Delayed Reaction: Queen of Katwe

Premise: A poor Ugandan girl turns out to be a chess prodigy.

By now, we all know the catalog of movies Disney makes. MCU, Star Wars, Pixar, Disney Animation, Live-Action Remakes, Pirates and other movies based on rides. It doesn't leave a lot of room on the schedule for the odd swing, but I'm glad they still make the effort occasionally. Queen of Katwe isn't such a departure from the Disney model either. Inspirational sports movies have been a favorite of theirs for 2 decades now. They may have peaked too early though. Since Remember The Titans became a massive hit (especially in its video and syndication life), they really haven't found the same success. Moderate hits like Miracle and Invincible made enough for them to keep making more. In the 2010s though, it was movies like MacFarland, USA and Million Dollar Arm that no one saw, so it makes sense that Queen of Katwe in 2016 is the last of these movies that they've tried.

Queen of Katwe is a perfectly pleasant movie though. Madina Nalwanga is a charming lead. David Oyelowo gets to smile more than I've ever seen him smile*. Lupita Nyong'o is great in a fierce mother role. I'd say that she was too young for that part, but the realities of that culture are that maybe she's the perfect age. I don't know enough to say for sure. Either way, she's plenty convincing. The rest of the kids they found are energetic and likable too. It's hard to be all that negative about this movie. Disney does a pretty good job of depicting the poverty of Phiona's village without looking down on it. I think it helps that we get glimpses of nicer parts of Africa during her assorted tournaments. And I've certainly never appreciated ketchup more.

*Granted, I need to watch a lot more David Oyelowo movies.

My only real complaint about the movie is that I could really feel the length. Even finding a way to chop off 10 minutes would've helped the pacing a lot. One of the things that's nice about a lot of the live-action Disney movies from the 90s was that they were surprisingly brief, despite the amount of story covered. Even Remember the Titans, which is a movie with a rather huge supporting cast, is 10 minutes shorter than Queen of Katwe.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend