The Woman King Review

The historical epic is a genre that has been wading for some time. The Woman King aims to bring it back and give the genre a feminist and African twist.

In 1823 the Kingdom of Dahomey is being raided by Oyo Empire and their allies. The new king, Ghezo (John Boyega) is forced to prepare for war and one of his leading advisers is General Nanisca (Viola Davis), the leader of The Agojie. The Agojie are an elite group of warrior women and Nanisca is an idealist who wants Dahomey to move away from the slave trade and trade the kingdom’s natural resources instead.

To prepare for the war, The Agojie train a new batch of recruits, including Nawi (Thuso Mbedu), a determined and free-spirited woman who gets rejected by her father. Nawi gets taken under the wing of Izogie (Lashana Lynch), a senior officer in the Agojie, but Nanisca doubts the young woman has what it takes.

The Woman King has been at the centre of some controversy. The film was well received by film critics and boasts an impressive 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but it has been review bombed on websites like IMDB and Metacritic. The film has a suspiciously high number of one-star votes on IMDB. This is an indictment of certain sectors of media criticism because many films and TV shows are seen through the prism of identity politics and there has been a boom of ‘outrage critics.’ Some films and TV shows are not allowed to stand on their own merits.

This is a shame because The Woman King is a strong entry in the historical epic genre. It had the scene of a historic epic from the ‘90s and early noughties. That period produced films like Dances with Wolves, Braveheart, Gladiator, and The Last Samurai, films held in high regard, even if the history presented was dubious. The Woman King was able to be a throwback and a reinvention at the same time.

As a throwback The Woman King was a big, lavish production. There were great set designs and costumes, and the battle sequences had a mix of musket fire and close-quarter fighting. The Woman King showed a different style of warfare because armies fought mostly with machetes and the Agojie warriors were both strong and agile, making them fantastic fighters.

There was also a sense of idealism in the film like in many classic historical epics. The Woman King did show many factions in Africa taking part in the slave trade, but Nanisca was a visionary who found slavery abhorrent. She was the one who was going to be a revolutionary who wanted to break the vicious cycle of the slave trade. It was like Braveheart and 300 where the military leader makes speeches about fighting for freedom. Nanisca even got to deliver a big speech before the big battle like William Wallace. Nanisca’s ideals were added to give modern audiences a little extra to hook on to and route for.

The reinvention of the genre was obvious: it was a historical epic told from a female and African perspective. African history is rarely looked at in films and when it does it is usually told from an outsider’s perspective like in Zulu and Blood Diamond. The Woman King showed Dahomey to have a capital city with a palace and that it was a vibrant society.

The Agojie did have an air of the Spartans and the Nights Watch to them. They were a warrior class who were devoted to the state to the point they couldn’t marry or have children. The new recruits had to undergo a tough training regime to become Agojie. A good portion of the film was about Nawi’s training and the preparations for war. This added to The Woman’s King’s classic feel.

Nanisca, Nawi, and Izogie were the holy trinity of the film. They were the main characters and their relationship overlapped. Nanisca and Izogie were old friends and Izogie was one of Nanisca’s trusted lieutenants. Izogie saw potential in Nawi and tried to encourage the young woman. Izogie acted as a teacher and mother to Nawi. However, Nanisca saw Nawi as too much of a rogue and could be a liability to the Agojie. Nanisca had foresight in some areas but was too dogmatic in others.

The screenplay does try to pack a lot in its run. There was so much that it could have been a miniseries. For the most part the film does succeed in covering the big political conflict and personal tensions between the characters, like Nanisca’s hatred for the Oyo General, Oba Ade (Jimmy Odukoya). However, some subplots did feel underdeveloped like the court tensions and a romantic subplot involving Nawi and a Portuguese merchant, Malik (Jordan Bolger). There was a big reveal that was meant to add a personal connection between some of the characters, but it came across as a twist from a soap opera.

For audiences craving a historical epic The Woman King provides plenty of entertainment and offers something different because of its setting. However, there were times when the film was trying to tackle a bit too much.