General Nanisca (Viola Davis) is the leader of the Agojie, an all-female army that defends the Kingdom of Dahomey, located in West Africa. During the 1820s, under the reign of King Ghezo (John Boyega), the Oyo Empire’s army, led by General Oba Ade (Jimmy Odukoya), is encroaching on the Dahomey kingdom and kidnapping its people for the slave trade. With the Oyo threat growing larger each day, Nanisca works tirelessly to train up her Agojie army, but she is also being eyed by King Ghezo to rule beside him as a Woman King. 

Gina Prince-Bythewood directs The Woman King for TriStar Pictures from a Dana Stevens script. The film is a historical epic that blends many real characters and events with composites to make up the two main storylines. When Nanisca is not balancing her political engagement with King Ghezo, she is watching over the development of the new recruits under the tutelage of the skilled warrior Izogie (Lashana Lynch). One of the recruits who shows a lot of promise, but whose rebellious nature is a thorn in the side of the sergeant is Nawi (Thuso Mbedu), a young girl dropped off at the steps of the palace after refusing yet another arranged suitor for her. Stevens’ script is able to weave these various threads together to create an epic story full of intrigue and excitement that makes The Woman King one of the few four-quadrant blockbusters, not only of 2022 but of the modern box office at large. 

Leading the film with incredible grace, despite the bloodshed, is Davis in a very unique leading arc. Unlike William Wallace in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart (1995) or even Maximus in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000), Nanisca shares the narrative with Nawi and is often physically absent from the film for extended periods. Her character’s influence, though, is always felt and it is that kind of power behind the performance that makes this role, and in turn this film, so special. With her own backstory doled out in pieces to the awaiting audience, the burden of responsibility to her oath and her soldiers becomes even more clear as she clings to the traditional ways while still moving her army forward in time. She views it not so much as a strict code, but rather as a way to honor those who have fallen before her. As a general, though, much of the film finds her putting up the front of an impenetrable force, and her strength is true and unmatched as she wears the scars of victory across her body. The more private moments of the story allow Davis to show off her range, and while they are brief scenes, Davis proves time and time again that she is a powerhouse of emotion and one of the richest actors working today when it comes to bringing a character off of the page and on to screen. 

She is supported by Lynch who has far and away one of the best supporting roles because she gets to be involved heavily with both Nanisca and Nawi’s arcs and can serve as that entry point into the film for the audience – at times – even more than Nawi does. It is most refreshing to see how she handles the new recruits during their training as drill instructors and boot camp sequences are a dime a dozen in film, and so often they all blend into little more than a collection of the same old tropes and stylization, and if the montage is poorly edited, the only real benefit is that they give the audience a good opportunity for a bathroom break. That is not the case with the training sequences of The Woman King because Stevens includes character moments in the montages so that it is not just a stale scene of following the leader. It was also refreshing to see how they were trained, and the motivation was not the constant ridicule and venom used to build comradery and trust within a unit that, in turn, is often used as an excuse for the screenwriter to get away with incredibly misogynistic, homophobic, and racist language in the American military counterparts. Here, the language was actually used to motivate and inspire the recruits to become better and stronger warriors by focusing the language on the bettering of one’s self. 

The third major character in the film, like Nanisca, has a dual narrative. Nawi is a young girl betrothed to an older, wealthier man who is not quiet about the fact that he will need to teach her to be more submissive to his will. Needless to say, that does not sit well with Nawi, and when she strikes out against the man, her father enlists her in the army to be rid of her. The forced enlistment coupled with Nawi’s independent nature makes for some interesting dynamics right off the bat, but Stevens is also careful to paint Nawi as a great foil to Nanisca. As Nanisca slowly begins to accept more and more the idea of change, Nawi grows in her respect of the traditional ways of the Agojie. Her character, as presented, has a rough start, especially in the first few recruitment sequences as there are relationships that are formed that help to inform some of the later payoffs, but it does feel like the forging of these social alliances is missing by the time the film reaches the second act. It is not enough to alienate the audience, though it would be interesting to see what scenes from the first act were potentially left on the cutting room floor.

One of the biggest causes of strife for Izogie and Nanisca about Nawi is her affinity for firearms, not only for the explosiveness but because it also allows her to train with the male soldiers. Nawi’s involvement with the story ultimately paves the way for the romantic subplot of the film to form when she meets Malik (Jordan Bolger), a young man with Dahomean roots through his mother who was taken out of Africa as part of the slave trade. He is traveling to see his ancestral land with Santo Ferreira (Hero Fiennes Tiffin), the leader of a slaving mission and ally of General Oba Ade. The mix of love and politics are two of the most common ingredients of war, and The Woman King also adds layers to that concept given the political and economic dilemma King Ghezo finds himself in the middle of. The slave trade offers his kingdom the opportunity to generate great wealth but at the literal cost of human life and dignity. These two threads, however, the budding romance between Nawi and Malik as well as the political maneuverings of King Ghezo are not as fleshed out as one would like to see in an otherwise robust, character-driven world. Boyega delivers a solid performance but is given little to do despite leading up one of the major subplots of the film, and Bolger delivers an energetic performance despite the conveniently written part that will hopefully open up many doors for the actor. It is these mostly underserved ancillary characters who shoulder the burden of the wider plot of the film where the script is mostly lacking, and some more care and attention could have been shown here even if it means increasing the already sturdy 135 minutes. The film spends so much time with these characters that it only feels slow because of the lack of clarity on who, what, and why they are involved in the story.  

Even with its runtime, The Woman King does not feel bloated because there is plenty of inertia propelling the story forward as well as stunningly choreographed combat by Jénel Stevens, captured by Polly Morgan, and legibly spliced together by Terilyn A. Shropshire. Even in the more frantic scenes, and the cover of darkness in the fight that opens the film, we see every hit land with stunning force, brutality, and accuracy. For the penultimate fight that closes out the second act of the film, all the stops are pulled out and it is an incredible sequence that does not just scratch the itch for seeing remarkable combat on the silver screen, but like the training sequences before it, this also drives the narrative forward. So often extended battle sequences that showcase the choreography drive stories to a halt while giving way to pure spectacle entertainment. In this battle, and later again in the final confrontation, there are smaller character arcs that play out over the course of the battle so that we can remain invested and engaged with the film and not just watch the body count of extras slowly rise with little to no narrative consequence to the core cast. 

The Woman King feels like the answer to the oft-heard complaint that Hollywood “just doesn’t make ‘em like they used to.” It has the scale and scope of the epics that dominated the box office and swept up at the Awards throughout the 1980s, 90’s, and early 2000s, including the take-it-or-leave-it love interest. While its score is a little muted given the rest of the production, the landscapes and set design are nothing short of awe-inspiring. The deep crimson reds and hot orange sun commandeer the color palate, but it just allows the blues of the water and of the night sky to be all the more striking when they take the frame. It may have been released a little too early to find itself enshrined in the annals of Best Picture Winner, but The Woman King is a powerful and explosive experience that can hopefully herald a return to the box office where these larger-than-life stories can thrive on the largest screens possible.