Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Sony Pictures
Viola Davis, Lashana Lynch, John Boyega, Gina Prince-Bythewood—when you put a handful of powerhouses like these folks together, of course you’re going to get a complete tour de force of an action film like The Woman King.
It should come as no surprise that The Woman King is an absolute blast of a cinematic experience (again, just look at those names, watch the trailer, that’s all you need to know). But the movie still manages to exceed expectations: The action sequences are choreographed so brilliantly, as if these warriors were members of Cirque du Soleil, but the deeper contextual arcs layered into them make The Woman King worth writing home about. On top of being a whirlwind action film, The Woman King is also a family drama, a historical film, and an underdog story, all with a tinge of romance.
We get a Star Wars-inspired scrawl at the start of the film to lay the groundwork, but it’s fairly easy to pick up on the issues at hand from the start. It’s 1823, and the West African Kingdom of Dahomey has been participating in the slave trade to stay afloat; because of this, Dahomey is constantly under siege by the neighboring Oyo Tribe, which also benefits from the trade. But under new leadership of King Ghezo (Boyega), the kingdom hopes to remove itself from the trade and sell its palm oil instead. Still, the Oyo Tribe is relentless, demanding innocent Dahomey citizens to put up for trade or face its wrath. Dahomey is stuck.