Wonder Woman Review
o set the scene, I was done, I mean done with the DCEU. Man of Steel (2013) didn’t satisfy me, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) was a failure as well, and Suicide Squad (2016), well, you can actually go back and find my review of the film on the site here, but to be short I thought it was utter garbage. These films just weren’t for me, so why would I shell out $8 or $9 more bucks to see Wonder Woman? Well, after the critical surge and the comparisons to the original Superman (1978), which remains my favorite superhero movie of all time, I was bought in again. And, well, this time DC didn’t disappoint. Combining the fun elements of the Richard Donner Superman and the seriousness of Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy (2005-2012), Wonder Woman is a strong sign that DC has their heads on straight now and that perhaps the first few films were just a bumpy start. We can only hope.
As heavily advertised in the trailers and ads, Wonder Woman is the origin story of Diana Prince, who is born Princess Diana of Themyscira. While at first her mother is tempted to shield her from the warrior ways of their people, Diana insists and soon she becomes one of the strongest women on the island. But her life is changed forever by the appearance of Steve Trevor, a WWI spy who crash lands near the island and who brings with him the German army, who is pursuing him. After a battle, Diana agrees to travel back to London with Trevor, and soon after arriving she plans to kill Ares, the God of War, whom she believes is responsible for the Great War. As the two travel and form a group that fights their way to German high command, Diana becomes quite a hero to the innocent civilians, and who knows? Maybe one day she might dawn the title of Wonder Woman.
One thing that superhero films rarely get right is the chemistry between your hero and their squeeze, or in this case the heroine and her man. The only recent example I can think of that worked was Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone in The Amazing Spider-Man series (2012-2014), especially the second one. Now I can add Wonder Woman to that list. Chris Pine and Gal Gadot are dynamite together, especially in a scene where the two are on a slow boat from Themyscira to London and the two just chat about stuff. Pine has shown in recent works, like Hell or High Water (2016) he’s more than just a pretty-faced actor, and he’s also got chops. Those chops are back and he elevates the film with his performance. Gadot also shows significant improvement from her somewhat amateur acting work in Batman v Superman, and she is well on her way to being a great actress who plays a superhero. Think Chris Evans in The Avengers (2012), where he doesn’t exactly knock every line reading out of the park, but he’s less wooden than he is in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011). Also, the WWI setting is a breath of fresh air for the superhero genre. Sure, The First Avenger was set in WWII, but the WWI setting provides a more grey area of bad guys instead of the easily evil Nazis. The action scenes, for the most part, and well-executed from director Patty Jenkins. One individual action scene that impressed me was a liberation of a Belgian village by Wonder Woman and her crew. That one will stay with me the same way the warehouse fight in Batman v Superman did, or the airport battle in Captain America: Civil War (2016). As mentioned earlier, the film strikes a pretty good balance of the lighter fare and the darker elements, and the dark element example is a spoiler so I won’t site it directly, but those comedic scenes between Pine and Gadot are a good example of the lighter fare. Also while the film is more than two hours and twenty minutes long, it’s quickly paced and doesn’t feel that long, well, until we get to the final conflict.
That’s where I get into my negatives. The final battle scene is very much overblown and overlong, and the effects get sloppy as well. The villain of the piece is kind of weak in execution but strong in build-up. I know some who disagree with me on this, but still I wasn’t a gigantic fan. Also there’s this secretary character introduced right when we get to London, and the best way to describe her: a little of her goes a long way. Again, I wasn’t a fan. I get why she was there, but she just didn’t do it for me and came off as annoying rather than funny. And again the end battle throws off the pace of the film and that’s the only time when I felt the length of the movie; it went from a film that was breezing by to making me say, “yeah, I’ve been sitting here nearly two hours”. And to kind of restate it, but Gadot has a few moments here and there that feel like they could have got a better take out of her and some of her line delivery is a little sloppy sometimes. Also the film’s opening scenes on Themyscira are a little slow to start. I get they’re setting up the island, which we haven’t seen on screen before, and they want to establish all that, but still I felt it could have picked up the pace a bit in the opening ten minutes or so. But then after that we’re golden.
Also it goes without saying, but the character of Wonder Woman has been around for, like 75 years, so it’s about damn time we get on screen. Not to close out the review on a political note or anything, but I think superheroes played by females are a welcome addition to the big screen and honestly we should have had this a long time ago. Still, Patty Jenkins and team bring a great representation of the character to the big screen and have re-ignited the DCEU. While I was likely to see Justice League, this has definitely made me go from likely to certainly going to see it, and after the first three films, I didn’t think I’d be saying that anytime soon. Wonder Woman provides all you want in a summer blockbuster and also is a great foundation for, hopefully, some more stand alone female superhero films in the future.
My rating: 8/10.
