FEATURED FILM
Film Review
Wonder Woman (PG-13)
Written By Amy Diaz (adiaz@hippopress.com)
Images: Movie Screenshot
Gal Gadot fights for truth, justice and the Amazonian way in Wonder Woman, a (finally!) excellent entry in the DC Extended Universe.
The movie unfolds as a prolonged flashback, with Wonder Woman/Diana (Gal Gadot) receiving from Bruce Wayne a hard copy of the photo she’d been digging through Lex Luthor’s hard drive for in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. The photo shows Diana in World War I Belgium with a group including a man we will come to know as Steve Trevor (Chris Pine).
Then we meet young Diana (Lilly Aspell) and see her childhood on Themyscira, a Paradise Island populated by Amazons, a group of fighting women charged by Zeus with protecting humanity from Ares, the God of War. Diana is the daughter of Hippolyta (Connie Nelson), queen of the Amazons. Hippolyta doesn’t want young Diana to be trained to fight, but Antiope (Robin Wright), Hippolyta’s sister and the head of the Amazonian army, disagrees. Ares was gravely wounded in a long-ago battle but Antiope is certain that one day Diana will have to face him. Eventually, Hippolyta agrees, telling Antiope to train Diana 10 times as hard as any other Amazonian warrior.
When we see Gal Gadot-aged Diana, she is a fierce fighter, eventually besting even Antiope with a surprise burst of CGI-bwam-ness. Diana ponders this new ability on a cliff overlooking the ocean where she sees an airplane burst through the magical whatever that keeps Themyscira hidden and crash into the sea. She swims out to the plane and pulls out the pilot: one Steve Trevor, who, after a few squeezes with the Golden Lasso, reveals himself to be an American working for the British as a spy.
The Germans who were chasing him also burst through the magical island shield, leading to a fight on the beach between Germans and their guns and Amazonians and their arrows and swords. The Amazonians are more than a match for the soldiers, despite their technological disadvantages. But the battle leaves Diana convinced that Ares is behind this Great War Steve describes. She decides to leave the island with Steve to find and kill Ares and protect the humans she thinks have been led astray by him.
They go first to London, to deliver to British higher-ups intelligence Steve has gathered about a German general named Ludendorff (Danny Huston) and Dr. Maru (Elena Anaya), a scientist making poison gas. Though others in the German military and government are ready to sign an armistice with the Allied powers, Ludendorff is convinced they can still win the war with an extra deadly poison he is developing.
Diana becomes convinced that this Ludendorff is Ares in disguise. When Steve decides to go against British command and run a secret mission to find and destroy the facility making Ludendorff’s weapon, Diana insists on coming with him. To help in the mission, Steve pulls in three old friends: Sameer (Said Taghmaoui), a con-man; The Chief (Eugene Brave Rock), a non-combatant who knows the front, and Charlie (Ewen Bremner), an expert marksman.
Also expert marksmen? Patty Jenkins, this movie’s director, and Allan Heinberg, author of the movie’s screenplay. Somehow, magically, they have hit an absolute bullseye when it comes to getting the tone of this character and this movie just right.
Diana is earnest and principled and brilliant but unaware of the (1918) modern world. But she is not a dolt or a goodytwo- shoes or a tortured saint (cough, Henry Cavill’s Superman, cough). She’s a strong (physically, emotionally, confidence- wise) woman and a smart woman and, at times, a funny woman. And a woman, not some fakey fanboy idea of what a woman should be. I like that the “woman” part of the Wonder Woman identity seems to have been treated as important. Gal Gadot also gets Wonder Woman just right, playing all her facets — the bravery, the bad-assedness, the woman in love — with a geniuneness that isn’t overly serious.
The action is also well-calibrated. There are at least three big set-piece battle scenes that are each wonderful in their own way, with nicely choreographed action and a good balance of “big fighting wide-shot” and individual characters. Even though we know from the movie’s opening (Diana in 2017 Paris) and from the Justice League trailer that runs before the movie that Wonder Woman makes it out of this story A-OK, the scenes still have stakes and energy.
Is Wonder Woman perfect? No, it’s probably too long by about half an hour — though I’d have watched an even longer version if it had more of the gang and their exploits and more Lucy Davis, who plays Steve’s secretary Etta Candy and is also quite awesome. But this movie was a delight to sit through and it gave me hope for the DC Extended Universe. Franchise in trouble? Summer popcorn movies fail to pop? Not enough fun in the action universe? Wonder Woman to the rescue!