Wonder Woman Review

 

        I had low expectations for Wonder Woman. Not that I wanted it to fail but given with what came before it’s not entirely surprising. People aren’t aware that most comic book films that had a female lead didn’t do so well in the box office. Or with being liked at all. Some point to Supergirl, Catwoman, and Elektra as examples of how that sub-genre can’t work. Director Patty Jenkins managed to make Diana Prince the hero that Warner Bros. needed to help turn the tide with their reeling shared universe. SPOILERS will appear in the review. 

1. Story

        We see Diana walking into Paris’ Louvre museum, trailing her is the Wayne Industries employee giving her the photograph that was shown back in Batman v Superman. She looks at the photo and we transition to her island called Themyscira. As a youth, she looks at the Amazon warriors training in a field. Diana tells her mother Queen Hippolyta played by Connie Nielsen, who doesn’t want her to be a warrior. When the Queen puts Diana to sleep, she reads her the story of how the Amazons came to be. 

        The Gods had created humans, Zeus’ brother Ares got jealous of them. He influenced the humans to fight amongst each other. Zeus created the Amazons to help the humans and the main God banished Ares from Olympus. Diana thinks Ares is still around and must be stopped. Years pass, and Diana has been training with the generals, a mishap occurs during the training, and she runs away. She sees an airplane going down and rescues the pilot. 

        Steve Trevor played by Chris Pine, meets Diana and asks where he is. Tailing him are Germans who invade the island, prompting the Amazons to attack. Few warriors are hit and one of the generals Antiope died on the princess’ arms. The Amazons question Steve with the Lasso of Truth, making him say that a war is raging far away, and he’s been assigned as a spy to investigate a new weapon being developed. From there, they both sneak out of the island. Steve is attempting to get back to his superiors and Diana trying to stop Ares. 

        I feel it’s a refreshing take on the hero to tackle World War 1. Since she was created during the forties and having her fight Nazis would lead to comparisons of another patriotic hero. Her entire back story in the comic books have been altered so many times, so I’ll say the film is taking some liberties. I’ll elaborate more and especially the last act. 

2. Wonder Woman

        Gal Gadot does a good job of playing Wonder Woman. I feel that with her Israeli accent, they had to hire other actress that had similar accents to make the island lively. This is probably the first time in a DC film to have a character be well rounded. Seriously, Superman and Batman have no character in their films preceding this one. Young Diana is focused on being a warrior so much so that she mimicked the fighting moves. 

        I think her defining trait that she has is her being stubbornly naïve. Now, that’s not a slight against her. She is so focused on stopping Ares that when she is with Steve Trevor, she thinks that General Ludendorff played by Danny Huston is Ares. She makes a compromise with Trevor to have him join her to kill the German general. 

        Since this film is a fish out of water type, there had to be moments where Diana is completely weirded out by human customs. Such as when she and Trevor are looking at clothes for Diana to wear. She questions if women go into battle with Victorian dresses. To which Steve finally picking the right ensemble for Diana to wear which makes her look like Clark Kent, especially with the glasses. None of it feels forced and genuine since she has no clue what humans are like.

        The signature moment that represents the film is when she and Steve Trevor’s small partnership enter into No Man’s Land. Steve tells her that no one has entered into the warzone. Diana enters the battlefield and manages to dodge every bullet from the Germans. This scene has been spotlighted by many female fans, some crying in this moment. Walking bravely and holding her ground when a gatling gun is hitting her shield. I think it works since the context is that she manages to help Trevor’s crew to beat out the Germans and advance to an occupied village. 

3. Steve Trevor

        He is the perfect example of the straight man the audience comes to expect with this film. Him and Diana have a good dynamic and the moments where they are together are the best moments in the film. The best moment is him attempting to get her to understand basic human customs of the times. Especially the moment where he compromises with Diana to help her. 

        The camaraderie between them ultimately leads to romance. It’s to be expected since, of course Diana would fall in love with him and one of the consistent aspects of the comics. His best moment is him telling her that when she killed the general, that the German soldiers were still following orders. He tells her that humans are just complex that Ares couldn’t have any part. I felt for this one moment that it would be a different step with other superhero films. Having to do away with the big dumb action final act that has hampered this film series. 

4. The Final Act

        With all that being said, this is possibly the worst thing in the film. After Steve’s speech to stop the new German weapon, Diana sees one of the British generals from earlier, Sir Patrick appears in the base. He tells her that she was dumb to think Ludendorff was Ares. The big twist is that Sir Patrick is Ares. I’ll say this, I was shocked. I wasn’t expecting that he would be Ares, but the way they had it was him being an apparition. 

        Alas, he was the one that influenced the German scientist Dr. Poison, that’s just a codename (but hey you got to reference the comic book), to give her the idea to create the weapon. From there, we get another dumb fight. Now, it wasn’t Patty Jenkins decision to have this fight in the film. She said that Warner Bros. made her put in this scene in the film. I never understood why this scene is needed since everything that Steve said in his speech to Diana, and his teams plan to take out the weapon felt appropriate with everything leading up to that point. 

5. Overall

        Aside from the frustrating final act, this is one of the best comic book films that I have seen. 2017 was loaded with them such as Logan, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Thor Ragnarok to name a few, since most of them are from Marvel characters. This one belongs in the top 10, it must’ve been a tall order to try to tell a story of an Amazonian warrior. I felt that changing the war was something new to the mythos and it paid off. Unfortunately, the follow up is one of the many follow ups in this failed film series. 

        Wonder Woman gets a four out of five.