Wonder Woman was the best part of the mess that was Batman v Superman. Whilst Batman was being more miserable than usual and Superman was being a rubbish hero, Wonder Woman was a nice reminder of how a super hero should handle their shit. So her getting her own film didn't just make sense for the DC extended universe, it was genuinely welcomed following that train wreck of a film.
A Wonder woman film is LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG overdue. A female superhero led film full stop is very much overdue, and Warner Bros. have thrown the gauntlet down and done something that Marvel have yet to. But the film is far from perfect and inherits its fair share of problems from Batman v Superman. And whilst the film is Wonder Woman's by name, it feels as much as Chris Pine's film as it does Gal Gadot's.
Wonder Woman is a fish out of water story. So when Wonder Woman ventures outside of her home island of Themyscira, she sees everything through the eyes of a child. This starts off as sweet and endearing, especially as you can see there are clear parallels between Diana being wide eyed to being a part of this world she never knew and Gal Gadot navigating her newfound life of stardom. There is a beautiful innocence about this which is really captivating, and it plays off well with Chris Pine's character, Steve. But it does start to wear thin. An hour into the film and I was like 'Bitch. snap out of it'. Wonder woman's naivety sends her careering straight into that 'stupid hero zone' that we witnessed Batman and Superman fight their stupid asses into. That zone where logic and rationality go out of the window and heroes revert to throwing child like tantrums which come close to jeopardising what they sought out to do. Save the fucking world. There were so many times when I wanted to get black in the cinema by standing up and shouting at the screen. Wonder woman has reflexes so good she can deflect bullets with her bracelets, but yet she can't stop her Aunt from getting shot on the beach. Wonder woman doesn't so much as shed a tear when somebody whose she's known her whole life dies, but when some man she's known for 5 minutes dies, she's goes into a range and throws helicopters and shit. Gurl, really?
Wonder Woman is set during the first world war. Seeing death for the first time on her home of Themiscyra is what prompts her to leave, just to see more death, Monday to Sunday, 9 'til 5. Wonder Woman is not cool with this and it really affects her, because she doesn't understand why people have to fight and why they have to die. Says the Amazonian warrior of death in her fur coat and sword in hand. As a result, the one thing that Wonder woman has to fight with the most is herself. She discovers that war isn't just black and white and that there is no one solution to truly stop it. She also discovers that men in positions of power either abuse it or sit on it and do nothing.
Then there are the men.
Wonder Woman is a beacon of liberation, but she spends most of the film being told what to do by a man. General Erich Ludendorff, the main bad guy, works closely with a genius female scientist whose work could help the German's win the war. She carries out this work out of love for him, but knows his feelings will never be reciprocated. So there is this weird underlying tone of men using their power to subvert women in some way. Wonder Woman and the scientist come out on top eventually and they even face one another. But it's a moment that left me wondering why this was made to play out this way and whether this should have been written out or actually touched upon in a greater sense to truly make a point. Both woman find themselves there because they fell in love with a man and they let their emotions lead them potentially to their deaths. It's a well worn trope. Men can be obstacles and sources of oppression, but also sources of great love. But self love and realising your own worth is what is most important and no woman needs a man for that. This would have been a much stronger message to portray. But on the other hand you could argue that Wonder woman's love for a man left her empowered, where-as this poor German woman's love left her weak. Either way, it's a moment that felt odd to me, because it made no true statement. It also felt nondescript, because Diana gave up her pussy to Steve after 5 minutes and knew him for too short a period of time to feel any kind of way about him.
Tropes across an extended universe of films are clearly not exclusive to Marvel. The DC films all suffer from bad pacing, flat colour grading, boring and predictable final battles and most annoyingly, superheroes who spend most of their films being idiots. Wonder Woman is the exception when it comes to grading, because it actually features colour! Only during the first act of the film though. But there is colour! As for the other shit, Wonder woman is not exempt. The film starts to drag from the mid-way-point, the final battle is a CGI shit-storm and for 70% of the film Wonder woman is playing Dora the explorer.
Wonder woman is not a groundbreaking departure from Batman v Superman. Yes, it is a better film. But for me, not by as wide a margin as many others seem to feel it is. Zack Snyder wrote the story for Wonder woman and also produced it, so it isn't completely free of his toxicity. His influence of which appears to be far too present in the final act of the film, which plays out in almost the exact same way that Batman v Superman did.
Wonder Woman covers a heck of a lot, and as a result, it is long. The pacing of the first act is near perfect. In fact, I love the first act of this film so much, that I would have settled for an entire film set on Themyscira. But from the moment that Wonder woman fully emerges as Wonder woman, the pace really drags and everything that happens seems to be a diversion or a side-step from what should actually be happening. Events start to unfold in really odd, illogical ways and it appears far too apparent that the narrative is bending to accommodate what the producers felt HAD to happen to get to a particular point in the story. I'm more than certain that this is the Zack Snyder effect at work.
The cinematography in the fight scenes is far too choppy to the point where you're not able to really see what is happening. Guns are being fired. A sword is being swung. A shield is being thrusted about. In the midst of this, Wonder woman is jumping, twirling and sliding across the floor in slow motion. But you're never really able to connect these things for a sense of what is actually taking place, because there are so many cuts. The action feels so pieced together that what you're not able to fully follow what is actually happening aside from men falling down because Wonder Woman hit them. Steadier shots and longer takes to show the fights would have worked better. It takes a certain eye and a mastery to shoot a good action scene, and this is something that Patty Jenkins nor Zack Synder appear to have. In Justice league or the next Wonder woman film, I would love to have amazingly choreographed fight sequences which are shot to really show the movement and warrior instincts of Wonder woman in their un-cut, un-chopped to hell glory.
The final battle in Wonder Woman is pretty much the same as that in Batman v Superman. Lots of flying around. Lots of explosions, and everything graded in muddy browns and oranges. The final act of the film also features a similar unnecessary sacrifice, because one of the hero's can't get their shit together and do the obvious and most logical thing which will allow everybody to get out in one piece and the bad guy to still die.
Something which all superhero movie's have suffered from since the beginning of time is the lack of a good villain. The bad guy in this film is named in the opening of the film (Ares), but who he truly is plays out over the course of it. The problem is that you never feel any hatred towards the bad guy, because he isn't really bad. And the reason as to why everything is turning to shit has very little to do with him. So the reveal and the payoff are both kinda moot. The bad guy serves no purpose other than to tell Wonder Woman 'Those bitches on that island lied to you', because he really doesn't do much else.
Gal Gadot's chops as a leading lady aren't truly flexed in this film, as she's flanked by Chris Pine the whole entire way, who for me, outshone her. What Gal Gadot does show in this film, as she demonstrated in Batman v Superman, is that she's able to work magic with her co-stars. Her repartee and chemistry with Ben Affleck in Batman v Superman is what stopped that film from sucking completely. She has great chemistry with Chris Pine here, making him far more likeable and charismatic than he ever appeared to be in the Star Trek films. If there's one thing which can be guaranteed with Justice League, it's that any moment where Gal Gadot is engaging with one of her teammates, will be gold. Even if nothing else is. This is not to dismiss Gal's turn as the lasso wielding hero though. Gal looks every bit the part. Gal is beautiful and graceful. There's a natural command that she has when she simply enters a scene as Wonder woman. You can't help but be drawn her. Patty Jenkins does a great job of not making these moments purely about Gal's beauty, but her power as a woman. It's just a shame that this is often offset by Chris Pine's character getting in the way of that. As nice as Chris Pine is to look at. (Chile, when he in dem hot springs on Themyscira tho).
Despite my overly critical take on this film, Wonder Woman is not terrible and I do not hate it. It does a stand-up job of setting a good groundwork for future Wonder Woman films and also providing a decent film for a hero that many have been wanting for a long time. It will undoubtedly have Marvel scrambling to find which female superhero in their lore they can base a film on. I swear to God, if they entertain the idea of Black Widow, I cut somebody - because she is the driest of characters.
I'm not sure whether it was intentional or not, but Wonder Woman starts to drag and get murky the second that men start turning up. The first act chronicling the upbringing and training of Diana is great. Then Chris Pine washes up on a beach with a bunch of German soldiers and then the film starts to dip.
Verdict: Watch it, because it's a fucking Wonder woman film and we've waited forever for this. Also, Gal Gadot. Yes bitch.
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