2017: The Year in Film: "Wonder Woman" Review

DC's extended movie universe has to this point been.... kind of a disaster. Man of Steel was a perfectly decent flick but Batman V Superman was an overstuffed and nearly unwatchable disaster and Suicide Squad was... dumb. Warner Brothers/DC needs a success in the worst way possible, and honestly, the world is better with Marvel having competition from someone, somewhere, so there's a lot of pressure on Wonder Woman to rescue DC from its own horrible decisions. Then you have the fact that superhero movies thus far have not been overly kind to women. There's a noticeable lack of diversity both in front of and behind the camera, so the world (and DC) needs a successful woman superhero to get behind. The good news is that Wonder Woman was the best part (by a mile) of BvS, that they seem to have nailed the casting (Israeli actress Gal Gadot was amazing in the Fast and Furious franchise), that they brought in director Patty Jenkins (an unconventional choice most famous for the film Monster), and that they seem to have been taking the responsibility of launching a huge franchise anchored by a woman seriously.

So, as an unapologetic Marvel fanboy, I've never in my life read a Wonder Woman comic. I don't know a whole lot about the character except that she has ties to Greek mythology and she's a straight-up badass. In Wonder Woman, the creative powers that be decided a straight-up origin story was in order,  so we're taken to the mythical island of Themyscira during WW1.

The Good: Gadot is great, simultaneously lending the flick a heart, humor and gravitas that's been missing from DC's films since Chris Nolan departed. The rest of the cast is also strong, with Chris Pine and Gadot's chemistry being the best part of the whole endeavor. I'm not a HUGE fan of the constant slow motion in DC's films, but the action sequences are generally good, with the film generally building to a solid emotional climax, even if the villain is a little silly. Connie Nielson and Robin Wright are strong as Amazonians, and the film in general has a good-natured humor that really offsets the darkness of the WW1 setting. I think the best decision the film could have made was setting the film in the past as a true origin story, allowing the flick to exist completely separately from the mess that's been DC's films up to now.



The Bad: I think the flick just barely missed, with ultimately the villain and plot being a little nonsensical. Like I mentioned above, the slow-mo makes the action sequences seem a little overwrought and ties back in not necessarily a good way to the other DC films. It's also a little weird that there were SO MANY similarities to the first Captain America film... I think a little similarity was inevitable, but there are some very conscious choices here that make it even more reminiscent that the flick had any business being.

Ultimately, the chemistry between Gadot and Pine alone is worth the price of admission, and Wonder Woman's origin story is well worth watching. The WW1 setting makes the film truly unique and its done smartly and with enough humor to make this one an absolute blast. If you're a fan of superhero flicks, or any of the actors involved, you could do much, much worse than Wonder Woman. 

8/10.