WONDER WOMAN review

The DC Extended Universe (DCEU) has been on the bad end of plenty of criticism and outright hate. A lot of it is justified with the movies thus far being varying degrees of bad. Some are on both sides of MAN OF STEEL while pretty much the majority of everyone really disliked SUICIDE SQUAD (one of the worst edited films I’ve ever seen) and BATMAN V. SUPERMAN. Needless to say, many weren’t really hopeful for WONDER WOMAN. I was cautiously optimistic. And while it doesn’t really do much as far as giving me hope for future DCEU films, it does a pretty good job at being a solid film on its own.

Right off the bat WONDER WOMAN has me worried. We’re starting off in a scene that takes place in Snyder’s universe. It’s more or less an expansion of a scene from BvS to set up WW’s story. It doesn’t really not work. But it also doesn’t really add much to the film. It pretty much just means that everything that’s about to happen is flashback.

Once we do start actually telling the story of Diana’s origin things pick up. There’s an explosion of bright colors which is quite appropriately almost completely separate from everything going on in the Snyderverse. It’s incredibly vibrant and got me excited. Even if young Diana’s actress is one of the worst child actors I’ve ever seen, I wasn’t too worried at this point. And she’s not really in the film much (thank god). Shots of the landscape of the island and the people are gorgeous and set up the world quite nicely. Fortunately the visual storytelling is on point because the dialogue is lackluster even with some nice performances. We truly get a sense of how badass the women on this island are and how Diana is growing up to even better than the rest of them.

Chris Pine enters the film to push us closer to the second act and into our first set piece. A lot of exceptionally creative acrobatic choreography and cinematography were put into this scene. With all the setup to how badass the Amazons are it was almost satisfying to see them live up to that build up. Unfortunately the over-editing becomes quite annoying as this beautiful sequence is blemished. It doesn’t make it a bad scene. But it could have been way better and more exciting. Luckily this is the worst of it as far as overdoing it goes… OK… I lied. But I’ll get to that later.

I know this is Diana’s movie -- it is called WONDER WOMAN after all-- but Gal Gadot can’t hold a candle to Chris Pine. Their chemistry is great and you believe their relationship throughout the film. Chris Pine really elevates this film to higher level. Pine’s character never overshadows Diana, but Pine does more for the movie in terms of relating to the audience and connecting us to this world. Gadot’s not the best actor, but I’d say her decent talents lend quite well to Diana’s naivety…

Oh yeah, once we leave the island this turns into somewhat of a fish-out-of-water story. I know it really shows off just how different Diana’s principles and morals are to us humans. But the whole fish-out-of-water thing is one of my least favorite tropes. But I will say it never becomes too annoying. Oh, it’s definitely annoying. But never unbearable. It does allow us to see Diana grow.

What does make this annoying trope work much better in WONDER WOMAN than most other movies is how Diana pushes back instead of just accepting everything she’s being surrounded by. This movie taking place in WWI and Diana obvious being a woman sets up quite a few great moments of breaking against the social norms in fantastic ways. Even calling out a lot of the silliness of gender roles without being too brazen about it. There’s even a great jab at Hollywood’s lack of diversity with not just sex but race.

Without giving too much away, there’s a fantastic moment where everything is holding her back and she just can’t be held back any longer. It’s not only a turning point in the film, but in the story of every single person in that moment of the film. It’s one of the most brilliant moments of the film with some of the most badass imagery I’ve seen all year. Remember how I said how bad the editing was in the first set piece? Yeah, they fixed that. At this point I was completely on board. I was getting excited and really enjoying myself. It made me look past most of the problems going on to this point.

It was also at this point I was kind of realizing how similar to CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER this second act was. I don’t really want to get into pointing fingers or making jokes but it does really seem like DC really took some notes (probably much more than just notes) from Marvel during this second act. Super hero with a shield. Check. World War setting. Check. Band of misfits. Check. Luckily this doesn’t last too long. Closer to the third act it does hit more of its own strides then completely does its own thing in the third act.

*inhales*

*exhales*

Oh boy…

I’ll just come out and say it, the third act is a mess. A complete mess. There’s some fantastic moments in here including an awesome close-quarters fight and great acting by Chris Pine. Diana’s character comes to a fantastic arc and there’s a moment where I almost, ALMOST, felt some emotional resonance. But holy hell did all the movie’s problems come on full display here.

You may have noticed by now I haven’t mentioned a few things such as villains or side characters. Other than the Amazons in the opening, no one other than Diana or Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor are really that memorable. I did like one of the members of the “band of misfits” gathered up. But I can’t even remember his name. One note I really wish WONDER WOMAN didn’t take from the MCU was bad villains. It’s not bad enough that these are mustache-twirling evil bad guys, but we get that inane “Oh, that wasn’t the real baddy, the real baddy is this guy right here who we didn’t really set up at all” trope. And I don’t feel bad for saying that because it’s almost impossible not to see coming.

I was more disappointed with how bad this third act is by how many great moments there are throughout the film. There’s some pretty bad things going on across the entire film but it’s mostly forgivable with not many of them standing out too much. Up to a point the good overshadows the shortcomings. I just wish it could have at least kept that up in the closing 20 minutes. It went from feeling like CAPTAIN AMERICA to feeling way too close to BATMAN V. SUPERMAN.

WONDER WOMAN could have been so much more. I’m not saying this in comparison to other comic book movies that are fantastic. There’s are flashes of brilliance that really show off that one of the three writers knew exactly what to do while the other two (one being Zack Snyder) didn’t quite get it. If that one person go to write the film on their own I’m sure that this could have been a glorious film. As is, however, I can’t say it’s anything more than just good. Disappointingly just good. But it could have been a hell of a lot worse.

7/10