Review: The woman king directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood

Viola Davis is

the big star here.

She won an Oscar in 2017 for "Fences" and is tipped to get a nomination for this role as well, although it may not be her best.

A classic hero, a tough guy with a soft heart, a Sylvester Stallone type.

A physical role, she must have trained crazy hard, did many stunts herself.

Well done to a 57-year-old, who here plays Nanisca, the leader of the Dahomey kingdom's fierce and feared women's army.

Nanisca's gang gets a new recruit, the rather curmudgeonly Nawi, who is also the play's main character – a cocky orphanage kid who aims to be the best warrior but, like the Mowglis and Mavericks of all adventure films, has a hard time following orders.

When she and her amazon friends are pitted against the evil oyo people, it becomes a struggle.

There's not much more to the story than that, except for some tentative Pochahontas love.

"Black Panther"

was unique because it was the first superhero movie with African-American main roles, but "The woman king" takes it one step further: here we have a blockbuster, with a budget equivalent to half a billion kroner, with only black women in the main roles .

It doesn't necessarily make "The Woman King" any better, cinematically speaking, but it's still a historic moment, a result of the last decade's struggle for diversity in front of and behind the camera.

However, only the external circumstances are updated.

"The woman king" is otherwise a timeless matinee adventure, which follows the template without stretching it in the slightest.

Simple characters, delicious battles and high-pitched speeches before battle.

Nice as hell and all the millions can be seen on the screen, but just a little more originality wouldn't have hurt.

We could at least get rid of the old tired broken English that hangs around in Hollywood like a lingering snot.

Gina Prince-Bythewood has probably still ended up roughly where she was aiming, she is said to have been inspired by films such as "Gladiator" and "Braveheart" - and okay, even if "The woman king" does not have the same impact as the said classic when it reaches at least a good bit on the road.

"The woman king" is, by the way - if you are to believe my (admittedly not entirely deep) research - a nice piece of historical revisionism.

The Dahomey people (who, by the way, also appear in Werner Herzog's "Cobra Verde") made a living by selling their fellow humans as slaves to the white colonizers, a fact that is also included in this script.

are nothing more than heroes: Cool female soldiers?

Good!

Slave trade?

Not good at all.

Tricky... But the filmmakers twist it so that the Amazon women were indeed against slavery and manage to persuade the king to start selling palm oil instead.

No, of course you shouldn't demand credibility from an action bumble... but it's a telling example of how Hollywood restyles history to suit today's fashion.