THE WOMAN KING

Director Gina Prince-Bythewood struggles to bring the epic nature of the tale to life, while the picture's overall message is a piece of 21st century hindsight history overhaul that reeks of political correctness.

It is important that movies like The Woman King finally get financed these days, for intriguing histories about other parts of the world, told from the perspective of people who lived there, have been ignored for too long. But once you look past the representation, is this tale about the 19th century kingdom of Dahomey also a good movie? That's up for debate, to be honest.

The Woman King clearly positions itself as an all-black, mostly female version of Braveheart, but both the screenplay and the direction are too messy to compete in that class. While the script does include stretches that suck you into the personal quests of the characters, most of them are too broadly defined and heavily indebted to tired old clichés.

Meanwhile, director Gina Prince-Bythewood struggles to bring the epic nature of the tale to life and fails to film the action set-pieces in an exciting way.

Still, the positives outweigh the negatives in The Woman King, even if the picture's overall message is a piece of 21st century hindsight history overhaul that reeks of political correctness.

release: 2022

director: Gina Prince-Bythewood

starring: Viola Davis, Thuso Mbedu, Lashana Lynch, John Boyega