King of Boys The Return of the King Review
When King of Boys was released some years back, it was the first time in decades that Nollywood have produced a three-hour movie that had people on their sit for the three hours and beyond. Whether in the Cinema or at home, King of Boys was a hit.
Listening to sola Sobowale as regards when she got the script for King of boys: The Return of the King; she claimed she never thought there was going to be a second part let alone a spinoff series. As for me and the team of critics at cillacritic, we knew there are so many scores to settle hence Kemi Adetiba had to look for ways to bring the fearful character of Eniola Salami back to the silver screen.
With the breakthrough of Nollywood and its recent partnership with Netflix, taking the Return of the King to Netflix was just perfect. Apart from the huge financial implication of the movie in terms of copyright and airing fee, the exposure to countries that has Netflix; is one that Kemi will enjoy leveraging on.
THE PLOT
The series is a spinoff of what happened in the three-hour movie which serves as the first part of this series. After the death of her son and daughter; the star character is driven in to exile by her enemies. In this new series, she plots way to get back at her enemies but not just by killing them, but achieving the positions which they termed unattainable by a person of her character and fearless tendencies. There is also an underlying gospel of feminism as Eniola Salami who is a female thrives in the games played by men.
Although the storyline did not add up as regard having a running mate for a governorship aspirant; In terms of crafting stories for the new season it will be fair to give Kemi Adetiba a clean 7/10 on that.
CASTING
Not dwelling on the casts which made the first movie thick, rather discussions will be made as regards the new characters. The first character that got my mind happy is that of Odudubariba which is played by veteran and serial Entertainer: Charles Chukwuemeka Oputa aka Charlie Boy. I have heard of him being a musician, had the privilege of listening to him as a TV host but watching him in a movie is just a new dimension. Allowing his character die was not a good idea because a lot of drama was always going to come out from him. However, Kemi did a good job in casting him.
Casting of RMD in this series is almost a near miss because the last time RMD played a preacher was almost two decades ago. He did not own the role and should rehearse more for the role for the coming seasons. Kemi and Olushola Banke Samaiye could kill the character in the next season if RMD is not made to take up more relevant responsibility in the next season.
Looking at the Characters she killed off in this first season, I would say it was not really important especially as it regards the Odogu Male character played by Veteran rapper Illbliss and Odudubariba which is played by Charlie Boy. But in terms of casting and cast coordination, an 8/10 is fair.
CINEMATOGRAPHY AND EDITING
This is the part of the series with the biggest flaw. Not taking away the perfect lighting and angle of shots as regards scenes like Odudubariba’s first appearance in the movie; A lot went wrong as regards the sound synchronization especially in the first five scene of the movie. Although it gets better as the movie goes, I must say that the flaw by the sound and visiual engineer is not cool to the ears or eye.
In terms of cinematography, visual and sound Engineering, a 3/10 will definitely be fair because improvements are needed. Hence Kolade Morakinyo, Dr. Bayo Adepetun, Kagho Idhebor, Remi Adetiba and everyone on the post production crew should get their acts together in the future project.
