Wonder Woman

Score:  A-

Directed by Patty Jenkins
Starring Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright
Running time:  141 minutes
Rated PG-13

Long Story Short:  Wonder Woman is the highly anticipated debut film for the most famous female superhero, and it exceeds expectations.  For all intents and purposes, Gal Gadot is Wonder Woman, a beautiful, strong, feminine actress who owns this film just as she needed to.  There's plenty of fun action and humor, and even some intriguing exploration of larger issues than what's normally seen in this kind of film.  Highly recommended, all audiences.


On a hidden island, Diana (Gadot) is raised by her mother, Queen Hippolyta (Nielsen), leader of the island's Amazon women, and trained by General Antiope (Wright).  The Amazons continue to prepare for the eventual return of Ares, god of war, to Earth, when a plane crashes on their island.  Diana rescues the pilot, Steve Trevor (Pine), and takes him to the other Amazons.  They discover from him that the "war to end all wars" (World War I) is raging.  Queen Hippolyta prefers to leave mankind to its fate, but Diana sees the influence of Ares in the struggle and leaves the island with Steve to find and kill him.  Steve takes Diana to London, where he reports another discovery to his superiors: the Germans are developing a new, incredibly powerful and lethal chemical weapon.  However, the Allies are negotiating an armistice to end the war, and don't want to risk its success by launching an attack to destroy the new weapon.  Frustrated, Steve goes to Europe anyway with Diana and a small team.  Determined to destroy Ares and end the plague of war once and for all, Diana must first find her own strength in battle - and experience the very thing she hopes to end.

Wonder Woman has an impressive cast, and it is boldly led by its main heroine.  Gal Gadot provided audiences a glimpse of her Wonder Woman in last year's Batman v Superman, but here in her own movie she proves the brilliance of her casting and excellence in portraying the famed heroine.  In superficial terms, Gadot is perfect: she is as convincing, athletic and tough in battle sequences as she is beautiful.  However, she also inhabits and develops the character exceptionally well.  Gadot exudes  Diana's core goodness and strength naturally, but she also is no humorless stoic; she always counters her co-star's sarcasm, and frequently displays her own sense of fun, even mischievousness.  Somehow, Gadot's Wonder Woman is both a feminine ideal and yet also easily relatable.  Chris Pine is a lot of fun, too, as Steve Trevor, but for all his charisma, it's a testament to Gadot's presence that he is always playing second fiddle here.  The remaining roles are strictly supporting.  Diana's Amazonian family, played by Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen and others, is fine, as are Trevor's ragtag band of friends from the war.  Although the villains don't get a lot to work with, Danny Huston as Gen. Ludendorff and Elena Anaya as Doctor Poison are impressively menacing.

Wonder Woman is a very well done if mostly standard superhero film, but it also nicely incorporates some larger themes.  The film's first fifteen minutes or so serve as Wonder Woman's origin story, one much different than other superheroes' yet framed as a familiar mythological background.  The main story combines Diana's seemingly simple mission to destroy a villain with Trevor's determination to stop the chemical weapon.  In essence, Diana is trying to stop a fantasy villain of sorts while Trevor focuses on the practical - sometimes these efforts intertwine, and at others they clash.  There is plenty, though not too much, action, and most of it is well done.  Particularly good is Wonder Woman's debut battle - which contrasts a spectacular showcase of her unique fighting style with the grim but realistic setting of WWI trench and city battles.  The film also has a lot of humor - not quite at the level of Marvel's better films, but still fresh whether from Diana and Steve's banter or Diana's fish-out-of water introduction to 20th century London.

It is in London, the least action-oriented part of the film, where some interesting themes start to emerge.  As appropriate for the first major movie about a female superhero, there is commentary on gender roles.  This is not awkward, forced, or sermonizing, but rather comes naturally from the situation.  Diana is raised with all women - and thus women there take on all the roles of a society.  When she arrives in London she is shocked by other women's experiences, from work as a "slave" (her interpretation of a secretary) to subjugation with battle-restricting "fashion" wear.  Also at issue is war itself.  This is powerfully illustrated (cleverly combined with more gender commentary) when Diana rages at a group of old military generals for their seemingly noble but in fact cowardly efforts to secure an armistice at any cost.  It is also present in Diana's mission to destroy Ares, which she believes in turn will end war itself.  Here, the film unfortunately misses an opportunity to go against the grain of normal blockbusters with a much more subdued yet ultimately more powerful and shocking ending.  Instead we get the usual climactic battle - which is fun, but disappointing.

***

Wonder Woman is a very well made film, saving DC from a streak of critical flops.  More importantly it is a resounding success as a female-led superhero film.  The filmmakers neither cynically pandered to any particular audience, nor did they make a movie that was just like any other superhero film only with a woman as the lead.  It was potentially a very difficulty needle to thread, but the film created (thanks largely to Gal Gadot herself) a true heroine, a feminine character within a world just like Batman or the Avengers'.  For now I'm pulling up just short of a straight "A" score - due to its not embracing the clear opportunity it had for a powerful, unique ending as well as for some choppiness throughout the script (wasn't as smooth and consistent as Marvel has shown superhero films can be).  I may well upgrade this later, and hope to see it again in any case.  And by all means:  if you're looking for a fun film, Wonder Woman is far and away the best film of the summer so far.




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