Movie Review: Nothing funny about new comedy film ‘Japa’

I woke up as early as 3:45 am on March 8, 2024, to see the new Nollywood movie ‘Japa’ after Prime Video posted on social media that the movie would be uploaded on that day. I didn’t go into the movie with much anticipation. After seeing the movie, I was glad I didn’t.

According to the preview, “Japa! tells the story of a man named Mezu (Jidekene Achufusi), a disillusioned teacher whose attempts to relocate from Nigeria to the United States in search of greener pastures are obstructed by forces beyond his comprehension.”

If you read the preview before seeing the movie, you would have formed an idea of the forces beyond Mezu’s comprehension that stalled his relocation move. The forces could be the typical ‘village people’ or friends who got jealous of his travel plans, which they considered progress in his life. However, the Director of the movie, Isioma Osaje, came up with a twist, which wasted my precious time.

According to the movie, the forces beyond Mezu’s comprehension got him involved in a time loop that had him repeating the same day for over a hundred days. This prevented him from boarding his flight to the US. Also facing a time loop was his fellow school teacher, Kamsi (Adesua Etomi-Wellington).

I’ve never been a fan of time-loop movies. I usually skipped such movies whenever I came across them on Netflix. They are equivalent to using the remote control to rewind a particular scene in a movie for over a hundred times, which can create boredom. Making a comedy movie can be daunting because it is challenging to make people laugh. Now imagine making a time-loop comedy movie.

The first 11 minutes of ‘Japa’ had the characters laughing at what they considered funny or what was supposed to be funny. Sadly, I couldn’t find anything funny about the scenes. If not for the sake of creating a review, I would have ended the movie right after 11 minutes, especially when I had a tonne of other content to see on Prime Video. The acting was so weak that the movie didn’t even try to suck me in at any point. I won’t criticise the cinematography of the movie because putting great effort into that department would have been the wrong use of funds. I’ll rate the movie 4/10, especially when there was no lesson to learn from it.

I wonder how this movie would have performed of released in cinemas first. On streaming platforms, it will do well, not because it is great content, but because of the title. Japa is a Yoruba word about a trend in Nigeria which sees citizens fleeing the country for greener pastures. With many Nigerians nursing Japa dreams, seeing a movie with such a title would spark their interest, hence the reason why the movie will get streams.

Anyway, the movie also features Layi Wasabi, Mofe Duncan, Blossom Chukwujekwu, Chinyere Wilfred, Seun Ajayi, Bolaji Ogunmola, Igbo Wolf, and Roseanne Chikwendu, amongst others.