WONDER WOMAN

Wonder Woman (2017) 

Rating: 8/10 

STARRING: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Danny Huston, Connie Nielsen, David Thewlis, Elena Anaya, Robin Wright, Said Taghmaoui, Ewen Bremner and Eugene Brave Rock, with Lucy Davis as Etta and Lilly Aspell as Young Diana

RATED PG-13 for intense action, some emotional content, and some language

            After 2016, the DC Universe was reeling.

            First, their long-awaited Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice came out in March and, despite scoring impressive box-office returns, landed with a thud. The film had its defenders, but most said it was too long, too slow, too busy setting up future movies and, oh yeah, had too little actual Batman vs. Superman in it. August’s Suicide Squad fared even worse. The movie flopped hard with iffy effects, too many characters, and a couple of pathetic, cringe-inducing villains. At that point, it was clear DC was lagging way behind Marvel in terms of big-screen quality and fanfare, a problem considering they had two flagship films planned for 2017: Wonder Woman and Justice League. Justice League has yet to be seen, but the June release Wonder Woman proved a huge shot in the arm to DC financially and publicly. Not that people didn’t expect it to be successful; the first female-superhero fronted film, riding the momentum of Israeli actress Gal Gadot’s winning cameo in Batman v Superman, had many people curious. But after the high-profile disappointments of 2016, and with DC’s great hope ensemble piece on the horizon, there was legitimate worry that Wonder Woman would take even more air out of the balloon.

            Well, we all know how that turned out.

            After a brief present-day prologue (complete with Wayne Enterprises plug), Wonder Woman shows us young Diana (Lilly Aspell), Princess of Themyscira, a shining city in the mythical Paradise Islands populated entirely by the tough female Amazons. Daughter of Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen), Diana grows up yearning for adventure and longing to fight like her tough aunt Antiope (Robin Wright). When actually given the opportunity, Diana (played as an adult by Gadot) proves a deft hand, showing powers none of her fellow Amazons can match. But, with great power comes…well, you know. After a training incident in which she nearly kills Antiope, Diana hides in shame on a secluded corner of the island, only to get a front-row seat when a damaged airplane crashes in the ocean in front of Themyscira, with a lone male pilot (Chris Pine) struggling to escape. Diana saves him, and marvels. He’s a man! Spoiler: she’s never seen a man (all-female Amazons, remember?). The man, Steve Trevor, marvels himself when he awakes and learns of Diana, the Amazons, their hidden island, and their lack of knowledge about The Great War, in which he has been fighting as a spy against the Germans. Diana is convicted at the idea of this great, costly war, and urges Hippolyta to send her and other Amazons out to stop Ares (the Greek God of War, whom Diana has been told corrupted the hearts of men and is responsible for their fighting). Hippolyta rebuffs the idea of sending Amazons out into the world, but idealistic Diana isn’t about to sit by after hearing Steve’s stories of the horrors of war. Soon, Diana has left Themyscira with Steve, and is learning more about the world, people, and war than she could have imagined. She and Steve are soon on the trail of sadistic German General Ludendorf (Danny Huston), who sneers at the talks of “armistice” while his top scientist (Elena Anaya) creates a gas that kills everything it touches. Seeing casualties and fighting up close makes Diana even more determined to stop Ludendorf, whose cold sadism can only mean one thing: he’s Ares, her people’s sworn enemy.

            I get that the movie came out five months ago, so chances are you’ve seen it, so my spoiler-averse plot summary probably doesn’t make much sense. Hey, a guy’s gotta practice, right? True, after re-watching it last night, I feel like I barely touched on half the movie’s plot, not to mention about half its main cast. I didn’t even get to mention Diana and Steve’s growing chemistry, Diana’s amusing fish-out-of-water routine in London, Steve’s delightfully chirpy secretary (Lucy Davis) or his ragtag band of fellow undercover operators (Said Taghmaoui, Ewen Bremner, and Eugene Brave Rock). Nor did I get to mention the movie’s instant-classic No Man’s Land scene, in which Diana rises from a Western Front trench in full WW gear and walks straight into the teeth of German fire with her shield high and her head higher…

            The thing is, while DC’s high point was obviously the Dark Knight Trilogy, Marvel’s rival studio has proven they can do individual origin stories pretty well. Personally, I was a pretty big fan of 2013’s Man of Steel, which came with a slow build, well-written, well-acted characters, and a non-linear plot structure to change up the formula. It’s just that the movie’s wheels fell off during a slam-bang third act that not only wiped out any notions of subtlety and character nuance, but also flew in the face of what Superman is about. Still, setting the scene, establishing the characters, their motivations and feelings, and building the world…Man of Steel did that. So it's a shame DC seems to be rushing to copy the Avengers formula in search of a huge box office windfall instead of taking their time (remember, Avengers was the end result of four years of Marvel origin stories building the characters and the universe).

            Wonder Woman’s accessibility—its mix of charm, humor, action, and drama—is obviously the product of a lot of people putting forth real effort, starting with Director Patty Jenkins and screenwriter Allan Heinberg. The movie develops slowly and lets sequences breathe, yet it’s almost never boring over its 2-hour, 21-minute run-time. Sure, a straight drama or a non-superhero film might’ve dug deeper and developed the characters more, but, for a movie that you know is going to end as Wonder-Woman-Saves-the-World, it does about as well as could be expected.

            For that, the lion’s share of credit goes to Gal Gadot and Chris Pine. I promise I won’t fawn over Gadot, but I will say she is irresistibly appealing in this role, not only with her luminous looks but her believable portrayal of Diana’s idealism, internal conflict, and shock and horror at the realities of war. But I’m really close to saying it’s Pine’s performance that makes the movie. Somehow, despite his iconic presence in the Star Trek series, plus his appearance in last year’s Oscar-nominated drama Hell or High Water, I feel like this is the performance of his career so far. Diana’s fish-out-of-water routine in London wouldn’t play as well without someone so committed playing the straight opposite, and Pine gets big laughs from his reactions to Diana’s cluelessness (“I didn’t have a father. My mother sculpted me from clay.”… “Well that’s neat…”). Pine, more than Gadot, is our catalyst in the film, and he makes the most of an amusing come-sleep-with-me bit, a foray undercover with a German accent, and a dramatic monologue where he tries to convince Diana that people are just evil sometimes. And as good as Diana’s No Man’s Land scene is, for me, there’s no question: the most impressive and memorable moment in the movie is one roughly 15-25-second close-up of Pine’s face during a key action scene (you’ll know it when you see it). It’s a marvel of expression and nuance, and it’s haunting.

Yes, as is wont to happen in movies like this, a lot of the sincere development goes out the window during a boss-battle-style finale in the third act. It’s a rough moment for David Thewlis, a fine actor who gave my single favorite acting performance in all the Harry Potter films (in 2004’s Prisoner of Azkaban). The effects are on par with an early 2000s video game, and the acting flies way over the top. Not only is it a good reminder that we’re watching a superhero movie, so of course it had to end in a big battle, but it squanders a few moments of genuine nuance immediately preceding it, when Diana was forced to ponder man’s morality—the idea that people just might not be all good, that there isn’t just one bad guy you can kill to make everyone good again, even though that would be easier. Overall, it’s safe to say, when Wonder Woman is being its straight, sincere self, it cruises along. When it tries to amp up the effects to meet the required standards of today’s superhero-obsessed movie industry (see also the unnecessary Zack Snyder slow-mo during a fight between WW and some Germans inside a building), it doesn’t work nearly as well.

            Also, do we want to talk about how Diana has supposedly been around all this time and got all fired up about WWI, but apparently didn’t lift a hand to stop Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Vietnam, or 9/11? No? Okay.

In Summary

             With Justice League coming out next week, one wonders: “how long will the goodwill last?” Coming off two high profile disappointments from DC, Wonder Woman surprised many people with its assured direction and conviction, strong acting and character development, poignant love story and some really legit action sequences. It did fall into the go-big-or-go-home third act effects extravaganza that hinders so many action movies these days, but, having now seen it twice, I can say when I think of this movie, I’ll think first of Gadot and Pine, their fine characterizations and their chemistry, before I think off the iffy “boss battle” that closes things out. I’m trying not to get my hopes up for Justice League, but in an era jam-packed with superhero films, Wonder Woman stands out. 

WONDER WOMAN (2017)

Directed by Patty Jenkins 

Screenplay by Allan Heinberg
Story by Zack Snyder, Allan Heinberg and Jason Fuchs
The character Wonder Woman created by William Moulton Marston
Rated PG-13

Length: 141 minutes