I had misgivings about this movie based on three issues, but I heard such good early reviews that my wife and I went to see it so that we'd be able to critique it intelligently.
First, as a movie, The Woman King is excellently produced and excellently acted. It's got a great "Hero's Journey" that sucks you right into rooting for the central characters. No Mary Sues in this movie. Direction is excellent. It barely shows the relatively small 50 million budget...they smartly got full use out of every dollar. It's effective from the aspect of presenting a well-produced movie with PG-13 violence and no sex or profanity. I actually think this may be a better produced movie than Wakanda Forever will be. Wakanda Forever will show the effect of a huge budget, but I'm not sure Wakanda Forever will be a better movie, and it will certainly hit the same SJW propaganda points.
There were a couple of writing issues, primarily around the murky court intrigue with the favorite wife in conflict with general Nanisca of the Agojie, the all-female warrior unit. That court intrigue played into the king's decision at the very end of the movie, but the writing doesn't make it clear. There was also a bit of soap opera that wasn't really necessary, and in a real military would cause a big moral and discipline problem later on.
The three big issues I had going in...I still had coming out. The inaccuracy of the history was the big one. The Dahomey were villains, not heroes or victims. They are still the forever villains of Africa the way Nazis are the forever villains of Europe. The story tries to make it appear that they were forced into being slavers by the Oyo tribe (to which they were a vassal) and stopped slaving at the end of this movie, but, no, it didn't happen like that. They remained slavers for another half century after the period this movie purports to portray. This is rather like a very well done movie about imagined heroic exploits of the Ku Klux Klan...Hollywood did that movie, too: Birth of a Nation.
The second issue was the trope of the media depicting black women, particularly dark-skinned black women, as masculine and violent. This movie continues that trope, and it added another trope that if a black women is feminine, then she's evil and conniving. According to this movie, black men are either a combination of weak and stupid or a combination of savage and stupid. There is no favorable image of black people or black families in this movie...except masculine and violent black woman "who don't need no man."
And there is still the trope of the Great White Savior. His role is fairly small, and he's not entirely white, but he's still essential to their victory. Let me say now, that contrary to the trailer (spoiler!) there is no love interest. They got close, but that kissing scene in the trailer is not in the movie.
So, this movie provides us with the same kind of action and victorious emotion as, say, Braveheart...but with women instead of men. It's exciting, but what's it saying about black people?
Most of the audience won't get it. The theater was packed when we saw it, mostly black women, who gave it a standing ovation at the end.
First, as a movie, The Woman King is excellently produced and excellently acted. It's got a great "Hero's Journey" that sucks you right into rooting for the central characters. No Mary Sues in this movie. Direction is excellent. It barely shows the relatively small 50 million budget...they smartly got full use out of every dollar. It's effective from the aspect of presenting a well-produced movie with PG-13 violence and no sex or profanity. I actually think this may be a better produced movie than Wakanda Forever will be. Wakanda Forever will show the effect of a huge budget, but I'm not sure Wakanda Forever will be a better movie, and it will certainly hit the same SJW propaganda points.
There were a couple of writing issues, primarily around the murky court intrigue with the favorite wife in conflict with general Nanisca of the Agojie, the all-female warrior unit. That court intrigue played into the king's decision at the very end of the movie, but the writing doesn't make it clear. There was also a bit of soap opera that wasn't really necessary, and in a real military would cause a big moral and discipline problem later on.
The Dahomey did not have the concept of a female regent and no word for it. The king had wives, but those were not "queens"--they had no political power. This is no different from the state of king's wives in ancient Israel. Toward the end of the movie, the king orders General Nanisca to accept the loss of a number of members (including her close friends and secret daughter) to their old enemy the Oyo and Portuguese slavers. She and the Agojie loyal to her openly disobey the king's order and perform the rescue anyway, finally destroying their Oyo enemy in the process. The king, facing the prospect of attempting to execute or exile the hugely popular and more capable general (which would certainly cause a tribal civil war) at the last minute creates the position of female king to sit beside him as co-regent...as though it had been his idea all along.
The three big issues I had going in...I still had coming out. The inaccuracy of the history was the big one. The Dahomey were villains, not heroes or victims. They are still the forever villains of Africa the way Nazis are the forever villains of Europe. The story tries to make it appear that they were forced into being slavers by the Oyo tribe (to which they were a vassal) and stopped slaving at the end of this movie, but, no, it didn't happen like that. They remained slavers for another half century after the period this movie purports to portray. This is rather like a very well done movie about imagined heroic exploits of the Ku Klux Klan...Hollywood did that movie, too: Birth of a Nation.
The second issue was the trope of the media depicting black women, particularly dark-skinned black women, as masculine and violent. This movie continues that trope, and it added another trope that if a black women is feminine, then she's evil and conniving. According to this movie, black men are either a combination of weak and stupid or a combination of savage and stupid. There is no favorable image of black people or black families in this movie...except masculine and violent black woman "who don't need no man."
And there is still the trope of the Great White Savior. His role is fairly small, and he's not entirely white, but he's still essential to their victory. Let me say now, that contrary to the trailer (spoiler!) there is no love interest. They got close, but that kissing scene in the trailer is not in the movie.
So, this movie provides us with the same kind of action and victorious emotion as, say, Braveheart...but with women instead of men. It's exciting, but what's it saying about black people?
Most of the audience won't get it. The theater was packed when we saw it, mostly black women, who gave it a standing ovation at the end.
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