Merry Men 2

what i think about the sequel of the Nollywood* blockbuster “Merry Men”

So I watched merry men 2 today. I have to say I wasn’t impressed.

It wasn’t like the merry men 1 had too much hopes but it was better than this. The only improvement was the graphics, the few CGI for techy scenes, the “beginning” of the whole movie and the overall fight scenes.

The story started on a very cool and good way. Also quickly, I appreciate the fact that Lamborghini’s were displayed in the movie and not just Lamborghini but generally the beauty of Nigeria although we need inclusion of other beautiful states other than Abuja and Lagos on our TV screens like in up north, I had to mention Lamborghini because of my obsession with the product.

Now to the woos

First of all, I feel my resentment towards the movie started from the second kidnapping/ fight scenes. I generally think Nigerians like me are too used to the idea of fight scenes been for foreign movies , and that Nollywood* movies with fight scenes looks weird. Also, I think the idea of calling out Nollywood* movie mistake on a Nollywood* movie set is very weird and so unrealistic ( I mean it’s not like you guys are not going to still make the same mistakes you are talking about) as seen in the bedroom scene between Ayo ( Ramsey Noah) and his soon to be wife Dera ( Damiliola Adegbite).

I think incorporating the idea of a different kind of sexual orientation is new and nice, it is a bold step, which although is definitely going to provoke some ( or alot) people but it is good. I think it is time to create a broad spectrum for our movies also and scenes like this in a way spark up ideas in script writers head. We cannot continue to disagree to the fact that this things and this people exist among us and they are human beings too. Movies like IFE ( a movie soon to be released by MO).is good business. As seen from the scene showing amaju (A.Y) at the bar with two women kissing.

I strongly do not see the importance of kenya (regina daniel) and the short lil funny guy johnny , short lil funny guy (johnny) especially, he was meant to be the fixer everybody has been waiting for, he came in with a Lamborghini and that was all he contributed, he was not even able to find Remi (Falz), he was not able to connect to Kemi’s (Rosaline Meurer) phone, he could not fight, he could not take care of the crowd alone during the break in. He was just a useless character in the movie and as for the Regina Daniel character(Kenya) she feels weird to me ( might be because of personal instablog mentality deformations).

I feel the Nollywood* industry is just getting into a different movie production dimension like this and everybody definitely looks “armteurish” and even the movie production was “armateurish”. I think a way to go about that is actually writing a Nigeria oriented script, don’t try and dub some white movie ( this is what you end up with), try and create a scene that involves the general topic and still helps production work easy and understandable to the audience. See Sugar Rush for example, it was localized and was understandable to the everyday movie watcher and even though I had problem with the ending the movie overall was still nice.

Madam maduka (Ireti doyle), always brings her A game and she was the only person that could have played the character well but I think I prefer the yoruba ireti to the igbo ireti. He villain skills were on point but I had problem with the scene of her trying to kill all of them at the end, it is understandable but the roll out of the scene on screen is somehow.

Lastly, what happened to Remi (falz) in the first place, I never got closure on that. He just slept off till he showed up at the Abuja scene and also he was a bit scares throughout the movie. I think I personally, would love to see more of Remi (falz) ( been a techy Nigerian isn’t easy, the fear of SARS alone is enough and things like that should be appreciated more) he is probably the only one among them that has got a tangible skill.

I like the female inclusion too, its good that female are not just made to play roles that are unimportant or that are slutty or devilish ( patience ozokwor comes to mind NO OFFENCE ) or meant for women alone, it is good to see people now giving space for women too and as for me, I think they did well, from the first scene to the very end, they tried.

I hope to see changes in merry men 3, possibly taking their spying business out of Nigeria ( Nigeria problem doesn’t stay within our walls alone, hushpuppi comes to mind). it would be nice to see some fight scenes at the open streets of Egypt or some car pursuit in the open streets of London or in Rome but not in fancy places like in wedding party we are tired of that kind of movie, we want real action and not just people trying to stretch the movie budget on travels.

Sorry if these wasn’t your own opinion.

• *Nollywood is the Nigerian movie industry