Time Looped is a romantic fantasy about a couple, Dayo (Erik Efiong) and Nengi (Meg Otanwa) whose marriage is in the brink of divorce.
Meanwhile in the spirit world, Ife (Omoye Uzamere) and Korira (Shawn Faqua) which means Love and Hate in the Yoruba dialect, decide to place a wager on Ife being able to prevent that particular marriage from ending in divorce.
Ife immediately throws Dayo back in time and places him in a ‘time loop’ – a series of days that repeats themselves, as part of his training to learn to treat his wife better in order to save his marriage.
There is so much that I liked and very little to complain about in this film so it comes highly rated.
First the storyline- written and directed by Tayo Akinsipe, although there have been other time loop movies in the past, this script is fresh and original. It uses a mixture of time travel, time looping and alternate dimensions to create the fantasy. I particularly liked the inclusion of the African guardians and I had hoped to learn more about them and any special powers they might possess. Other than what we are told at the start of the movie we don’t really know enough about the guardians. I guess that wasn’t really the direction of this particular movie but perhaps it is something that could be explored by the producers in the future.
This is the first time I’m seeing most of the actors on screen and I was very impressed with the overall acting. The on screen chemistry between Etim and Meg was very good, both characters did exactly what they needed to do to sell the romance story. Shawn had great facial expressions as the disdainful Korira but he often let slip his American accent at times, which was a bit out of place in the movie. Omoye delivered a poised performance and was more tough love than nurturing as Ife, but she struggled a bit with the Yoruba dialect as she repeated the lines “So’n kan to so tele” which sounded different each time she said it.
I really liked Demi Banwo’s character Segun, who provided the required amount of humor to keep the tale light. He would have been the perfect character to tell us more about the guardians since he seemed to know so much about them.
Destiny Etiko who played Chizom, Nengi’s bestie, was sadly the weakest link. Her acting was far more natural when she spoke Igbo than the robotic performance she delivered speaking English. This is not a put down of Destiny as an actress, but I’ve always felt that one of the main advantages African actors have is the ability to speak in different languages and certain characters should just be allowed to act in the tongue that comes most naturally to them.
The pace of the film was good and the sound scoring perfectly guided us through as the drama unfolded. The soundtrack however, was a bit loud, at times drowning out the dialogue and there was audio clipping on shouting scenes. These are minor issues that should have all been detected and taken care of in post production.
You can watch Time Looped on AfrolandTV by clicking here
Afroland TV is an online streaming platform that’s billed as the Netflix for Africa. Though with Netflix’s new strategy of investing heavily in Africa its would be interesting to see how smaller streaming platforms survive. Afroland is offering a free trial subscription for 30 days and so far I watched some truly amazing films and documentaries that I will be writing shortly.
