Right, its time for a brand new review on a brand new film and the movie in question is Wonder Woman, which is the latest entry in the DC Extended Universe franchise. The DCEU films so far have mostly been poorly received, so will Wonder Woman be the one to save the franchise??? Well, let's take a look....
So, below is my usual bit where I look at the plot but don't worry I will try and keep this section and brief and try and not reveal too many spoilers but just to be safe I will give out a warning....
SOME SPOILERS MIGHT BE AHEAD (BUT NOT TOO MANY!!)
STORY
So, the story begins with Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) recalling her past and it cuts to when Diane was a child and where she was born and raised in Themyscira, which is home to the Amazons, who are a race of warrior women that were created by the gods of Mount Olympus. Diana requests as a child to train as a warrior however her mother, Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) refuses to allow it, so Diana starts to train in secret with her Aunt, General Antiope (Robin Wright).
Some years later when Diana has become a young woman, she sees a plane crash off the coast of Themyscira and she dives in and rescues the pilot, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine). However they are soon interrupted by the arrival of German soldiers, who were pursuing Steve but as the soldiers arrive, the Amazon warriors lead a charge and kill the soldiers, however Antiope is killed during the battle as she tried to protect Diana.
Steve is then taken prisoner by the Amazons, who wrap the lasso of truth around him to force him to tell the truth of why he is there and he tells them that he is a spy working for the British during World War I. Steve also tells them that he stole a notebook from a chief German scientist, Doctor Maru (Elena Anaya) who is creating a deadlier form of mustard gas under the orders of General Ludendorff (Danny Huston). Diana believes that Ares, the God of war is behind WWI and decides to go with Steve to find and destroy Ares in the hope that this will end the Great War.......
THOUGHTS
Well after dreary DCEU films such as Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman, not to mention critically maligned ones such as Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman is thankfully a real breath of fresh air for the series. Here we have a film that is very entertaining and engaging and thankfully features plenty of humour and a much lighter tone than many of the previous DCEU films that we have seen. However the film also has its share of great action throughout and the action scenes involving Wonder Woman are terrfic and the WWI sequences are very impressively staged.
What's even better and more important is that the character of Wonder Woman here has been given a strong moral code and centre and she is character that shows great compassion but also great ruthlessness for her enemies. And in the film Diana (aka Wonder Woman) allows for plenty moments of humour when she fails to understand many of socities traditions and cultures as well blossom a romance with Steve as the film progresses. So its great to see a film that balances out its mix of drama, suspense, thrills and fun so well.
PERFORMANCES (Warning: I will only mention one or two scenes from the film but not too many!)
As for the performances well they are all very good and the cast are all in good form.
To start off, Gal Gadot is excellent in her role as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman and it also kind of helps too that she just happens to be also drop dead gorgeous! Gadot throughout the film gives Diana a great mixture of compassion, humour and toughness and it appears to be a role that she was born to play as she manages the action scenes just as well as the humour and drama.
And I won't really mention her scenes as such but I will mention one or two great little moments of dialogue she has in the film. And for starters there is the scene where Diana meets Steve's secretary, Etta Candy (Lucy Davis) and Etta tells Diana "I'm Steve's secretary" and Diana asks "What is a secretary?" and Etta tells Diana "I go where he tells me to go, I do what he tells me to do" and Diana says "Where we come from, that's called slavery!".
Also later there is a scene where Diana tries out an ice cream cone for the first time and she loves it and she says to the ice vendor "Its wonderful!" and she turns to the vendor and says "You should be very proud!". So, these scenes show Gadot's adeptness for playing out the humour, there are plenty of others but I will leave it at that for now.
Chris Pine next is very good in his role as Steve Trevor, Diana's love interest for the film and also an American soldier spy working for the British during the First World War. Chris also shares a nice onscreen chemistry with Gal so the two of them work very well together.
Chris also has some good scenes but I will only mentio a couple such as the one near the start where Steve bathes in a pool of water and Diana comes in when he steps out naked and he covers up his privates. And Diana looks at something and asks "What is that?" and Steve awkwardly says "That is a watch" and Diana asks "What does it do?" and Steve says "It tells the time. It tells you when to eat, when to sleep..." and Diana amused asks "That little thing tells you what to do?".
Then there is the scene where Steve and Diana embark on their journey to London and Steve asks her "Have you ever met a man before? What about your father?" and Diana says "I had no father. My mother sculpted me from clay and I was brought to life by Zeus" and Steve, a little surprised says "Well that's neat!".
David Thewlis is not too bad in his role as Sir Patrick Morgan, who is a speaker of peace for the Imperial war cabinet back in London, however he is not all he appears to be as you will find out later on (and I will say no more than that!).
Danny Huston also does well in his part as the ruthless General Ludendorff, who is out to use the nerve gas to wipe out Germany's enemies in an effor to win the war. Huston plays the part well and appears to have fun with it as he hams up Lundendorff's villainous qualities. Elena Anaya is OK in her role as Doctor Maru (aka Doctor Poison) but she is somewhat underused in the film I think.
Lucy Davis is also pretty good as Etta Candy, Steve's secretary although she does appear to be pretty heavy weight wise in the part, so I don't know if she put on weight to play the role as the character herself is pretty stout!
Robin Wright and Connie Nielsen however are both OK but are rather wasted in their role as Queen Hippolyta and General Antiope respectively as they are given alot of melodramatic dialogue to deliver in the early section of the film.
Said Taghmaoui is pretty good as the secret agent, Sameer, who is an ally of Steve's who helps him and Diana out in their fight against Lundendroff. Said also get's one of the film's best lines when Sameer first meets Diana in a bar and Diana quickly disables one of the rough customers and Sameer looks on amazed and says "I am frightened and at the same time aroused!".
And last of all is Ewen Bremner, who to be honest is a bit annoying in the film as the atypical Scottish drunk, Charlie, who is in fact a sharpshooter and another ally of Steve's.
DIRECTOR AND MUSIC
As for the direction, Patty Jenkins does an excellent job here with the film and she paces the story very well throughout and it rarely lags despite its 2 hours and 21 minute running time. Jenkins also expertly handles the film's action scenes, which are great and even better manages to pull together a very engaging story for the audience. Let's just say that Patty here has put Zack Snyder's efforts in the DCEU so far to shame!
And lastly there is the film's music score by Rupert Gregson-Williams which is actually surprisingly good because going into the film I was only too aware of the Wonder Woman theme, which I absolutely hated when I first heard it in Batman vs Superman. However when you put the theme into the context of the actual film, the theme itself isn't that bad and that its actually backed up by a pretty score by Gregson-Williams makes it that bit better. So overall the score deserves credit here as it is pretty suspenseful and has its share of emotional cues, which work well and when that Wonder Woman theme finally kicks in, its used just at the right times. So, well done to Rupert Gregson-Williams for pulling out this one.
FLAWS
As for flaws....yeah well Wonder Woman isn't quite perfect of course but its flaws are nothing too fatal, however due to spoiler issues I can't really go into them all just now!
But what I can say is, part of the film's problem is that the opening section that takes place in Themyscira feels a little slow at times and the dialogue from the characters in this sequence is pretty melodramatic and hackneyed sounding. And its when the film moves to Diana and Steve going off to war is when the film starts to really pick up its pacing.
I also felt that the film lacked strong villains and there are three principal villains that appear here but they are all pretty much cardboard cut-outs and none of them have any real sense of menace. And its safe to say that alot of these modern day superhero, sci-fi movies appear to suffer from weak villains and that is certainly the case here.
WARNING: THIS PARAGRAPH AHEAD MAY REFER TO A SPOILER OF SORTS!!
I also thought that Diana's naivety to the world was a bit much to swallow at times, particularly near the end where she thinks killing one of the chief villains will automatically bring an end to the war. However of course it simply wouldn't work that way yet Diana thinks it all comes down to knocking one bad peg out and everything else will fall into place. Errmm, nope its never that simple, Diana! So at this point I simply don't buy that she would be that naive and surely being brought up as a warrior, this is something she might have learned from her Aunt.
I'm not entirely sure but I don't think there was one moment in the film where Diana was in fact even referred to as Wonder Woman, which in a way is also a bit daft and seems to negate the character's title itself. In a way perhaps that not a bad thing though as it makes the film appear less self referential, which can be a nuisance but even so you think they could have said something along the lines of "Hey, that woman is a real wonder!" or "Hey you! Wonder woman!" just to reference it in some way. Acchhh!
Anyway that's it for the flaws.
SUM UP
So in summing up, Wonder Woman is everything that disappointed DC films will have hoped for in a superhero film in that here we are finally given a good mix of thrills, excitement, drama, suspense and of course most importantly fun. This film has so much more going for it than most of the DCEU films we've seen so far and is helped along nicely by its fine cast, particularly its leads performances from Gal Gadot and Chris Pine, who both share a nice onscreen chemistry together. It also helps that Gal Gadot is a real stunner and she sells Wonder Woman's sex appeal with great ease but she certainly goes deeper than just that and provides a three dimensional character for audiences.
So speaking personally, I'd certainly recommend giving Wonder Woman a go as it is a film that has given the DCEU a much needed shot in the arm and let's hope we get more films like it in the future that have a sense of adventure and fun rather than dark tones and dreariness.
Right, so that's it for now and I shall return soon with another review of some sort or other.
Till then its bye for now!
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