Has anyone watched The Woman King? I’m about a third of the way through it right now and really struggling to get into it because the accents are so atrocious. I constantly hear spatterings of English or American breaking through. Viola Davis, who is typically great at her craft, can’t get through two sentences with a consistent take on her accent. And I’m wondering what’s the point? If they weren’t speaking subtitled Fon, just let them speak in their natural accents so it doesn’t sound like a bad parody. Hopefully I can get past this and enjoy the movie, because the constant reminders they are actors is ruining my immersion in the narrative.
Edit: Well, I made it through. Genuinely perplexed how this is so highly rated. It was decent ish but I had several gripes with it. First obviously the accents were appalling. Second, the believability of these elite warriors just wasn’t convincing at all. Their “training” seemed limited and basic, and the big final test was walking through some thorns and over a ladder. Hardly Sparta. When it came to the action sequences, aside from a couple of very obviously skilled stunt doubles, everything was clearly just sped up and didn’t look particularly great. Then there was the ridiculous arm fracture reset scene. I also didn’t think many or any of them looked like warriors. The idea was, I presume, that they live and breathe their training, yet many of them looked remarkably well fed, and very few looked particularly athletic. This is very far from a body shaming critique, but in a movie about dedicated elite warriors, I’d expect to see some impressive physiques - which there just weren’t. It ruined the immersion somewhat.
There were some decent scenes. It wasn’t horrible but it was also really far from what I expected given the reviews.
5/10