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REVIEW: Look, we are not even going to get into this pointless debate about whether a Black woman should be playing Cleopatra, or whether the actual historical figure would have been more Mediterranean in appearance.
There were people of all skin colours around in that part of the world at the time and, believe it or not, skin colour was not as big a deal then as it is now, among certain commentators. There were Black Roman emperors and senators – something that Hollywood still can’t get its head around – and Cleopatra’s parentage is murky at best.
Politically and culturally, Cleopatra was Macedonian. But her skin colour is as unknown, as it is irrelevant. Let’s just agree that she didn’t look anything like Elizabeth Taylor – and move on.
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So, how does Netflix’s new Queen Cleopatra stack up, once we get our heads of the Fox News faux outrage?
British actor Adele James (Casualty) is by far the best thing about the show. James plays Cleopatra as whip-smart, ferociously passionate and ambitious – and a woman who was not afraid to tell any man exactly what she wanted and when.
As the leader of her own empire, she maybe could not defeat Rome – but she knew she was far more valuable as an ally than as an enemy. Having a couple of Rome’s most powerful men competing for her company in the sack was also a political advantage that she knew exactly how to use to her own benefit.
Supplied
Adele James is Queen Cleopatra.
Queen Cleopatra does what Netflix’s various other historical docudramas have done. It spices up and recreates the battles and the bonking, while relying on narration to do the actual storytelling. On voice-over duties here, producer Jada Pinkett Smith delivers the script as though it was written on tablets of stone, when a lighter and less-reverent reading might have elevated the show.
Queen Cleopatra is a not-bad once over of one of history’s truly bad-ass women. She deserved better, but it’s not a travesty.
Queen Cleopatra is now available to stream on Netflix.
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