“Anikulapo: Rise of the Spectre” Bites Off More Than it can Chew

She steals from the gods the power of resurrection, and then raises her beloved from the dead. Then she bequeaths the loot to him, with which he builds a reputation as a resurrector. But when he cheats on her, she ups and leaves, taking along his talisman, a last-gasp act of revenge which precipitates both his downfall and demise. Thus goes the story of Anikulapo, Kunle Afolayan’s 2022 epic which is set in slave trade-era Oyo Empire. The couple, Arolake and Saro, are played by Bimbo Ademoye and Kunle Remi respectively. As an analysis of romantic infidelity, the movie considers the devolution of the couple’s affections. Thus, in a way which feels out of touch, it ignores the political and cosmological implications of Saro’s death-defying power. Implausibly, Saro neither attracts the scrutiny nor persecution of the powers that be. And his actions seem to have no cosmic consequence, which, given the movie draws from Yoruba mythos, seems like a misreading of that culture’s metaphysics. 

Anikulapo: Rise of the Spectre, a six-part, Netflix series also directed by Afolayan, addresses this oversight. Here, the political elite hound Saro: an army general Basorun (Owobo Ogunde) sees in Saro’s power an opportunity for invincibility, his character seemingly modeled after the eighteenth-century, power-obsessed Yoruba warlord, Basorun Gaa. And, a psychopomp (Damilola Ogunsi) reveals, Saro’s actions have incurred consequences, both for his soul and the cosmos. Saro cannot enter the afterlife unless he returns to earth, to kill all twenty people that he had resurrected, or else risk becoming a restless spirit. Elsewhere, Arolake chances on wealth, managing to eke out a respectable life, even as a fugitive. The king of Oyo (Taiwo Hassan), her ex-husband, hunts her still.

Ogunde, who is making his screen acting debut, is arguably the star of the show. He plays Basorun with a beguiling soft-spokenness. What makes his performance compelling is the oxymoron it yields: he says the most devious things, but with a grandfatherly tenderness. This kind of sotto voce villainy feels refreshing, considering that the villain and antihero types in recent Nigerian epics, as in both Femi Adebayo’s Jagun Jagun and King of Thieves, are almost invariably played with live-wire camp.

The series takes some time in deciding what it wants to be about, at first seeming like a tale of redemption, like it would consider what Arolake and Saro would do with their new lease of life. But then it tilts its gaze hither and yon: The Oyo Empire faces a threat from a neighboring kingdom. The empire also suffers divine wrath, punishment for Arolake’s Promethean theft from years before. Villagers are dying mysteriously, an Ifa priest tells Basorun.

Eventually the primary conflict takes shape: Basorun loathes the king and eyes the throne. Basorun is particularly peeved when the king reneges on his promise to marry off his daughter (an Eyiyemi Afolayan whose poor performance would probably invite nepo baby accusations) to his son (Lateef Adedimeji). The bad blood between both men is realized through the occasional huff and death stare, the threat one poses to the other never feeling palpable. And the source of the animus—the foiled marriage—never shakes off its air of triviality. The result is a central conflict which, for lacking a strong emotional pull, wounds up as not being very central to the show.

One consequence of the show’s roving gaze is that the subplots do not bleed into each other seamlessly, thus evoking an aura of incoherence. The mini conflicts also do not get the attention they deserve. When, for instance, the priest says the empire is in peril, we have to take his word for it, for the show does not deign to demonstrate this strife (an early scene shows villagers fleeing from a mythical creature, but even this is rendered as a premonition). In fact, the empire looks idyllically uneventful, like a Norwegian street during winter. These are symptoms of a poorly developed screenplay, one which tries to do too much in one breath.

If the show bites off more than it can chew, it is possibly because Afolayan’s ambition insists on it. While promoting Anikulapo two years ago, the director boasted that the movie would be “bigger” than Game of Thrones, the world-famous HBO series. He likely had the same aspiration for this series. And, perhaps, he has not just found in the American series a rival, but also a source of inspiration. Perhaps understanding that political intrigue formed a great part of the show’s appeal, he also chose to incorporate it into his own show. Afolayan’s vision of grandeur is evidenced by the large budget, which made possible the elaborate costumes, the plausible historical setting, and the corralling of high-profile actors. But what made Game of Thrones great, more than its spatial and narrative scope, is the complex, fine-grained relationship among its many characters. That takes time to build, and the series had the luxury of eight, long seasons. Afolayan tries to do all that in six episodes; but in the quest for a vast scope, the center fails to hold.