Wonder Woman

By: Alex Elias

DC’s Wonder Woman is the latest film from Man of Steel writer Zack Snyder. It is also the first superhero film, DC or Marvel, to feature a female lead. No small feat! And it was quite appropriately given to Patty Jenkins to direct, whom I felt did a right fantastic job considering her last theatrical release was Monster, back in 2003.

Wonder Woman is set in London during World War II, one of the darkest times in recent human history where mankind’s actions were governed out of an inconsolable fear of total annihilation. However, the film is framed by the same Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) we first met in 2016’s Batman V Superman as she recounts the memories of her ordeals during the war and how she came to be the unstoppable force of justice and badass-ery known as Wonder Woman.

Raised away from the world on an island of warrior women known as the Amazons, young Diana is trained to be the very best warrior they have ever produced. As all good things must come to an end, the long peaceful island of Themyscira is suddenly besieged by invaders from the outside world, forcing Diana to embrace her destiny as the “godkiller” and the savior of all. Thus, we harken back to 1940s London, as she journeys off into the outside world to find the source of mankind’s alleged corruption; the fallen god Ares. Once there, she and a ragtag team of misfits, including a capable British spy named Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), uncover a plot by the Nazis to release an unprecedented chemical attack. Diana believes this to have been orchestrated by Ares himself.

Like most high-budget CGI movies, parts of Wonder Woman are quite superb. But, alas, we must review movies by the sum-total of all their parts. So, when you factor in some of the film’s less successful elements, my overall rating of the film drops to an arbitrary 80% from a potential 95! So what went wrong? Quite a few things. I’ll break it down.

Right off the bat, the film sets itself up for a truly bizarre ride when it goes from taking place in modern day to a mystical island of magical warrior woman created directly by the actual Greek gods. This leads us to the films largest issue – Wonder Woman takes itself WAY to seriously.

Chris Pine’s character, Steve Trevor, is perhaps the film’s only source of grounding. His naturally skeptical and reactions to hearing Diana profess about gods and never having seen an actual man before are all we’re given throughout the film to poke fun at how absurd and fantastical her situation is. And he basically just thinks she’s crazy, which to everyone other than her and her sisters she absolutely is. It was sort of like movie KPax, where you have this guy claiming to be an alien and everyone else is just like, “Okay… sure, and I’m the queen of England. But whatever you say, guy.” She honestly didn’t understand why anyone would find her truths to be difficult to accept and, in that sense, she sort of came across like Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy who is not whom you would typically think of when you think about Wonder Woman. Which leads us into the next problem.

Here we’ve got this cartoonishly naïve, but lovably innocent magical warrior who came from a land without conflict entering the dark and cruel world of mankind. This tireless trope, quite often found in anime, fantastically sets Diana up for potentially incredible character growth as she explores the outside world with Trevor and learns the truth about mankind; that each of us is capable of both good and evil and are not influenced by a vengeful god of war as her mother and sisters would have her believe. However, almost all of this character growth is instantaneously stripped away when, without spoiling anything, some of her original beliefs turn out to be true…This was an awful decision because there was so much potential to have a wonderful and dynamic character arc and they just went and killed it.

That being said, Gal Gadot does a tremendous job portraying Diana. She is fierce, breathtaking and has an extremely emotive face with the most infectious smile you’ve ever seen. Woman Woman is a symbol of honor and justice and Gadot perfectly captures these wondrous virtues in her expressions and mannerisms. With the exception of the character growth snafu, Diana is actually written really well. There are many scenes where she takes more of a backseat role to Trevor and his crack team of adventures, only adding input when she has something to contribute. This was truly some masterful character balancing and helped make Wonder Woman feel more like a non-superhero movie and less like a story about a single person that happens to have a couple of other people in it.

But in the end Wonder Woman is, in fact, a super hero movie and the elements of gods and powers feels jarring and too juxtaposed from the traditional WWII setting in which the film takes place. I will say that there was one series of sequences in which Diana uses her powers to fight against the German army and these scenes are absolutely brilliant. It brings back “feels” we experienced watching Captain America punch Nazis in his debut movie, only on a much more impressive scale even. Going back to my point, Wonder Woman (unfortunately) falls victim to some of the very same bad decisions similar to the production flaws Zack Snyder made in Suicide Squad. I don’t want to spoil anything, but let’s just say that the German army is not the only villain Diana faces. And while we do love to see super-powered characters duke it out, it was too dissimilar from the rest of the movie and made it feel really campy. And again, unfortunately, these campy sequences, while great on their own, were at the very beginning and end of the movie so they are what you are left remembering the most while the whole meat of movie ends up feeling like an in-between rather than the focus.

Some additional comments I have are a kudos to some absolutely stunning costume design, amazing concept art/execution and actually really good 3D. So many films these days are simply released in 3D just to earn a few extra bucks. Wonder Woman is one of the few worth seeing in 3D. Think about it. Magic Lasso? Kapow!

Overall, in my personal opinion, I’d place Wonder Woman as the third-best DC superhero film after Man of Steel and Batman Begins. As for comparing it to Marvel, I’d say DC has drastically improved their game with this film, but their direction of dark and gritty doesn’t blend with super heroes as well as the colorful and comic approach marvel has taken. So, as long as DC movies continue to take themselves too seriously you’re always going to have this same issue.

Wonder Woman is rated PG-13 and is playing now in theaters near you.