Saw this film a couple of days ago at the BFI and part of their regular 'African Odysseys' programme.

Wow, what do I even say about it? First let me remind you of the trailer -

Invasion 1897 Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YljETHmfD34

Oga Orikinla, no vex but I was seriously disappointed with this film - remember over a year ago there was that long thread on this film and we talked about so many things - especially the extremely poor VFX and the 'supposed' $18m budget which I straight up called BS. Well the film remained just as bad as the trailer (no they did not ever attempt to rework the crappy VFX).

This is a HUGE story, a huge part of our history and should have been a huge EPIC of a film... sadly it was so underwhelmingly small that a friend I took thought that they were fighting for a little village or patch of land and not a whole Benin Kingdom. When she got home she started reading about the Benin Kingdom and couldn't understand where the $1m budget went. This did not even look like a 100K film... yes it was shot on the 'regular' RED EPIC... sadly not too many of our films look like films when shot on such amazing cameras but end up looking like they were shot on 'video' - post-production people take note.

There was zero crowd. Benin Kingdom soldiers no pass 20 sef. When the Oba's daughter was getting married crowd no pass 30. Seriously how hard is it to go into a village or 2 and get 150-200 people as crowd (shebi na 'epic' you dey make?) This was a joke. Whenever it went into the 1897 'era' you could just not for anything believe you had been transported to that timeline. Costumes were poor, the oyinbo people sef wore kiddy plastic-costume police caps from the 'One Pound' shop and the t-shirts were so modern - there couldn't have been crew-neck elasticated t-shirts in 1897...Duh! Oh and the 'nylon' shorts... why not 'cotton' - Didn't these people watch 'October 1' which is a zillion light years better?
Yes na period drama but the acting was theatrical and generally poor, various things in the edit made it unintentionally comical - this was a serious subject matter nah! Anyway I no go yab the film too much - this was a seriously, seriously missed opportunity. Of course it will pick up the normal "Let's-pity-and-dash-those-black-African-people" some awards from festivals that no one has heard of because the subject matter is a bit controversial.

We really need to learn "Do something well or don't do it at all." Filmmaking is not by force nah; don't do things until you are actually ready - why bite off a thousand times more than what you can chew? And we want Nigerian filmmaking to be taken seriously? We are jokers that have no shame at all - look at a relatively non-filmmaking fellow-African-country like Mauritania diving head first with a 'quality' film straight to an 'Oscar' nomination submission.
Oh well, we're professionals at making the same excuses we've hear a million times over. Bring on the excuses!

Here is the Q&A session which was generally interesting (it's long at just over an hour)
Yes the 450 seat venue was packed - most people left right after the screening.
Invasion 1897 - Q&A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8glXnWvjlXE

holicalpha:

.....Lancelot Imasuen were all the money go?

Ahhhhhhhh!!!!


Oma Seun o...

check back later

Nice movie

I have not seen it, so I will not post a comment

How is the Benin massacre portrayed?

I likey

It must be an interesting film ooooo. But I just need to comment before watching

It must be an interesting film ooooo. But I just need to comment before watching

Exchangege rates don high so dem no fit add money make the film.

Don't knw bout the movie so I reserved my comment.

ooops

Nice

I was also disappointed when I saw the trailer. The problem is that most of our film makers believe that they are some kind of Guru and they will never pay attention to details.

They hardly spent money on proper skills development. The money spent on this movie is a waste.

This is normal most times. I saw Dracula Untold sometimes last year and later read some foreign reviews of the movie, only to be disappointed because the movie never really depicted the real life tale of the Impaler. Turks took offence and threatened all over.

What were you expecting when Lancelot Oduwa was the man in charge.

O.p nollywood na f* so no kill yourself. Film wey mercy johnson slap her younger system for one movie wey she act as shoe-maker..she slap her sister ''dirty slap'' the the girl glasses no break, fall or even shift small.

The awkward moment when you thought you gonna read great comments and critisms, you got disappointed! Man, Naija problems plenty sha, dem no sabi anything! If na Dbanj mater now, dem go full scatter here. Proof: visit science and tech section.. It's painful man.

Well its a start, american movies were poorly made leading up today... Examples d 1st hulk, superman, kingkong, even clash of the titans. These were all wack but their remakes r awesome based on corrections of their mistakes.

I have watched the movie. It is an interesting film though i noticed the small crowd at the oba daughter's wedding and the few soldiers but by and large, it's worth watching.

I would really love to watch the movie. It is a good thing that we are taking time to criticise/appreciate such movies. This is supposed to help our film professionals. Nigeria has the potential to be producing Grammy-winning movies.

It was boring