BY AMADI CHIMAOBI KINGSLEY
JUST like any other epic historical movies, Orisa(Diety) set the pace for “King of Thieves”, “Jagun jagun” and many other movies and the age long adage of “whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad” was aptly demonstrated in this body of work.
“Orisa” begins with the witches’ summon of Oba Adefolarin to their coven. They have a short word tussle in which kabiyesi finally lost and they made him mad. He started causing pandemonium in the palace and confusion in the kingdom.
Balogun who is meant stand by the kabeyesi wasn’t in support of him and as such found the incidents rather amusing.
Komokomo, a bloodthirsty warlord who disguised as a farmer begins to terrorize the kingdom, taking the towns people as slaves, killing them at will or when they refuse to do his bidding. Kabeyesi was able to defeat Komokomo and he took poison and died as soon as his subject were about to dethrone him. it’s thrilling to some extent, but soon becomes tiring as incident after incident happened without getting to the crux of the plot. When the film finally takes a pause to reveal the central conflict, it was not connecting with some sub plots like the witches from the beginning of the movies and kabiyesi’s mother always calming him down whenever he picks up a cutlass to kill his subjects.
It was not aesthetically pleasing; the tribal marks were fake…looked like they were done with black pencil but while the costume and set design were befitting the period the movie was set, the CGI was poorly done as you can tell the birds and smoke were so unrealistic and found displeasing.
The acting was the icing as Odunlade Adekola, Femi Adebayo, Muyiwa Ademola, Shaffy Bello, Dele Odule, Jide Kosoko, Eniola Ajo and many more brought their A-Game and held the movie down from start to finish.
The character development was poor though, as one thought kabiyesi was impenetrable with palace herbalist and other spiritualists in this movie…it was however only a black powder that brought him down despite the fact that he was a serial rapist…his only grievance with the witches was that he did not heed their call the first time….very shallow plot
Despite all these, one must notice how beautifully the writer infused comic scenes and dialogues in the middle of a tragic story but, Komokomo repeatedly saying “Mi ofe soro” became irritating at some point.
Orisa stands out with its stellar cast, the teaching of a mother’s love, moral lesson on “pride goes before a fall” and not to covet your neighbor’s property. It’s also a contender for an award in the indigenous film category.
It should be rated a 6/10.
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