Saw The Woman King and it was alright. People putting it in the same category as Gladiator or Braveheart or whatever would be mistaken. It's not nearly as epic, not nearly as dramatic and not nearly as just... good as those movies were. But it wasn't a bad movie. I actually liked the African POV and setting, 1820's West Africa was a neat place to visit through a movie but I think there is a bit of bias there. Cinema is willing to accept Romans with vaguely British accents and Western euphemisms and the like, but it did feel different when the actors here were trying to apply speaking English in lieu of the Dahomian dialect to the early 19th century African setting. It felt off, but there's no reason to be more critical of this film in that regard and not a similar historical film, unless maybe this film did somehow manage to not be quite as immersive. It's an interesting question to ponder.
As for the film being historical, I remember a lot of whinging on social media and saw some videos, especially pre-reactionary ones from HEMA Youtubers, about how this wasn't historically accurate or whatever. And I guess... but it's important to note that of the popular concerns brought up, the movie repeatedly stated that both the Dahomey and their rivals the Oyo were engaged in practicing slavery, including that of their own people. That Africans were selling Africans to White people etc etc.
The title 'The Woman King' is still on the face of it absurd when the obvious term for a Female Monarch is obviously 'Queen' but to the films credit, it did actually explain the term 'The Woman King' and why it was being used and it was fine to me. Little absurd but it made enough senses that I wasn't too bothered by it.
So in short, the idea that the film glossed over history or whatever, it's not a documentary. It didn't ignore things like slavery. And it was about as historically accurate as any other historical epic.
And it wasn't a bad movie.
It just wasn't very good. You could tell the budget was smaller then your typical Mel Gibson or Ridley Scott historical epic. There were no truly iconic battle scenes with massive formations clashing against each other. There are battles in here including larger pitched battles, but it all de-evolves into people crashing into each other and getting into one on one duels with spins and slashes and fighting choreography. There are some brief displays of volley firing, another tired trope of surprising the enemy with use of FIRE on the battlefield, but its basically just a big ol massive melee where you randomly cut to various named characters killing adversaries and thus, not my cup of tea when I want to see a historical military epic.
The story was fine... the characters... were fine... I never found myself immersed into the story or the various characters and their journey. They were all likable enough but I feel that the character arcs and whatnot were pretty rough and just didn't draw me in. Viola Davis and John Boyega and everyone did a well enough job performing their lines but it was just a weak script or storyline I feel. Nothing memorable.
The scale of spectacle here is like comparable to an HBO series then some $200 million dollar epic film which also kinda harms it. So in ranking historical epics on pure entertainment value, its leagues above things like Centurion, or The Eagle but a clear level or two below Gladiator or Braveheart or Kingdom of Heaven etc overall.
