That’s how the movie starts. On a final note, I don’t really go to movies like this to learn history because movies, especially ones like The Woman King, are works of fiction that are inherently unreliable towards the teaching of history. So, really, whether this movie is historically accurate or not, I don’t expect movies to be anyway.
However, what I did like here was this was a good action movie/drama. It’s probably more of a drama than an action movie, truth be told, following not only Nanisca’s efforts to get Ghezo to change the nature of the country’s economy as well as new recruit Nawi’s (Thuso Mbedu) efforts to get into the Agojie. As such, it’s sort of a cross between a new recruit movie like so many military movies while Davis’s plotline deals with trying to maintain power and influence over a young, traditional king while his favorite wife (Jayme Lawson) is looking to push the old soldier out. Both plots are given a good balance within the narrative as both work to shape the final outcome. Nawi’s journey shapes her as a person while Nanisca needs to grapple with her past while working to make sure her king guides the nation towards a better future.
While I wouldn’t call the movie great or perfect, what it does, it does very well. The action scenes are great, and I don’t think anyone gave a bad performance, with particularly good work coming not just from the ever-reliable Davis but also Mbedu, Lashana Lynch, and Shelia Atim in the various featured roles. Yeah, its plot probably won’t offer too many surprises, but everyone seems to be more or less on-point, and I’m glad I finally made time to see the movie.
Grade: B+
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