I remember the feeling I had after watching King of Boys in cinemas back in 2018. A 3-hour long movie in a genre that many people didn’t believe was possible in Nollywood anymore.
I thought Kemi Adetiba had to have been insane to even dare do such, and that craziness was dialled up to a whole new level in the sequel/limited series – King of Boys: The Return of The King.
The series picks up five years after the last movie ended, with Eniola Salami coming back from exile, and having a clean slate she wants to use to fulfil her lifelong dream of becoming the governor.
King of Boys: The Return of the King was even more daring than the prequel, with more characters, a bigger expansion of the criminal empire, and many new players hitting Eniola Salami from all sides, while a reporter worked hard to expose her and more.
The cinematography was a delight to watch, the direction was like the sweet point where art meets science to create something beautiful, the dialogue was rich and entrancing, and the costumes were almost too ethereal to be true.
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The performance of the cast was an experience, I found myself dazed at how they portrayed their characters and brought it all to life. In all these, the series shone and gave us the near-perfect drama and crime thriller that we never knew we needed.
The story, on the other hand, was bad enough to make you almost forget all the good qualities about the series. There were characters introduced without any backstory whatsoever or any motive as to why they were gunning for Eniola Salami.
There were characters, who based on how the story went, made you question their relevance and what they were doing on the show in the first place. There were a lot of things going on at the same time, it made characters advertised as integral to the story, not get enough screen time that they felt more like repeated cameos than anything else.
There were many plot holes, the limited series ended up leaving you with way more questions than answers. And while, in some way, the series was made to set up possible spinoffs and future seasons, the fact that it didn’t hold enough ground to exist on its own is a huge letdown.
Would King of Boys: The Return of the King had been a masterpiece if the story matched the performances, costume, direction, and cinematography? Yes, it would have.
But the many whos, whys, whats, whens, and hows I asked, like I did after watching Game of Thrones Season 8 and a typical season in an Arrowverse show, was enough to derail it from the path of greatness.
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