 When the great African kingdom of Dahome is under threat, only one group of people can save it. Strong female leads. It's about time. Let's talk about Wakanda Forever. Bad jokes and marketing lingo aside, how is the Lady King? Why is it called the Lady King? That title's terrible. I never remember it. I went to look up the people in it on IMDB and I'm like, what is this called? The Woman King. It's not even the Lady King. I already said it wrong. For starters, this is not historically accurate. It's not based on a true story. It's set in an alternate setting, an alternate timeline, where there was this elite women tribe that could take on anything, any obstacle that was in their way. And who is the greatest threat to these people? Well, the answer's obvious. The white man. We're back in Africa, baby. During the slave trade era, what a disgusting time to be alive. And the new king that this elite warrior squad works for knows it. He's not even on board with what's been going on in the past. And he's out there to make things right. But he's gonna need some help getting on the right path. And that's gonna come in the form of Nisqa, played by Viola Davis. She's a no-nonsense warrior with a heart of coal and a troubled past. I loved Viola Davis in this. She's a beast. And let's just say overall this film, actually pretty decent. I wouldn't say it's amazing. It's definitely not bad. It's very watchable. Little too long. I would have shaved off like 20 minutes of this thing, made it a little bit more streamlined. And you got a good movie here. It's actually very enjoyable. Now the first half hour is kind of like by the numbers stuff. You show the kick ass tribe. You show some of the training going on. But the movie does shift focus. It does flip the script a few times and it gets more engaging then. It's like, oh, okay. We got some genuine conflict here. We got some emotional weight to decisions being made. I like all these characters. They're not just one dimensional badasses. There's actually backstory, a rich history to the tribe. I mean, they did a good job building this up. This is a very hard PG-13. It's toying with R. It wants to be R, but it's pulled back for that PG-13 rating. I think that was a mistake. There are two routes this thing should have gone. Either one, all in on R, show the bloody fights, show the cool action and all its glory instead of having to kind of hide some stuff or cut away before something gross happens. Or two, or B, I don't know if I'm using letters or numbers here. It doesn't matter. The point's still made. Go a little family friendlier because as it stands, this feels like a Disney movie. It's very colorful. The people are all beautiful. They got white-ass teeth. I mean, this is not what it would have been like all those years ago. Their garments are all freshly cleaned. There's like birds chirping. There's dancing. There's music, which that's probably accurate, but in the way they're presenting it, it's just very fairy-tale-ish in this kingdom. So when you contrast that with the ugly slave trading market and these horrible people, not all of them were white men. That was a joke. There's tons of bad people all over the place and there's good guys in this as well. It's not just all women. There's men fighting. There's kids fighting. I mean, it's a pretty brutal film that should have gone harder with the R rating instead of just kind of watering it down a bit. This also stars Lashana Lynch, who was recently in the last Bond movie. Lashana Lynch was perfectly cast for this role. She's not only a total badass, but she is funny. She's a playful character and I couldn't get enough of her on the screen. Very good. Viola Davis, obviously fantastic. She always is. The film also focuses on some of the younger actresses who all do a really good job. I am genuinely curious to see how this does in theaters because it is kind of at a crossroads with itself as far as what kind of film it wants to be. I definitely don't think you need to see it in theaters. Visuals are solid. The music's fine. Nothing like really out there or different or wild. I will say there was some editing that I found to be a little troubling. There was a couple shots where they cut really bad and I think it is because they had to chop a ton of the action out of this so that it could hit that PG-13 rating. I joked at the beginning about this being a Black Panther sequel or prequel. I mean, it does obviously seem like they took inspiration from Black Panther. It did forge its own path. It is its own thing. Whether or not audiences are gonna go out and see this, that's questionable. But those are my thoughts on the film. Check it out if you're interested in. It's a decent time at the theater. Otherwise, maybe wait till it comes out on streaming. 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