Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) when they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.
“You see, you can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the same name)
Opening Chatter (no spoilers): I’m still shying away from theaters due to yet another COVID variant spreading in my area, so it’s all streaming again this week (although The Woman King was re-released last weekend in honor of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday so I’m somewhat in parallel with that). Before moving on to this pair of reviews, though, I’ll note I also watched something else which was just recently in theaters—came out in North America on October 21, 2022, now on HBO and HBO Max (free to subscribers)—the big-budget superhero movie, Black Adam (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2022; here’s the trailer; no official evaluation here, though) starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as a fictional Middle Eastern guy granted enormous powers centuries ago, then imprisoned, now loose again in conflict with both mercenaries who have taken over his country and other DC superheroes who’ve been sent to contain him. Despite poor CCAL response (Rotten Tomatoes, 39% positive reviews; Metacritic, 41% average score) plus a scathing rejection from my local San Francisco Chronicle’s Mick LaSalle: “[…] it’s the worst of the year – and one of the worst I’ve ever seen” and a witty yet overblown elaboration on why it fails as an origin movie ((18:14; Spoilers [ads interrupt at 3:00, 10:24, 13:33, along with an overlong, embedded one at 7:30]) I was still interested, due to my pleasure with Johnson’s previous acting roles and outsized-persona as a professional wrestler; actually, I found it largely entertaining (although very reminiscent of a lot of other movies, including The Good, the Bad and the Ugly [Sergio Leone, 1966], Superman II [Richard Lester, 1980], Raiders of the Lost Ark [Steven Spielberg, 1981], and Back to the Future [Robert Zemeckis, 1985] in addition to the ones cited in the video just above), although a bit long for what it has to offer, with a lot of sound and fury (signifying more than nothing, though … maybe), which you might find diversionally-entertaining, even if it doesn't lead to a sequel-showdown between Black Adam and Superman as implied in a mid-credits scene (even though …. Adam made $393 million globally it still didn’t cover its huge expenses). OK, on to the actual reviews of The Woman King starring Viola Davis (streams on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Vudu, etc. for a $5.99 rental) and The Pale Blue Eye starring Christian Bale (Netflix streaming, free for subscribers).
But first, here are my usual reminders of links for the schedule of the cable network, Turner Classic Movies, which gives you a wide selection of older films with no commercial interruptions and the JustWatch site which offers you its own wide selection: options for streaming rental or purchase. If you'd just want to see what reigned at the domestic (U.S.-Canada) box-office last weekend, go here.
Here’s the trailer:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge it; activate
that same button or use the “esc” keyboard key to return to normal size.)
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
What Happens: We’ll set Mr. Peabody’s WABAC machine for the early 19th century to bring us to this week’s reviews, with the one farther below landing in New York state’s West Point military academy while this is set in 1823 in the Dahomey Kingdom of West Africa where King Ghezo (John Boyega) relies for military support from his all-female army, the Agojie, led by General Nanisca (Viola Davis), who takes a complete no-nonsense-approach to her troops and recruits, giving no quarter to the kingdom’s enemies (especially from the neighboring Oyo Empire who hold some domain over Dahomey, including an annual tribute of some of their citizens) and little tolerance for failure from younger women who wish to join her elite troops. We first meet her and a group of her warriors who attack at night a squad of Oyos who’ve captured some Dahomey women to sell into the slave trade run in this area of Africa by the Portuguese. Nanisca’s troops are successful (no surprise), but this intrusion into inter-territorial activities troubles King Ghezo who commands Nanisca to enlarge her army in preparation for all-out-war with the Oyo. One young woman who’s sent into the training is Nawi (Thuso Mbedu) whose father gives her to the king because she keeps rejecting the older-potential-husbands he chooses for her, in that she easily sees herself with them as nothing less than a servant to be slapped around at will. She’s sent to the Agojie recruits but struggles there as well, even as she’s stubborn and a bit arrogant, while making friends with veteran Izogie (Lashana Lynch) who encourages her even as Nawi faces harsh criticism from Nanisca. As time passes, the younger woman tells the general she was adopted as Nawi shows a troubling birthmark on her left shoulder.
Next, Portuguese slave traders led by Santo Ferreira (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) accompanied by half-Dahomean Malik (Jordan Bolger) and Oyo General Oba Ade (Jimmy Odukoya) come to visit King Ghezo, demanding 40 Dahomey as tribute yet the king offers only 20, although before they arrive Nawi happens upon Malik bathing in a lake in the woods; conversation leads to quick friendship as he expresses his discomfort in acquiring slaves from his own heritage (as is the likely fate of the Dahomey tribute folks sent to the Oyo each year). Through grim determination, Nawi successfully wins her way into the Agojie, but they must remain celibate, even as she’s attracted to Malik, sneaks off to visit with him, learning the Oyo are planning an attack. She informs Nanisca of this, with the former telling the latter that when she was young she was captured by Oba, raped, then had a daughter whom she marked with a shark’s tooth in her shoulder before giving her away. They find the tooth in Nawi’s arm, verifying they are truly mother and daughter. ⇒Nanisca leads a successful attack on the Oyo invaders using deadly gunpowder, but Nawi and Izogie are captured in the process along with a few other Agojie, one of whom escapes to bring news back to the king who’s decided to bestow the title of Woman King on Nanisca as co-ruler but refuses to send a rescue party to the Oyo capitol, even as Nanisca—fiercely-opposed to the slave trade—decides to lead raiders on her own. In Oyo land, Izogie tries to escape during a slave revolt but is killed, Malik buys Nawi to protect her. In the ensuing battle, Nawi reunites with Nanisca, Malik frees other slaves who drown Ferreira as they set the capitol on fire, followed by Nanisca killing Oba in direct combat. The victorious Agojie return to Dahomey, Ghezo privately admonishes Nanisca for defying him but crowns her as Woman King anyway; afterward, Nanisca and Nawi joyfully accept their kinship.⇐
So What? This is no docudrama as it’s merely inspired by history, not intended as a completely-defendable-representation of it, although the Kingdom of Dahomey did exist from roughly 1600-1904 when it was annexed into French West Africa as French Dahomey; it gained independence in 1958 as the Republic of Dahomey (located on the Atlantic Ocean coast between Togo and Nigeria), renamed Benin in 1975; further, King Ghezo was on the throne in 1823 when successful warfare liberated Dahomey from much of the control of the Oyo Empire (which occupied parts of current Benin and Nigeria), another historical entity, seemingly founded in about 1300, functioned as an empire from 1608 to the latter part of the 19th century, although in a continually-weakened-state. As noted, King Ghezo (also spelled Gezo) is real, reigned from 1818-1859 (assassinated, followed by his son Giele), but he did actively participate in the slave trade (modified only in that he stopped sending his own people into slavery, instead used captives from other nearby territories) until he was pressured by the British Empire to cease (they had outlawed the practice in 1833), which he did in 1852 (or 1853; I’ve seen conflicting sources) but resumed in 1857; however, in 1823 he did stop the ongoing yearly tribute of about 20 of his subjects to the Oyo Emperor. The Agojie warriors are also actual, although Gen. Nanisca is a purely fictional construct. If you like, watch this video (11:26 [ads interrupt at 3:15, 8:40]) exploring some facts vs. fiction in this film which verifies the Dahomey relief from human tributes to the Oyo after 1823, the (later) attempted selling of palm oil instead of slaves to bring income to Dahomey, the requirement of celibacy among the Agojie (technically, they were considered married to the king [as with Catholic nuns “married” to Christ], although they had no physical relations with him [likely the harem shown in the film is accurate, though]) and these women were successful warriors for decades—although they lost important battles to the French in the 1890s. Problem areas noted here include the use of inconsistent accents among the Dahomey characters even though they all come from the same region and the harsh reality that the Agojie were used to capture their neighbors to be sold into slavery rather than fighting against this practice.
The blunt failure of this film to acknowledge the active participation of the Dahomey Kingdom in the horrible slavery practice led to calls for boycotting it last fall, to which Davis reacted (3:20), saying this is a work of fiction to be judged on its entertainment value, while other defenses of the film cited in the article just above noted possible rejections from men who are intimidated by such depictions of strong women, along with the argument that this film was never intended to be a documentary but simply used actual inspirations to celebrate the rare existence of an actual female army, victorious for years, as well as give some recognition to Africans who opposed this brutal form of human subjugation, even those who rebelled unto death on those ships taking them to the Americas. Whether these counter-arguments in favor of how fiction overrides history in The Woman King (with no such person ever noted in the records of the Dahomey) for higher purposes than factual-accuracy is up to your consideration. I will say that as a story of triumph of humanity over brutality this is a very effective cinematic experience, inspiring to watch, with even the vicious-hand-to-hand-combat scenes shot/edited in such a way as to not focus on grotesque levels of violence in scenes like those in other battle-to-the-death-wars such as R-rated Braveheart (Mel Gibson, 1995) and Gladiator (Ridley Scott, 2000)—both of which are Best Picture Oscar winners. The 2023 Oscar nominees are still in the voting stage, but Davis has already been nominated for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama for the Golden Globes, Best Actress by the Critics’ Choice Awards, Female Actor in a Leading Role by the Screen Actors Guild (the latter’s still to be decided, but Cate Blanchett took the other prizes for her role in Tár [Todd Field, 2022; review in our December 1, 2022 posting]).
Bottom Line Final Comments: This film was released domestically back on September 16, 2022 (although it had nothing to do with Mexican Independence Day on that same date, except maybe a mutual celebration of throwing off shackles of European oppression, in 1810 for this North American renunciation), had finished its run but came back again last week in recognition of the MLK holiday to 843 domestic theaters for a short while (I presume), so you might want to see it on a big screen if you’d like to add to its domestic grosses of $63.7 million, $92.4 million worldwide. But, if you’d rather stream, it’s available for a $5.99 rental at Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Vudu, and other platforms. Unless you’re troubled by the historical inaccuracies I noted in the previous section of this review, I’d highly encourage you to see it (unless you already have; you’ve certainly had a long opportunity to do so). The CCAL joins in on that recommendation with the Rotten Tomatoes reviews at 94% positive, the Metacritic average score of 77% (relatively high for them as they rarely get into the 80% or higher range on anything I review along with them). I’ve had to wrestle with my own rating a bit after I became aware of concerns leading to calls for boycott, in that I hate to see a celebration of the progressive worldview of the Dahomey Kingdom accepted as fact (in our cultures where anything in the media even inspired by history is usually taken at easy-face-value with little regard for further research) when they were as entrenched in the slave trade as was the Oyo Empire (and other African countries who supplied the human cargo to the westward-bound European slave ships, eager to reap the profits for selling off their neighbors, normally captured as the spoils of war).
Still, if you can put that horrid aspect of history aside long enough to just watch what's presented in this film you could easily come away with a deep respect for the actual bravery and decades-long-triumphs (forged through intensive training, as harshly-effective as anything male recruits anywhere have had to endure) of these women warriors; the concept that there were Africans opposed to the slave trade who made some efforts to thwart it until it was finally stopped; and the (most fictional of all, especially for this time period) inspirational-concept that a woman could be so well-respected in a patriarchal society she’d be accepted/celebrated as co-king with a man (indicating the long-overdue-triumphs of women worldwide later in the 19th, on into the 20th, and continuing today in the 21st centuries in all realms of politics, military, sciences, arts, and any other realm of human endeavors seemingly allocated only to men—even if the women who did achieve progress in their own times were largely ignored in favor of men who populate our history books). Maybe this is more fiction than you’re willing to digest, but clearly the intentions of the filmmakers are in the right place, even if The Woman King—consistently carried by Davis’ impassioned (as always) performance—has a script whose full content might barely get a passing grade in a college history essay. At least I faced no qualms in choosing my usual review-ending-Musical Metaphor this time because the song with the film’s closing credits, “Keep Rising” (on the soundtrack, written by Jessy Wilson, Jeremy Lutito, Angélique Kidjo, sung by Wilson and Kidjo) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLOdc7T G6yk, simply, powerfully gets to the point of the film with its opening lyrics: “Got to understand / What happens from here is in our hands / From mighty kingdoms of a distant land / Turn the world upside down, yes we can,” which celebrate the strong will of the best intentions of the Agojie, even if their slave-trade-participation actually contributed to as much as 15% of the kingdom’s economy in that long-ago-era. Overall, this film presents a complex situation, noble in intentions, weakened by how true history so often prevents us from finding the comfort we hope to encounter in the past (maybe the U.S. could get its Supreme Court Originalists to meditate awhile on that truly complicated reality).
SHORT TAKES (spoilers also appear here)
Before reading further, please refer to the plot spoilers warning detailed far above.
A fictional story that incorporates Edgar Allen Poe as a cadet at West Point in 1830 where a retired detective (Christian Bale) is brought in to solve the brutal murder of another cadet, enlisting Poe’s help in the matter, especially after another cadet is killed, yet another one goes missing as suspicion's cast upon a local family, the daughter of which catches young Poe’s attention.
Here’s the trailer:
This is a fully-fictional-film (adapted from Louis Bayard’s novel of the same name [2003]) which incorporates an historical person, Edgar Allen Poe (Harry Melling), into a story set in the cold, snowy winter of 1830 in the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, where Poe’s a young cadet (true, but that’s all) who ends up helping famed detective (retired now, heavy into alcohol since the disappearance of his daughter, Mathilde [Hadley Robinson]), Augustus Landor (Christian Bale), who’s brought in to investigate the horrid death of another cadet, Leroy Fry (Steven Maier), who’s died from a hanging but it’s not clear it was suicide because his heart was cut out of his chest. When Landor examines the body, he finds a scrap of paper clutched in the young man’s hand, seemingly the middle portion of a note that might yield clues about this tragic event. Poe deduces what the missing words could be, indicating this was a summons to Fry to meet at a certain location. Then a dead cow and sheep are found nearby with their hearts also cut out, giving all the impression of a satanic ritual hidden somewhere in the area. Landor’s led by writings held by Jean Pepe (Robert Duvall) to learn the local Marquis family has a connection from long ago to such dark wizardry, with Landor forcing Dr. Daniel Marquis (Toby Jones) to admit he’s attempted to use black magic to cure daughter Lea (Lucy Boynton) of periodic seizures. Poe’s enamored with Lea (she of the pale blue eyes), but is drugged, awakens to find her and brother Artemus (Harry Lawtey)—also a cadet—about to cut out his heart, a tragedy averted by the sudden arrival of Landor; in the chaos that ensues, though, the building’s set on fire, killing both Marquis siblings (huge heartbreak for Poe).
During all this, another cadet, Randolph Ballinger (Fred Hechinger), is also found in the woods hanged with heart and genitals cut off while a third, Stoddard (Joey Brooks), goes missing, so the assumption by the military is Landor’s solved the mysteries, fate seemingly taking its toll on some of the Marquis family. ⇒However, Poe realizes the handwriting on Fry’s note matches Landor’s who then confesses to Poe that 2 years ago Mathilde was raped coming home from a cadet ball by Fry, Ballinger, and Stoddard so she threw herself off a high cliff in her sorrow, leading Landor to take revenge on these men while setting up suspicions about the Marquis family (they did cut out Fry’s heart upon discovering his dead body for use in their anti-seizure rituals) with Landor doing all the other cutting (not as precisely) to produce a seeming pattern. Poe’s given the choice by Landor to turn him in, but the cadet simply burns his evidence; the film ends with Landor on the cliff where Mattie killed herself, tossing her hair ribbon into the wind (Does he kill himself? We’ll never know.)⇐
I was attracted to this film due to being previously impressed with Bale’s work, found the grey daylight scenes/chiaroscuro nighttime interiors lit with single candlelight to be appropriate to Poe’s writings (especially with mentions of “Lenore” who’d become famous later in “The Raven” [1845] and allusions to “The Tell-Tale Heart” [1843]), and was thoroughly convinced Landor had solved the gruesome murders until the ending’s shocking revelations (you can explore more in this video [8;22] with Spoilers, of course), undercutting all I’d seen previously, causing me to question why Landor put such energy into finding the killer, unless it was to lead everyone in the wrong direction, so the final result wasn’t all that satisfying, like for the barely-supportive CCAL (RT 64% positives, MC 56% average score). Supposedly, … Eye had a limited domestic release on December 23, 2022, then came to Netflix streaming on January 6 of this year, but Netflix doesn’t release any grosses-info so it’s likely if you want to explore this film for yourself you’ll need to stream it. For a Musical Metaphor I’m going on a sideways path, just like the movie, with, again, Bob Dylan’s “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” (on his 1965 Bringing It All Back Home album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zzy RcySgK8 because lyrics such as “My love she speaks like silence / Without ideals or violence / She doesn’t have to say she’s faithful / Yet she’s true, like ice, like fire […] The cloak and dagger dangles / Madams light the candles / In ceremonies of the horseman / Even the pawn must hold a grudge […] The wind howls like a hammer / The night blows cold and rainy” speak to me of the story’s successful evocation of a Poe-like-atmosphere (from the actual author’s later works), as well as the Poe character’s devotion to ill-fated Lea who ended up similar to “some raven [...] with a broken wing.” Overall, I find The Pale Blue Eye to have potential in intrigue and unsettling events, but I just don’t care for how it takes its final turn, even if that’s what might make it more fascinating for others.
That’s all for my critical commentary this week (which usually reminds me of some parting lyrics from Pink Floyd’s "Time": “The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say,” or maybe R.E.M. knows me even better [from "Losing My Religion"]: “Oh no, I’ve said too much / I haven’t said enough”), but whether you agree with any of that stuff or not I’ll offer you one more opportunity to be in unity with an attitude that would benefit all of us, James Taylor’s "Shower the People" (on his 1976 In the Pocket album), because we should “Shower the people you love with love / Show them the way that you feel / Things are gonna be much better/ If you only will.” We’re now sailing through divisive times; it could be a smoother ride if we’d only help each other a bit more.
Other Cinema-Related Stuff: Some extra items: (1) A world-wide analysis of the top film and TV shows on Netflix (suggested by Two Guys reader Jeffery Breed; seems to be current to 2021, an enormous data base that many of you might be interested in); (2) 2023 Critics' Choice Awards winners; (3) Avatar: The Way of Water is now #6 on the global All-Time box-office list.
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll down to the bottom of this Summary page to see some additional info about you wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list). Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage. If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page. We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!
*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.
AND … at least until the Oscars for 2022’s releases have been awarded on Sunday, March 12, 2023 we’re also going to include reminders in each posting of very informative links where you can get updated tallies of which films have been nominated for and/or received various awards and which ones made various individual critic’s Top 10 lists. You may find the diversity among the various awards competitions and the various critics hard to reconcile at times—not to mention the often-significant-gap between critics’ choices and competitive-award-winners (which pales when they’re compared to the even-more-noticeable-gap between specific award winners and big box-office-grosses you might want to monitor here)—but as that less-than-enthusiastic-patron-of-the-arts, Plato, noted in The Symposium (385-380 BC)—roughly translated, depending on how accurate you wish the actual quote to be—“Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder,” so your choices for success are as valid as any of these others, especially if you offer some rationale for your decisions (unlike any awards voters who blindly fill out ballots, sometimes—damn it!—for films they have never seen).
To save you a little time scrolling through the “various awards” list above, here are the 2023 Golden Globe nominees and winners (if you even care about them after all of their recent controversies).
Here’s more information about The Woman King:
https://www.thewomanking.movie (click on the 3 little bars in the upper right for more info) and
https://www.sonypictures.com/movies/thewomanking (but it’s more about Sony Pictures
overall than this movie)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xl6VIF0Is8 (12:45 interview with actors Sheila Atim, Viola Davis, Thuso Mbedu, Lashan Lynch, John Boyega, producers Julius Tennon, Cathy Schulman
and director Gina Prince-Bythewood [ad interrupts at 8:30])
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_woman_king
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-woman-king
Here’s more information about The Pale Blue Eye:
https://www.netflix.com/title/81444818 (or, if this doesn't work, go here:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14138650/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTvprr96TUY (22:49 interview with producer Tyler Thompson, director/screenwriter/producer Scott Cooper, and actor/producer Christian Bale)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_pale_blue_eye
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-pale-blue-eye
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