Lashana Lynch Archives

Review: ‘Bob Marley: One Love,’ starring Kingsley Ben-Adir, Lashana Lynch, James Norton, Tosin Cole, Anthony Welsh, Michael Gandolfini, Umi Myers and Nadine Marshall

February 13, 2024

by Carla Hay

Kingsley Ben-Adir and Lashana Lynch in “Bob Marley: One Love” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green

Culture Representation: Taking place from 1976 to 1978 (with flashbacks to the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s), in Jamaica and other parts of the world, the dramatic biopic “Bob Marley: One Love” features a predominantly black cast of characters (with some white people) portraying people connected in some way to reggae superstar Bob Marley.

Culture Clash: Bob Marley is plagued by threats of violence from people who see him as a political figure or a musical rival; a troubled marriage to his backup singer Rita Marley; and childhood memories of being abandoned by his father.

Culture Audience: “Bob Marley: One Love” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Bob Marley and celebrity biopics, but this music-oriented drama hits a lot of the same wrong notes.

Kingsley Ben-Adir in “Bob Marley: One Love” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

“Bob Marley: One Love” alternates between being bland and sloppy. The end result is that this disappointing biopic looks like a boring parody of a music legend’s life story. The dreadlock wigs look too fake and are a distraction. Although some of the cast members seem to be doing their best to salvage this mishandled misfire, “Bob Marley: One Love” is torpedoed by jumbled direction and a messy screenplay. Bob Marley, the pioneering reggae legend from Jamaica, died of skin cancer (acral lentiginous melanoma) in 1981, at the age of 36. Unfortunately, this biopic does not do full justice to his influential legacy.

Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, “Bob Marley: One Love” was co-written by Green, Terence Winter, Frank E. Flowers and Zach Baylin. Green and Baylin’s previous film is 2021’s “King Richard,” the Oscar-winning biopic starring Will Smith as Richard Williams, father of tennis legends Serena Williams and Venus Williams. Green directed “King Richard,” and Baylin received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay for the movie. Whereas “King Richard” had an easy-to-follow timeline told in chronological order, “Bob Marley: One Love” has a scrambled timeline that will be confusing to many viewers who are unfamiliar with Bob Marley’s story.

Clearly, these filmmakers are capable of making award-worthy movies. What went wrong with this Bob Marley biopic? It starts with the screenplay, which might have suffered from “too many cooks in the kitchen” syndrome. It might explain why the screenplay seems to be watered-down and devoid of anything truly electrifying. (For the purposes of this review, the real Bob Marley will be referred to as Bob Marley, while the Bob Marley character in the movie will be referred to as Bob.)

“Bob Marley: One Love” has an annoying tendency to show Bob Marley as a successful adult musician (played by Kingsley Ben-Adir) relying heavily on flashbacks to his childhood and teen years whenever the adult Bob wants to get inspiration to write a song. (Nolan Collignon portrays Bob as a child of about 6 or 7 years old. Quan-Dajai Henriques portrays Bob as a teenager.) Based on the loads of information available about the real Bob Marley, he clearly did not draw inspiration mainly from his childhood memories.

In fact, Bob Marley’s life philosophy was to focus on the present and not dwell on the past. It seems disrespectful and very gimmicky for the “Bob Marley: One Love” filmmakers to thrown in hazy-looking, dreamlike sequences of Bob experiencing the trauma of being insulted and abandoned by his father as a child before he writes a song.

Bob Marley (whose birth name was Robert Nesta Marley) was born in the small town of Nine Mile, Jamaica, to a white British plantation overseer named Norval Sinclair Marley and a black Jamaican named Cedella Malcolm, who worked on the plantation. In “Bob Marley: One Love,” Norval is portrayed by Daniel Melville Jr., while Cedella is portrayed by Nadine Marshall.

In real life, Norval Marley and Cedella Marley were married. Norval died when Bob Marley was 10 years old. Cedella then married an American civil servant named Edward Booker, changed her last name to Booker, and had two other sons from this marriage: Richard and Anthony Booker. Cedella also moved to the United States because of this marriage. Edward, Richard and Anthony are not in this movie.

In “Bob Marley: One Love,” Bob’s childhood is depicted as Norval (dressed in a British military uniform, because the real Norval claimed to be a veteran of the British Royal Marines) being an absentee father who rejected and abandoned Bob. Cedella was then left to raise Bob as a single mother. And because her relationship with Bob’s stepfather Edward Booker isn’t in the movie, “Bob Marley: One Love” gives the impression that Bob didn’t have a father figure in his life during his childhood and teen years.

The flashbacks to Bob’s teen years also seem superficial and not entirely accurate. Bob and his teenage sweetheart Rita (played by Nia Ashi) form an emotional bond over feeling like outcasts in their school. They both talk about being bullied and teased by their peers because of the color of their skin: Bob (who called himself or Rob or Robbie back then) got flack for being “too light-skinned,” and Rita for being “too dark-skinned.”

Bob and Rita share a love of music, and she eventually becomes a backup singer in his band. Rita is also the person who introduces Bob to Rastafarianism. The movie has the expected scenes of Bob and many other Rastafarians smoking marijuana.

Bob’s earliest days as a musician are shown fleetingly and without much substance— unless you think it’s fascinating to see a teenage Bob Marley and his band show up at a rehearsal/recording studio space and have the owner wave a gun at them to prevent them from going inside because he thinks the band looks too young to be professional musicians. The owner then changes his mind when he hears Bob sing. Yes, it’s that kind of movie.

Years later, when Bob and Rita (played by Lashana Lynch) are married parents and experiencing Bob’s growing fame, the rosy glow of their teenage romance has long since dimmed and given way to the harsh realities of his infidelities, including having children with other women, with Rita being a caregiver for most of these out-of-wedlock children. This fact is mentioned quickly during an argument that Bob and Rita have outside a music industry party in Europe.

The argument starts because Bob, like most cheaters, is irrationally jealous and accusatory over suspicions that his main partner is being unfaithful too. Bob has a violent temper and is seen lashing out at any man whom Bob thinks might be sexually involved with Rita. The movie doesn’t go into further details about Bob’s extramarital affairs. There are a few scenes where Rita glares angrily at women who are hanging around like groupies. “Bob Marley: One Love” is so poorly written and clumsily directed, these marital problems are dropped in the movie like snippets of a soap opera and then ignored.

“Bob Marley: One Love” is mainly just a series of scenes where he has conflicts and dilemmas over whether or not to perform the One Love Peace Concert (which took place at in 1978, at the National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica); how to protect his family from threats of violence; and creative control over his music. The majority of the film takes place from 1976 to 1978, with the One Love Peace Concert set up as the movie’s expected climax, just like the Live Aid concert was for the 2018 Queen biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

“Bob Marley: One Love” shows how Bob was getting pressure from various people with different agendas on whether or not to do the concert, which was during a time of enormous political upheaval and gang violence in Jamaica. The people who were against the concert thought that the crowd would be too rowdy, or that Bob was trying to turn the concert into a political rally. Bob is shown repeatedly saying that the concert was not a political event, although certain people refused to see it any other way.

Michael Manley, a left-wing liberal who was Jamaica’s prime minister at the time, was in a heated political feud with Edward Seaga, a right-wing conservative who would later become prime minister of Jamaica in 1980. Manley (who was Jamaica’s prime minister from 1972 to 1980 and from 1989 to 1992) and Seaga (who was Jamaica’s prime minister from 1980 to 1989) are mentioned multiple times in “Bob Marley: One Love,” but are not portrayed by actors in this movie, which only uses archival footage of these two former leaders of Jamaica.

In real life, Bob Marley and some adult members of his family and entourage were shot during a home invasion in Kingston, on December 3, 1976, a few months after the release of his album “Rastaman Vibration.” The movie depicts the home invasion as gang violence from two young thugs who were sent to assassinate Bob Marley, out of some real or perceived insult that Bob Marley gave to their gang leader. This home invasion is depicted in a very haphazard way, early on in the film.

Shots are fired (with Bob shown in slow motion, like a deer caught in headlights), and the two gunmen escape after shooting Rita, who was sitting in a parked care outside the house. One minute, Bob is swaggering next to a severely wounded Rita, as she’s being wheeled on a gurney into a hospital emergency room. The next minute, he’s visiting her in the hospital and feeling enormously guilty, since he was the main target of the home invasion. (Rita and Bob eventually decide that she and their children will temporarily live with Bob’s mother Cedella in Delaware, while he goes to London to record his next album.) And then a few scenes later, Rita is back on tour with Bob, and her difficult medical recovery is quickly glossed over in the movie.

As for Bob’s skin cancer, it is portrayed in the movie as warning signs that he ignores. Bob has a toe that looks infected and isn’t healing, but he delays going to a doctor to find out the cause and to get medical treatment. By the time that Bob finds out that he has cancer, it’s too late. The movie doesn’t want to bother with showing the depressing downward health spiral of him being in the final stages of cancer. Considering the crass way that the movie fabricated how Bob Marley used the attempted murder of himself and his loved ones as the inspiration for the chorus of “Three Little Birds,” you get the feeling that if the “Bob Marley: One Love” filmmakers could’ve gotten away with fabricating a Bob Marley cancer songwriting scene, they would’ve done that too.

And what about the music that Bob Marley created? There are some scenes of Bob recording music and rehearsing with his band the Wailers. Unless you’re a Bob Marley and the Wailers expert, you probably won’t remember all of the members of the band as they are presented in this movie, because the movie makes them look mostly generic. The exceptions are backup singer Rita and Junior Marvin (played by David Kerr), a Jamaican British guitarist who also worked with Stevie Wonder. Junior’s audition gets a longer-than-necessary scene in the movie. The other members of the Wailers who are depicted in the movie are Seeco Patterson (played by Stefan Wade), Family Man Barrett (played by Aston Barrett Jr.), Tyrone Downie (played by Tosin Cole), Carly Barrett (played by Hector “Roots” Lewis), Antonio “Gillie” Gilbert (played by Gawaine “J-Summa” Campbell), Judy Mowatt (played by Anna-Sharé Blake), Neville Garrick (played by Sheldon Shepherd) and Don Kinsey (played by Andrae Simpson).

Other musicians who worked with Bob Marley are given the bare minimum of screen time in the movie. Rita mentions to Bob how he drove “Peter and Bunny” out of the Wailers by being too much of a dictator. Of course, music aficionados will know that she’s talking about Peter Tosh (played by Alexx A-Game) and Bunny Wailer, also known as Bunny Livingston (played by Abijah “Naki Wailer” Livingston), but these musicians’ contributions to the Wailers are nearly erased in the movie.

Because “Bob Marley: One Love” was officially sanctioned by the Bob Marley estate, the best parts of the movie are those that show Bob Marley’s music being performed. Rita Marley, son Ziggy Marley and daughter Cedella Marley are among the producers of this movie. Bob Marley’s best-known hits are all in the film, including “One Love,” “Get Up, Stand Up,” “No Woman, No Cry,” “Three Little Birds,” “Jamming” and “Simmer Down.” And the concert scenes are very good, although they still looked very staged.

This over-staging of scenes is a huge problem in “Bob Marley: One Love,” which never lets you forget that you’re just watching a lot of fabrication. For example, there’s a scene where Bob is driving a car, with his underage sons Ziggy (played by Xavier Woolry) and Stephen (played by Mekhai Newell) as passengers. When Ziggy and Stephen express concern about another home invasion, he says in a sing-song voice, “Don’t worry ’bout a thing. Everything is going to be all right,” which is the famous chorus for “Three Little Birds.” The movie makes it look like this home-invasion trauma inspired him to come up with those lyrics. In reality, the song was inspired by three birds that used to fly near his home.

Another example of the movie’s over-staging and fabrication is in a scene that takes place in 1977, when Bob is in London to record his landmark “Exodus” album. He’s jogging in a park, when all of sudden, two rival Jamaican gang leaders—Claudie Massop (played by Brian Todd Boucher) and Bucky Marshall (played by Cornelius Orlando Grant)—suddenly show up in the park together to tell Bob that these two rivals have now called a truce. This scene looks “only in a movie” phony.

How did Claudie and Bucky know where to find Bob at that exact same moment in this very large park? Did they travel all the way from Jamaica together and decide to stalk him? And why couldn’t they just relay that message through a more convenient way? It’s because a fake-looking scene like this had to be created for the movie for dramatic purposes.

Another fake-looking scene is the debate over the album cover for “Exodus,” which was released in June 1977. In the movie, the original album cover was presented to Bob as an average-looking band photo. Bob wasn’t happy with it, so the album cover designer came up with the minimalist album cover (solid gold with the title “Exodus” in red letters) that ended up being the cover that was released. The movie depicts it as the cover that Bob wants, but pompous and opinionated publicist Howard Bloom (played by Michael Gandolfini) thinks it’s the wrong choice because he believes the cover isn’t very marketable.

Howard is portrayed as a music executive who thinks he knows better than Bob on how reggae should be marketed to audiences outside of Jamaica. Island Records founder Chris Blackwell (played by James Norton), who signed Bob Marley and the Wailers, is portrayed as someone who sometimes disagrees with Bob but generally trusts Bob’s vision. In real life, Chris Blackwell was known for his larger-than-life personality in the music industry, but you wouldn’t know if from the trite way that he’s portrayed in this move.

“Bob Marley: One Love” gives only surface-level depictions of race relations between black people and white people. The movie has an extensive section devoted to Bob Marley’s 1977 breakthrough tour of Europe, where nearly all of the audience members were white. In the movie, Bob’s interactions with white people are mostly in business meetings or at music industry functions, where he is treated like a star whom some rich and famous people wanted to latch onto because they thought Bob Marley was trendy at the time. The only real racial tension or hostility expressed in the movie is when a Rastafarian spiritual mentor named Elder Lewis (played by Mutabaruka) tells newlyweds Bob and Rita that Rastafarians don’t worship white gods and makes this comment about the Rastafarian chief deity: “Our God is black.”

Ben-Adir and Lynch give capable performances as Bob and Rita, even when they are given subpar dialogue. The movie only shows flattering portrayals of them as parents, although Rita (in the movie’s biggest argument scene with Bob) expresses resentment that she has most of the burden of being the children’s caretaker, while Bob is often away doing whatever he wants. “Bob Marley: One Love” is like a muddled and incomplete mosaic of Bob Marley. For a better and more insightful look at Bob Marley’s life, watch the 2012 documentary “Marley” instead.

Paramount Pictures will release “Bob Marley: One Love” in U.S. cinemas on February 14, 2024. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on March 19, 2024. “Bob Marley: One Love” will be released on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD on May 28, 2024.

Review: ‘Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical,’ starring Alisha Weir, Lashana Lynch, Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough and Emma Thompson

January 8, 2023

by Carla Hay

“Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical”

Directed by Matthew Warchus

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in England, this movie version of the Olivier-winning musical “Matilda the Musical” (which is based on Roald Dahl’s 1988 “Matilda” children’s book) features a predominantly white group of characters (with some black people and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A highly intelligent, book-loving 5-year-old girl with neglectful parents is sent to a private school, where a caring English teacher becomes her mentor, and the school’s cruel headmistress becomes the girl’s enemy.

Culture Audience: In addition to appealing to the obvious target audience of fans of Dahl and previous “Matilda” adaptations, “Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching a family-friendly musical with themes of good versus evil and taking a stand against bullying.

Lashana Lynch and Alisha Weir in in “Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical” takes the best aspects of the stage production and gives them a vibrant, cinematic version that delivers drama and comedy veering on the cartoonish. It’s a mixture of 1980s gaudiness and traditional British theater that mostly works well, but some viewers will be put off by some of the shrill aspects of this musical. Lashana Lynch’s performance is a delightful standout, for her portrayal of compassionate schoolteacher Miss Honey, one of the movie’s few characters with any real complexity and depth.

“Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical” is directed by Matthew Warchus, who won an Olivier Award in 2012, for the West End musical production of “Matilda,” which is based on Roald Dahl’s 1988 book of the same name. Warchus also received a Tony nomination for directing the Broadway musical version of “Matilda.” The first movie version of “Matilda” is a 1996 American (non-musical) comedy, directed by Danny DeVito (who also co-starred in the movie) and starring Mara Wilson in the title role. The songs from the “Matilda” stage musical (with music and lyrics by Tim Minchin) are also in “Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical.”

The world of “Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical” is set in the 1980s, and it’s filmed like a garish 1980s sitcom, when viewers are first introduced to the selfish low-lifes who will become Matilda’s parents. The movie’s opening scene takes place at a hospital maternity ward in an unnamed city in England. (The song “Miracle” is performed in this scene.)

Mr. Wormwood (played by Stephen Graham) is a ruffian who works as a used-car salesman and welder involved in shady business practices. Mrs. Wormwood (played by Andrea Riseborough) is an egomaniacal makeup artist whose only real passions are ballroom dancing and spending money on herself. Both spouses are not equipped to be good parents. But here they are in the maternity ward, as Mrs. Wormwood is giving birth to what these sleazy spouses hope will be a son.

When Matilda is born, Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood’s negative attitude about being parents gets even worse because this child is a girl, not the boy they wanted. Throughout Matilda’s young life, her parents refer to her using male pronouns, as if they can’t accept Matilda’s gender. Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood are neglectful parents who give Matilda the basics (food and shelter) but not love or proper guidance.

At 5 years old, Matilda (played by Alisha Weir) has learned to be self-sufficient. Matilda also has a mischievous side to her, such as a scene where she puts super glue in her father’s hat, which gets stuck to his head. She has become a voracious reader with the type of intelligence that makes her child prodigy in any subject and could easily put her on the level of genius. Influenced by many of the novels she has read, Matilda has a vivid imagination and can make up elaborate stories.

Matilda escapes from her unhappy home life by regularly spending time with Mrs. Phelps (played by Shindhu Vee), a librarian who owns and operates a bookmobile. In this movie, Mrs. Phelps is unfortunately a very underdeveloped character. Viewers will find out very little about Mrs. Phelps. The main purpose for Mrs. Phelps is for her to become fascinated when Matilda tells her a story (in stops and starts) about an escapologist (played by Carl Spencer) and an acrobat (played by Lauren Alexandra), who work at a circus, fall in love with each other, and experience a tragedy. This story comes to life in various scenes in the movie.

One day, Miss Honey and a school official colleague, who both work at the prestigious Crunchem Hall school, visit the Wormwood household because there is concern for Matilda’s welfare. Matilda has been homeschooled up until this point. Miss Honey tactfully asks Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood if Matilda can go to a traditional school so that she can be around other children. Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood say yes, not because it will benefit Matilda, but because they will no longer have to be responsible for educating her, and she will be spending less time at home.

Matilda quickly makes a friend at the school named Lavender (played by Rei Yamauchi Fulker), one of the schoolkid characters in this movie that could have used better character development. Other students who are featured in prominent speaking roles (but very little is revealed about them) are cheeky Eric (played by Andrei Shen), nervous Nigel (played by Ashton Robertson) and eager-to-please Bruce Bogtrotter (played Charlie Hodson-Prior), who gets a big moment in a famously uncomfortable scene involving chocolate cake. Matilda becomes the target of a student bully named Hortensia (played by Meesha Garbett), who is a stereotypical “mean girl.”

But the biggest bully at the school is headmistress Agatha Trunchbull (played by Emma Thompson, wearing hag-like makeup), who is very abusive (physically and verbally), and despises children so much, she often calls them “maggots.” The sign in front of Agatha’s office even says, “Maggots May Not Enter.” Everyone at the school is afraid of Agatha, except for Matilda. As Bruce comments soon after Matilda arrives at Crunchem Hall: “This isn’t a school. It’s a prison.”

Matilda soon stands out for having more academic knowledge than the teachers. Miss Honey is so impressed with Matilda, she tells Agatha that Matilda should be given the curriculum of someone who’s at least 11 years old. A jealous Agatha nixes the idea because she says that Matilda doesn’t deserve special treatment. Matilda soon becomes the focus of Agatha’s rage when Matilda shows that she’s not easily intimidated by this nasty school leader. Agatha is also prejudiced against Matilda because Agatha thinks Matilda’s parents are “gangsters, not intellectuals.”

The rest of the movie plays out exactly like you think it will, even for people who don’t know anything the the “Matilda” story. Thompson’s depiction of Agatha is a very campy, non-stop performance of “fire and brimstone” malevolence. The hairstyling, makeup and costume design are top-notch in in creating this character, and Thompson is certainly very talented, but it’s an entirely one-note portrayal that would have been more interesting if the filmmakers made Agatha’s personality a little less predictable and more nuanced.

The real heart of the story (and the best part of the movie) is the beautiful friendship that develops between Matilda and Miss Honey. Even though Matilda is wise beyond her years, she is still a child who needs positive and helpful adult guidance. Matilda and Miss Honey are kindred spirits who share an avid appreciation of books and a strong sense of personal ethics that includes standing up for people who are being treated unfairly.

In the role of Matilda, Weir makes an impressive feature-film debut as the feisty and resilient Matilda, who manages to charm, even when she’s being a pouty brat. Some of the pacing of “Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical” tends to drag in the middle of the movie. However, the last third of the film is by far the best section and makes up for any of the movie’s flaws. Lynch gives an emotionally stunning version of “My Home,” while Weir’s standout musical solo moment is with “Quiet.” And the “Revolting Children” song-and-dance sequence is an absolute, show-stopping high point.

Unfortunately, other than Matilda and Miss Honey, the characters in this movie are rather two-dimensional. The filmmakers of “Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical” missed an opportunity to create meaningful backstories and more compelling personalities for some of these other characters. The villains in the movie are complete caricatures and therefore entirely formulaic.

The movie also could have taken more time to explore the interpersonal relationships that Matilda has with her fellow students, because what is shown in the movie all looks very rushed and superficial. However, this is a musical that succeeds in most areas and stays true to the overall spirit of the “Matilda” book. “Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical” is not a masterpiece, but it’s entertaining enough to appeal to many generations and cultures.

Netflix released “Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical” in select U.S. cinemas on December 9, 2022. The movie premiered on Netflix on December 25, 2022.

Review: ‘The Woman King,’ starring Viola Davis

September 10, 2022

by Carla Hay

Cast members of “The Woman King.” Pictured in front row, from left to right: Lashana Lynch, Viola Davis and Sheila Atim. Pictured in second row, from left to right: Sisipho Mbopa, Lone Motsomi and Chioma Umeala (Photo by Ilze Kitshoff/TriStar Pictures)

“The Woman King” (2022)

Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood

Culture Representation: Taking place in the mid-1800s in West Africa, the action film “The Woman King” features a predominantly black cast of characters (with some white people) representing the working-class, middle-class, wealthy and royalty.

Culture Clash: General Nanisca leads an all-female group of warriors in the African kingdom of Dahomey, as they battle against the slave trade and the rival Oyo Empire.

Culture Audience: “The Woman King” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Viola Davis and military action movies that are told from a female perspective.

Viola Davis and Thuso Mbedu in “The Woman King” (Photo courtesy of TriStar Pictures)

“The Woman King” is sometimes cluttered and uneven, but the movie’s compelling performances, gripping action and inspiring personal stories can keep most viewers interested. Viola Davis is the movie’s title character and should have been in more scenes. Instead, at least half of the movie is about a rookie military recruit, who starts out as an underestimated newcomer and overcomes challenges, on and off the battlefield. “The Woman King” had its world premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival.

Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and written by Dana Stevens, “The Woman King” is inspired by true events that happened in West Africa in the mid-1800s. Davis (who is one of the producers of “The Woman King”) portrays General Nanisca, the leader of the Agojie, an all-female group of warriors protecting the African kingdom of Dahomey.

These women have a fearsome and bold reputation that is so widespread, when they arrive as visitors in a village, people are afraid look at them. Some of these warrior women’s exploits are exaggerated in stories told among villagers, while other exploits are not exaggerated, including the warriors’ participation in vicious killings. For example, the movie shows how the women specifically train themselves on how to murder people by chopping off their heads.

King Ghezo (played by John Boyega), the reigning leader of Dahomey, is part of the kingdom’s dwindling male population. Dahomey has been in a longtime feud with the Oyo Empire, which is also in West Africa. The on-again-/off-again warfare between Dahomey and Oyo has resulted in Dahomey being forced to give up male residents to Oyo, which has been selling these men in the growing slave trade.

Needless to say, the slave traders (the African traitors and the white male buyers) are the story’s biggest villains. Leading the group of white slave traders is Santo Ferreira (played by Hero Fiennes Tiffin), a Brazilian aristocrat who tries to convince King Ghezo to start profiting from the slave trade by selling slaves directly to Santo and his colleagues. King Ghezo needs the money, and the movie ultimately shows whether or not he makes the decision to sell out his own people. Someone who does sell his own people with no hesitation is Oba Ade (played by Jimmy Odukoya) from the Oya Empire.

Meanwhile, in Dahomey, a 19-year-old woman named Nawi (played by Thuso Mbedu) defiantly refuses to marry an older, wealthy man whom her father has chosen for her. This would-be husband immediately shows that he’s abusive when he punches Nawi for not being submissive to him. Nawi defends herself by pushing this abuser down to the ground. He’s shocked that she won’t let him get away with abusing her.

Nawi tells her father that she doesn’t want to have a husband and that she wants to be a soldier. And so, Nawi’s father decides he’s going “punish” her by making her enlist in the toughest military unit around: the Agojie army. Nawi arrives as very physically unprepared and insecure new recruit. She tries to hide her insecurity by acting like she knows more than she really does.

Nanisca gives the responsibility of training Nawi to Nanisca’s right-hand woman Izogie (played by Lashana Lynch), who is as fearless as Nanisca and very loyal to her. Another member of this military unit is Amenza (played by Sheila Atim), who has known Nanisca the longest and is Nanisca’s closest confidante. Amenza is compassionate as well as tough. Lynch and Atim are entirely believable in these supporting roles.

Nawi doesn’t make a good impression on the Agojie leaders because she often acts like an entitled brat. In one of the first conversations that Nawi and Nanisca have with each other, Nanisca comments that Nawi looks a lot younger than 19. Nawi says to Nanisca, “You look like an old woman to me.”

The movie has the expected scenes of inexperienced recruit Nawi making mistakes and failing in some physical challenges during the training process. She’s laughed at and taunted by some of the other trainees, but she doesn’t experience any extreme military hazing. It should come as no surprise that Nawi eventually improves (in her attitude and physical skills) and then excels. Mbedu is quite good in depicting Nawi’s metamorphosis.

Izogie ends up relating to Nawi because they both came from dysfunctional families. Izogie, who knows about Nawi’s abusive father, confides in Nawi one day by saying that Izogie experienced the pain of having an abusive mother. Izogie comments to Nawi about the Agojie warriors: “You have a new family now.”

Meanwhile, Brazilian slave trader Santo has a servant named Malik (played by Jordan Bulger), whose biracial identity often tests his loyalty. (Malik’s mother was an enslaved black woman, and his father was white.) Malik often has to choose between his white employer and the black people with whom Malik identifies with more. Malik and Santo are about the same age, and they grew up together, with Malik always having the role of Santo’s servant.

Malik and Nawi become attracted to each other, but their possible romance is hindered by Nawi’s doubts about how involved Malik is in the slave trade. Malik repeatedly tells Nawi that he’s not a slave trader, but she questions his honesty, considering that he works for a slave trader. To bring some playfull sexiness into the movie, there’s a scene where Nawi takes away Malik’s clothes as a prank when he’s skinny dipping by himself near a waterfall.

Wait a minute. Isn’t this movie called “The Woman King,” not “The Woman Rookie”? One of the frustrating aspects of “The Woman King” is that the Nanisca isn’t in the movie as much as she should be. Nanisca is not exactly sidelined, because Davis is such a powerhouse performer, she makes the most of her screen time, even with her facial expressions. However, a huge part of the story is about Nawi’s personal dramas.

The movie becomes a little bit of a soap opera when something from Nanisca’s past comes back to haunt her. It’s a secret that Nawi finds out about in a way that shakes Nawi to her inner core. Very few people know about this secret. And, at first, Nawi doesn’t quite believe this secret until she sees proof.

“The Woman King” can be commended for showing some of the realistic ups and downs that military groups have with each other and with the governments that they serve. Nanisca has some tension with King Ghezo’s opinionated wife (played by Jayme Lawson), who thinks that Nanisca is too radical. It irritates King Ghezo’s wife when he takes Nanisca’s advice.

The power struggle between Nanisca and King Ghezo’s wife doesn’t become a major showdown though, because the king always treats his spouse as more or less a trophy wife. It’s very obvious from the beginning of the movie that King Ghezo has more respect for Nanisca than his wife, when it comes to leadership skills and camaraderie. Doesn’t the title of this movie say it all?

“The Woman King” has some intense battle scenes and depictions of enslavement that might be too hard to watch for very sensitive viewers. The battle scenes show how even though many of these women might be physically smaller than their male opponents, the female warriors have trained to outwit their opponents with strategic fight moves. The movie also makes a point of how the women pay respect to their fallen comrades using their African religious traditions.

Although “The Woman King” has a well-developed story arc for Nawi, the development of the Nanisca character sometimes fall short of what many viewers might expect. Nanisca gives a little bit of background information about herself, including her secret that affects Nawi. Even with this big secret revealed, Nanisca still remains stoic and somewhat mysterious by the end of the movie.

Viewers never really find out what Nanisca’s interests are outside of this army of female warriors and the army’s duties to protect Dahomey, but that could be the point: Nanisca’s life revolves around this group. It’s testament to Davis’ immense talent that she conveys enough of a personality with Nanisca to show that this extraordinary warrior is not a hollow character but has lived a life of pain and hard-fought survival that she doesn’t easily reveal to others.

TriStar Pictures will release “The Woman King” in U.S. cinemas on September 16, 2022.

Review: ‘No Time to Die’ (2021), starring Daniel Craig

September 29, 2021

by Carla Hay

Daniel Craig in “No Time to Die” (Photo by Nicola Dove/Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures)

“No Time to Die” (2021)

Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga

Culture Representation: Taking place in Italy, Cuba, the United Kingdom, Chile and other locations around the world, the action film “No Time to Die” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few people of African, Latino and Asian heritage) representing the working-class, middle-class, wealthy and criminal underground.

Culture Clash: British superspy James Bond goes after yet another villain who wants to take over the world.

Culture Audience: Besides appealing to the obvious target audience of James Bond movie fans, “No Time to Die” will appeal primarily to fans of Daniel Craig or people who are interested globe-trotting spy capers.

Rami Malek in “No Time to Die” (Photo by Nicola Dove/Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures)

The often-delayed and overly hyped “No Time to Die” is not the best James Bond movie to star Daniel Craig, but it’s got enough thrilling action to make up for some hokey dialogue and questionable creative decisions. It’s a guaranteed crowd-pleaser for people who are inclined to like James Bond films, flaws and all. It’s a harder film to like for people expecting something more original than the usual chase scenes and “villain trying to take over the world” plot.

The last 15 minutes of “No Time to Die” are the only moments when the James Bond franchise does something that it’s never done before. But until then, this 163-minute movie (yes, that’s two hours and 43 minutes) becomes a bit bloated and repetitive with things that have already been done many times before in James Bond movies, which are based on Ian Fleming’s novels. The action scenes are not the franchise’s best, but they’re surely the most expensive.

Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga (the first American to direct a James Bond film), “No Time to Die” is being marketed as the final James Bond movie to star Craig as the British superspy. Fukunaga co-wrote the “No Time to Die” screenplay with Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Having four people write the “No Time to Die” screenplay doesn’t mean that the movie turned out better than the far superior James Bond movies starring Craig—namely 2006’s “Casino Royale” and 2012’s “Skyfall.” In fact, the too-long running time of “No Time to Die” gives the impression that the movie is precisely this long because of “too many cooks in the kitchen” for this screenplay.

“No Time to Die” is the equivalent of a long and rambling introduction to a farewell speech that delivers a knockout punch, which itself takes a long time to get to the heart of the matter. For a movie this long, it might disappoint viewers to know that Rami Malek’s Lyutsifer Safin villain character isn’t in the movie is much as the “No Time to Die” movie trailers make it look like he is. His biggest scenes are in the beginning (when he’s shown about 20 to 25 years before, doing a revenge killing of the mother of one of the movie’s characters) and in the end, when he has the inevitable major showdown with Bond.

Fans of Ana de Armas (who plays a James Bond collaborator named Paloma) might be disappointed to see that she’s not in “No Time to Die” as much as the movie’s marketing gives the impression that she is. She’s literally there just to be eye candy who can fight, in a predictable James Bond film sequence where he joins forces with a mysterious beauty who can go into battle while wearing a slinky dress. After this fight sequence, she’s not seen or heard from again in the movie.

However, the movie does deliver in continuing the story arc that began with “Casino Royale” of James Bond as a complex man who’s capable of having his heart broken. Bond had his heart broken in “Casino Royale” with (spoiler alert) the death of Vesper Lynd (played by Eva Green), who has been described as the greatest love of his life. Vesper’s death is referred to in “No Time to Die,” when he visits her grave and acts like someone who will never get over this loss.

In “No Time to Die,” Bond gets a new heartbreak. And this “heartbroken” Bond is the reason why “No Time to Die” often seems to drag with so much moping and brooding from Bond. “No Time to Die” constantly hits viewers over the head with Bond wallowing in his bitterness, at the expense of giving more screen time to the chief villain Safrin so viewers can get to know Safrin better. Safrin, whose face has burn scars but doesn’t show any signs of aging, ends up being a two-dimensional character with an unimaginative backstory and a voice that sounds like American actor Malek trying to do a vague European accent.

Safrin sure likes to pout a lot, while he saunters in and out of the movie like a villain in search of a memorable personality. Between the moodiness of Safrin and Bond, there’s enough pouting and sulking to make you wonder if they’ve watched too many “Twilight” movies. Even though Safrin doesn’t appear to age, he’s not a vampire, which is a relief to anyone who might think he’ll sparkle like a “Twilight” vampire.

Why is James Bond heartbroken this time? It’s shown at the beginning of the film that he’s in a happy and loving relationship with psychiatrist Madeleine Swann (played by Léa Seydoux), the French native who’s young enough to be his daughter and who first hooked up with him in 2015’s “Spectre.” Madeleine and Bond (who has retired from MI6 and the spy business) are living together in bliss in Matera, Italy.

However, Madeleine has a secret from her past that has come back to haunt her. This secret is revealed early on the movie to viewers. However, it’s a surprise to Bond, when he and Madeleine are ambushed in their home by assassins who’ve been sent by Safrin. It leads to one of the movie’s best action sequences, with high-speed car chases and close-call shootouts.

Bond and Madeleine escape, of course, but Bond can’t forgive her for keeping the secret that led to them almost being murdered. He puts her on a train so that she can safely get away from the villains. “How will I know you’re OK?,” Madeleine asks tearfully. Bond coldly replies, “You won’t. You won’t ever see me again.”

Is this a James Bond film or a soap opera? At any rate, the movie then fast-forwards five years after Bond’s breakup with Madeleine. Several of the actors who joined the James Bond franchise as Bond co-workers during the Daniel Craig era also return for “No Time to Die.” They include Ben Whishaw as Q, Ralph Fiennes as M, Rory Kinnear as Tanner and Naomie Harris as Eve Moneypenny, who are all perfectly fine in their supporting roles. “No Time to Die” still doesn’t reveal much about who these supporting characters are outside of their work, except in one scene that reveals that Q lives alone, he likes to cook gourmet meals, and he has a sphynx cat.

Joining the James Bond franchise for the first time is Lashana Lynch, who plays Nomi, the spy who inherited the 007 identifying number after Bond retired. Nomi has some standout action scenes in the film and could end up being a very popular character for the James Bond franchise. Nomi is not the type of female character in a James Bond movie who’s going to show up for a shootout in a gown and high heels, although that would certainly be her prerogative.

Nomi is first seen interacting with Bond when she goes undercover as a flirtatious party girl whom he meets at a bar. Nomi gives him a ride home on her scooter after she deliberately disables his car. When she reveals her true identity to Bond and tells him that she’s been assigned his previous number, Nomi confidently informs him: “I’m 007. You probably thought they’d retire it.” Bond says nonchalantly, “It’s just a number.”

Everyone knows that Bond isn’t going to stay retired, once he finds out about the big problems his colleagues are facing. What’s at stake in “No Time to Die”? There’s a convoluted plot explanation in the movie, but essentially it’s about a manufactured poisonous gas where numerous nanobots can enter a human body and cause people to die after their skin breaks out in bloody blotches.

A (cliché alert) Russian scientist named Valdo Obruchev (played by David Dencik) developed this deadly weapon gas, which was originally intended to be a way to implant the DNA of people with outstanding military skills, in order to create super soldiers. Safrin predictably recruited this corrupt scientist with the enticement of great riches. Safrin has a (cliché alert) secret compound as his headquarters, so there’s a race against time for Bond and his colleagues to find Safrin’s lair. This compound has a biodome with poisonous plants that are used for the deadly gas.

Meanwhile, Bond is tracked down by two CIA operatives named Felix Leiter (played by Jeffrey Wright) and Logan Ashe (played by Billy Magnussen), who successfully convince Bond to come out of retirement to track down where this gas is being manufactured. It takes a while for Bond to change is mind, which is one of the reasons why the movie drags on for too long. Wright has played no-nonsense government officials many times before, but Magnussen (who’s usually typecast as a comedic and goofy “pretty boy”) has not.

Magnussen’s constant grinning and mugging for the camera are an unwelcome distraction. The Logan character even gets on Bond’s nerves, when he comments that Logan “smiles too much.” It’s an obvious foreshadowing of things that are eventually revealed about Logan. It’s through Felix and Logan that Bond is put in touch with Paloma, whose only purpose in the movie is to go to a black-tie party with Bond and then get involved in a shootout at the party.

Christoph Waltz makes brief appearances in “No Time to Die” as Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the “Spectre” villain who is being held at Cuba’s notorious Guantanamo Bay detention center. Blofeld does the expected smirks and taunts when Bond and his colleagues find out that Blofeld knows more about Safrin than he’s willing to tell. But ultimately, Blofeld is just there as filler in this overstuffed movie. The characters of Felix, Ashe, Paloma didn’t need to be in this movie at all. The story would still have worked without creating these extra characters.

For a movie with four screenwriters, “No Time to Die” has some incredibly mediocre dialogue that’s not much better than a B-movie. And (cringe alert), James Bond utters more than a few bad puns. The top assassin on Safrin’s team is an almost-robotic mercenary named Primo (played by Dali Benssalah), who has a false eye that’s a prop with its own story arc. The trope of a villain with a missing eye has been so over-used in movies that it’s disappointing that the “No Time to Die” filmmakers couldn’t come up with something more original.

There are some moments in “No Time to Die” that seem to be delibrately slapstick and hokey, such as in the fight scene at the black-tie party. More than once in this scene, Bond and Paloma go to the bar to swig a few alcoholic drinks in between the violent shootout. Bond and Paloma smirk at each other as if to say, “We’re such badasses, we can get some drinking done while we’re in the middle of a shooutout.”

Another shootout scene that’s a lot more problematic is when Bond shoots a gun at close range at Safrin while Safrin is literally holding a child hostage. Bond misses his target, but it’s an incredibly irresponsible action, considering that Safrin could’ve used the child as a shield and the child could’ve been shot and killed. Or the child could’ve been accidentally shot just by being that close to Safrin.

When viewers see who this child is in the movie, it makes Bond’s decision to shoot even more mind-boggling. Yes, it’s only a movie, but misguided violent scenes like this involving an innocent child do a disservice to the Bond legacy. It makes Bond look like a reckless amateur.

Of course, because “No Time to Die” is about heartbroken Bond, there’s more in this movie that’s meant to be tearjerking moments than ever before in a James Bond film. It’s going to make people feel incredibly sentimental for Craig’s long and mostly impressive journey as James Bond.

Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures will release “No Time to Die” on various dates in cinemas around the world. The U.K. release date is September 30, 2021. The U.S. release date is October 8, 2021.