The irony of "The Woman King" is that it pushes messages of African self-determination and the rejection of the evil influences of the West through the typical template of a Hollywood action spectacle. It's a historical epic in the vein of movies like "Braveheart," "300," and "Gladiator," with the usual flouting of historical accuracy and gobs of engineered melodrama. The difference is, of course, that "The Woman King" enters uncharted territory by applying the familiar formula to the female warriors, the Agojie, of the African Dahomey nation in the 1800s.
This means we get to see Viola Davis be an action star, and frankly I'm thrilled with the movie just for that. She plays the Dahomey general, Nanisca, who leads the Agojie in a war against a larger kingdom, the Oyo, and their general, Oba Ade (Jimmy Odukoya). She is also trying to convince Dahomey's new king, Ghezo (John Boyega), to end their kingdom's lucrative slave trade with the Portuguese. We follow the action through the POV of a new recruit, Nawi (Thuso Mbedu), who joins the Agojie as hostilities with the Oyo are heating up. Nawi trains under the Agojie warrior Izogie (Lashanna Lynch), and finds herself falling for a newly arrived mixed-race trader, Malik (Jordan Bolger) whose mother was from Dahomey.
The script has rightly weathered some criticism for seriously misrepresenting Dahomey's position with regard to the African slave trade. In making the Agojie more palatable as heroes, their complicity has been almost totally erased. I'm sure that the filmmakers could have made a much more historically accurate film that celebrated the existence of the Agojie in a more nuanced fashion. However, at some point the decision was made that the movie should be a crowd-pleasing adventure film, and director Gina Prince Bythewood spent the bulk of her efforts on making the action look good. Whether or not you agree with this approach, the action scenes in "The Woman King" are absolutely beyond reproach.
When it comes down to it, "The Woman King" is a genre film. The story is pretty bare bones, using a few historical figures and a lot of well-worn tropes to put together a female empowerment and African empowerment narrative with a lot of exciting battle and fight sequences. However, clearly great pains were put into the execution. The costuming, the art direction, the cinematography, and the actors involved are all top notch. I can't think of another Hollywood film that put this much effort into the onscreen presentation of any African kingdom, except, of course, Wakanda from "The Black Panther." The influence of that film is all over this one, and I'm sure that its success is a major reason why "The Woman King" was greenlit.
Dahomey is not a place that many viewers in the West will be familiar with, so the filmmakers have to shorthand a lot of the customs and the culture. I appreciate that not many things are outright explained, but you can mostly figure them out through the visuals. The palace rituals and intrigues often reminded me of Japanese and Chinese costume dramas, while the training scenes clearly incorporate more modern military tactics. It's unfortunate that the visual language caters so heavily to what Western viewers will be familiar with, but at the same time I was constantly seeing things onscreen that I'd never seen in a studio film before, and events depicted from African perspectives without compromise. It shouldn't feel so novel, but it does.
The cast delivers committed performances, especially the actresses playing the Agojie. The scenes of warfare are breathtakingly visceral and violent, and surely required months of training to pull off. However, they also do a great job of making their characters relatable human beings, despite often not having much to work with. Davis and Lynch are the standouts, easily coming across as hardened, dangerous warriors. I'm so happy to see Thuso Mbedu here, who last appeared in "The Underground Railroad," with a very different role that allows her to be so much more active and lively as the hotheaded Niwa. She holds her own in multiple scenes with Davis.
I'm sure some viewers will be disappointed with "The Woman King" for not being the kind of representation that they were hoping for. However, its biggest flaws are the ones that are endemic to all Hollywood historical epics. The film is worth seeing as a piece of spectacle and presents a rare chance for many of these actresses to be the kind of action figure badasses that black women almost never get to be. Along with movies like "Prey," 2022 has been a great year for shaking up the action movie status quo a bit. I hope we get more movies like them.
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