Nollywood has been coming up with a lot of old movie remakes recently and I'm not sure I'm here for it. First, it was the Living In Bondage remake and I won't lie, I liked that one. But one thing's common with the Nigerian movie industry, they tend to do too much and ruin a good thing.
Nneka The Pretty Serpent is probably one of those movies that didn’t need a remake. Although I have little memory of the 1994 original, I'm pretty sure the old-school low-quality, overly dramatic and diabolic one was better. That was like the start of the movie era in Nigeria and we tolerated their bad acting. It was also the movie to start the trend of demon-possessed people who were delivered by pastors. This 2020 remake, however, took a different turn.
The movie starts off with a little girl Nneka and her parents having a little moment on the night of her mum's 32nd birthday. Her parents suddenly let her out the window as some strange people invade their home and kill her parents while she watches from the window and then runs off. Years later, Nneka is grown and works as a waitress at a restaurant under a shitty manager.
Her bubbly friend and colleague, Ada and Tony, the customer who she flirts with are the only ones to make her smile as she keeps a moody and stern face for the most part. She acts so mysteriously leaving her friend wondering what's going on with her as she jumps off a bus to visit a soothsayer. The soothsayer sees into her future and is scared shitless at the evil she sees inside Nneka. She warns her to not let it ruin her and walks her out.
Nneka continues getting hallucinations and ends up in a river where she is possessed by a serpent. This gives her super strength as she's able to take down her invasive landlord with just one push. Now with her powers, she sees a woman in the mirror who introduces herself as the Queen Mother and narrates to Nneka how she lost her kingdom to the people that killed Nneka's mother, claiming that her mother was one of them and now Nneka was.
She then tasks Nneka with hunting and killing these people who took her powers and are now partners of the Island Development Project. Nneka hits her first target and does away with his money, becoming suddenly rich and buys the restaurant she used to work at. One by one Nneka kills the partners and this increases the powers of the Queen Mother. She continues with her killings until she discovers her main target is her boyfriend's father and that's when she expresses her reservations to the Queen Mother.
She pays a visit to Tony's father, Anthony, at his church where he's a reverend and he reveals to her after performing an exorcism on her that all the Queen Mother told her was a lie. It turns out it was the Queen Mother who killed Nneka's parents and she had been using Nneka all this time just to gain back her powers.
On a vacation with Tony for her 32nd birthday, the Queen Mother visits and tries to kill Nneka and Tony but fails and ends up dying instead. Nneka sees her late mother in a trance and she expresses how proud she is of Nneka.
It Was A Lot
As I said earlier, Nigerian movies tend to do too much and from the very beginning, I was already tired of this movie. Some scenes were unnecessarily long and too much emphasis was placed on what the producers might have thought to be awesome edits. The advert placements were not subtle and too 'in your face'.
Another thing I found annoying was the soundtrack. I've noticed whenever a music artiste is in a Nigerian movie, we mostly get a soundtrack of the artiste's songs throughout the movie.
I really tried to enjoy it so it won't seem like I always have negative things to say about Nigerian movies but it's not my fault really. This movie was subpar. The whole idea of getting a bunch of popular celebs in one movie and not delivering a solid story is getting old. Most of the characters had no relevance to the story, it wasn't much of a great story anyway.
The movie is in English and Igbo and I hated the way they spoke Igbo. It was the most unnatural Igbo I ever heard and you don't need to understand Igbo to know it was terrible. What was the point of all the characters who are actually Nigerian speak Igbo in phonetics? It was second-hand embarrassment for me all through.
Another thing that ticked me off is how Nneka suddenly had a lot of money that changed her entire life - another movie stereotype that has been milked dry around here.
There's a positive though, the picture quality was neat and that's partly the reason I continued watching. The quality was so good that the mystic lavender field Nneka kept meeting the Queen Mother looked like a scene from a Nicki Minaj music video and that did not fit into the theme at all. And another thing, is Nneka a serpent or a mermaid? why did she keep going to the water? It's not like the mystic kingdom was underwater???
At this point, Nollywood should relax with the movie remakes. The acting in the old movies was terrible but we didn't have to deal with so many loopholes and over-compensations. I basically gave the whole story away because it's not worth the watch so don't waste your time.
There's obviously going to be a second part of this remake judging from the end of the movie. Yet another popular celeb was thrown in and we're left with some form of a cliffhanger. That was the final cringe of all cringes and I'd bawl my eyes out before I saw another part of this movie.
If you don't want to listen to me and still want to watch this movie, then go ahead and watch on Netflix.