Released: 2017
Starring: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright
Director: Patty Jenkins
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
“The future of justice begins with her”
The DC cinematic universe has consistently been in trouble since its inception back in 2016 with the release of Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice. One of the saving graces of that film was the cameo reveal of Wonder Woman. To some, it saved the film from being just plain “trashy” to “watchable”.
Finally seeing Wonder Woman on the silver screen with a serious tone and clemency instantly created a personality of a very cool and likable character unanimously revealed alongside her theme tune Is She With You? by Junkie XL. It was only a matter of time before she would get a chance to play center stage in her own feature-length outing.
The DCU opens Wonder Woman with Diana Prince (Gal Gadot; Fast & Furious, Knight and Day) in a museum that she is the curator of, receiving a suitcase from Wayne enterprises of a picture of her and some men from the war. This is where the ties to the greater DCU end. From the moment she sees the picture we go to a flashback of her life which starts with her as a child on Themyscira, the island of the Amazons. This is the only home a young Diana has ever known. She disobeys her mother’s orders, and begins to train as a warrior with her aunt Antiope (Robin Wright; The Princess Bride, Forrest Gump). It is here that you can first see the love and creativity of Patty Jenkins vision for the film. Every scene is drenched in emotion.
The women of Themyscira are all shapes, sizes, colours, and ages. It was never a secret that this was a movie with many feminist ideals in mind. While this is true, presuming it is a film ABOUT feminism is wrong. It is a celebration of women and their femininity. From the conversations that they have, to their ideals, to the fight scenes in which the warriors take advantage of their flexibility and agility, its all written and designed to look in awe at the wonders of the female without ever feeling like you’re getting a directed lecture.
The plot itself is basic and not entirely noteworthy, but the execution of that plot is something either you have never seen before or brings to mind the nostalgia of older films filled with sentiment like Willow, or even Star Wars. It goes as follows; a young Diana, during one of her training bouts, witnesses a plane go down on the shore of the hidden island of Themyscira. After rescuing the pilot and a brush with some Germans fended off by the deadly Amazonian warriors, the pilot (the only man on the island in a long time) tells Diana about a war going on, a war to end all wars. This leads Diana to think it is Ares, the god of war. She escapes Themyscira with the pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine; Star Trek, Smokin’ Aces) and makes for the frontlines to find Ares and stop the war.
After Diana goes to London, the pacing of the film picks up. Among superhero movies pacing seems to be a slight problem, often dwelling too long on certain factors, taking itself too seriously, or not seriously enough. What Patty Jenkins does here, which is the main reason I enjoyed this movie so much, is make Diana see something unjust and do something about it. It may sound easy but so many films of the genre get this wrong or can’t seem to nail it the way Wonder Woman has.
Put simply, Batman, Spiderman, and Superman have these 21st-century problems that realistically they shouldn’t, and these heroes stop and think and ruminate on their nature. Wonder Woman is an example of a simpler time. Sure she has her problematic scenes, but they are resolved as the film moves forward and are not distracting from what’s happening.
A stand out point is how the film deals with its themes. Jenkins uses and takes advantage of every part of the movie from the story, to the soundtrack, to the action. At the very beginning of the film, a German soldier fires a bullet that kills someone close to Diana. She sees the bullet in slow motion and could have stopped the bullet if she had the confidence that she develops later. After she arrives on the frontline and sees No Man’s Land, the area between the two warring armies that many have died trying to cross, she insists she will transverse No Man’s Land on her own since everyone else is afraid or think it is foolish. A truly inspiring scene then occurs where Diana sheds a fur coat she had been wearing, the skin that mankind gave her, and braves the battlefield in her Wonder Woman attire. A bullet, from the same model of gun that killed her friend, flies toward her as it did in the beginning and Diana raises her gauntlet and brushes the bullet away as if it were nothing more than a fly. It was this beautiful moment that made the film, where Diana becomes a superhero.
The soundtrack also helps portray the development of the character. When Diana is traveling with Steve Trevor to the front, she sees all manner of horror and devastation from the war. She sees a man screaming in pain who is missing his leg, and two soldiers brutally flog a horse to move it out of a sinkhole. She meets friends of Steve Trevor who have been affected by war including Charlie (Ewen Brenner), a ginger-haired Scottish alcoholic who has night terrors from the war. When Diana tries to comfort him, he pushes her away. She is also introduced to Chief (Eugene Brave Rock) who remarks that his people have been wiped out. Diana questions who wiped them out to which Chief replies, “His people did,” while pointing at Steve Trevor. As all of this is occurring around her, she expresses her want to help, but is held back by circumstances that represent man and his bureaucracy. We hear the dialogue, but we also hear instrumentals hinting at the Wonder Woman theme song, but that music doesn’t come to fruition until that moment in No Man’s Land when Diana finally becomes Wonder Woman. Then the theme song that had been teased finally kicks into full blast as Wonder Woman clears out Nazi’s left and right in an intense and hair-raising action scene.
One last thing to mention in this set of scenes is the coat that Diana wears while heading to the front. When she first wears it, it is clean and lovely looking. As she witnesses horror after horror and is constantly held back from helping, the coat seems to absorb more and more mud and grime. Perhaps representing the overwhelming sense of helplessness that man is feeling at the time. It is not until she throws off the muddy, weighted coat and steps onto the battlefield adorned in her armor that we see the difference between a woman who has been held back and despondent at what she has witnessed, and a hero that will no longer be restrained and will fight for what she believes is right.
All three descriptions above are combined through the creativeness of Patty Jenkins to show us the “birth” of one of the greatest heroines in modern times. By combining story, symbolism, and music, Jenkins is able to elicit emotions from the audience and support for the character. All while keeping us engaged in the story and tieing our emotions to it. Some may not even realize any of this is going on, but still react to the scenes the way that they are meant to.
Wonder Woman as a film is not afraid of its sentimentality. In its operatic nature, it rejoices in it where other films would play off the sentiment for laughs. Wonder Woman is indeed cheesy, but that is very ok. There are so many beautiful moments in this film that I can’t go into without spoilers, but there are also many smaller moments that make the character lovable. For instance, the ice cream scene where Diana has her first ever ice cream and showers the stall owner with praise, or the baby scene which felt like the most natural part of the entire film.
For once, I found the strangest thing happen to me after the credits rolled. I knew something wasn’t right but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. After an hour or so I realized it was that I couldn’t find anything wrong with this movie, but no film is perfect so I will clutch at straws to find some faults that could be improved.
The film’s antagonist does not really fit with the rest of the movie considering the setting of World War I. Doctor Poison could have been a better villain. But, the actual villain does have a reason for doing what he does. He just wasn’t as operatic as everything else. The third act kind of overloads the senses and the believability of the events become Dragon Ball Z levels of far-fetched which I guess could remove you from the emersion. Another point, why are the Amazonians are so far behind the technology of man’s world? They are well educated, but never is it shown that they have some meaningful alternative to modern masculine culture. This is more me nit-picking on a political standpoint. Showing the Amazonians in that light could be something that would damage the meaningful feminist nature of the film. Even in the comic book source material, the Amazonians have tech years beyond man’s world. I hope this is retconned in the sequel.
To say anything else about the plot or cinematography would just go into levels of fawning I have too much pride to do. Every performance is amazing. Gal Gadot reinvents Wonder Woman in a big way. She has so many layers to her from funny, too naive, too serious, too loving. The ferocity and love of feminity is portrayed very bravely by Gal Gadot and this finally gives women a good female superhero who isn’t all scantily clad and sexualized.
Rating:
Thomas C.
Wonder Woman is the standard I want to see all movies in the genre to follow. This is a real superhero movie. After everything has been said, all there is to do is watch it again and wait for the sequel — which will hopefully have an invisible jet.
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