If you didn’t know, this film would’ve had a very special place in my heart no matter what. My mother was one of the biggest wonder woman fans I ever knew and I knew that she would’ve been so excited for this movie. Unfortunately she passed away a little over two years ago but it’s her memory and love that keeps me going and allows me to carry on as a writer. So knowing that, know that everything I’m about to say was me attempting to be critical but also coming from my heart.
Wonder Woman is, without a doubt, the most important superhero movie to come out since The Avengers, and possibly the most important ever. In the same way that the Avengers showed us the power of having multiple stars in one giant franchise coming together to form something great, this one shows us that we can have strong female characters in lead roles. My good friend and I were talking before the film and he said “If they screw up with Batman or Superman, they’ll still try again later. But if they screw up with Diana, we’re not gonna see her again for a while. That’s what makes me nervous.” When he came out of the theater as I was going in, he had tears in his eyes and I knew we were in for a ride.
The basic story is that Diana lives on an Amazonian Island called Themyscira, it’s a beautiful paradise where there are there are only Women. Diana wants to train to be the greatest warrior ever and when a man washes ashore on the run from Germans during World War I, Diana realizes that she can’t stand while innocent lives are being taken.
From there, we get to see Gal Gadot absolutely shine as Wonder Woman throughout the entire film. Taking absolute control of a scene in No Man’s Land that is one of the most powerful I’ve ever seen in a film. Her strength and love just shine off of her in every scene and it’s no wonder why everyone loves her. Her reactions to the horrors of war make you really feel for her, they don’t shy away from the fact that this war hurt millions of lives even without killing them and it’s Diana’s counter of love that makes everything better. Her ability to handle the action as well as the personal character moments make her performance the shining light that we need in modern day films.
Chris Pine does a very good job as Steve Trevor bringing a gravity to his character that sometimes the comics kind of forget about. And he brings out my favorite part of this film : Neither of our heroes needed a big tragedy to push them forward. Now, I’m not taking anything away from Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne or anyone else but I just loved that we had ultimately altruistic people on the screen without anyone questioning why they wanted to do what was right.
Connie Nielsen as Hippolyta and Robin Wright as Antiope both do exceptionally well as the mother and trainer of Diana. Both of them do great as different mentors for the princess and they really carry the opening of the film very well. My only issue is that after about the first 40 minutes or so, we don’t get to see them again but that might change with the sequel.
I personally didn’t have a single complaint about the film but the group I was with did think that the main villain was underwhelming but I personally thought the actor brought forth the gravitas that was needed for the character and I thought it worked well for the storyline. I did agree that the final battle drug just a little bit too long but it wasn’t too bad and honestly that’s a small complaint for a film as good as this. At first I was hesitant about them making Wonder Woman into a period piece but I honestly don’t think they could’ve done any better because it fits so well into the core storyline which I can’t talk about without spoiling too much but just trust me that it works.
Overall, this film is just exceptional and gave me a newfound hope for DC Films, I’m not sure if we can save Justice League but hopefully DC and Warner takes a look at what works in here and just runs with it. You need to go see this movie because it’s about as close to perfect for Wonder Woman as you can get.
