Kevflix And Chill’s review published on Letterboxd:
A crowd pleasing war epic with strong performances, excellent fight choreography, and does well to shed light on a little known piece of history.
It’s entirely predictable and I’m sure liberties have been taken with the story, but it still makes for a really entertaining watch.
The Dahomey Kingdom was protected by a squad of female warriors called the Agojie. Though the kingdom had become rich through the slave trade as a tributary of the Oyo Empire, they sought out to end their dependence on slave trade and began to refuse to pay their tributes—because, you know….Dahomey don’t pay that. (I’m so sorry). Their refusal meant that it was up to the Agojie to defend the kingdom from the pushback of the Oyo.
Viola Davis, Lashana Lynch, Sheila Atim and Thuso Mbedu have the biggest roles and each is exceptional. Lynch in particular was a complete bad ass and really stood out. John Boyega gives an incredibly strong performance here as well fresh on the heels of his starring role in Breaking.
Worth checking out if the subject matter interests you at all.
Okay, brief rant: a couple women came into the theater after 1 full hour had already elapsed. They saw 3 empty seats next to my wife and I so they start to walk in front of us to get to them. But 1 or 1 &1/2 of the empty seats was occupied by a service animal of a gentleman in our row, which they initially couldn’t see because it was laying on the floor. So we tell them there’s a dog there so there may not be enough room, and so they say to the guy “hey, can you move your dog?” The guy says “the dog stays” but they proceed to continue to the seats and just squeeze in next to the dog (and right next to my wife and I). Then they start loudly opening their candy, munching food, talking to each other. On top of that, the woman right next to me had this smart watch that was constantly on, like, full screen brightness that was essentially pointed at my face. It was not a packed house. There were plenty of seats. I just don’t understand people sometimes. After about 10 minutes, we just moved. Couldn’t take it.
2022 Ranked
Degrees of Kevin Bacon: 2
1. Viola Davis and Sandra Bullock in Unforgivable
2. Sandra Bullock and Kevin Bacon in Loverboy
