Wonder Woman no spoiler review.
8.5 out of 10
The good:
- Movie understands Wonder Woman. Probably one of the biggest complaints about the recent crop of DC movies is that they don't understand the characters. In trying to make Superman a more conflicted character many people think they lost an essential element of the moral strength of the character. It seems like people worship him because he is powerful in BvS not because he is good. And while people thought Affleck did well with Batman, many felt his character was hit and miss with a little too much Bat-murder. Wonder Woman (the movie) seems to capture the basic essence of the character in my opinion to a much better degree. She is a fish out of water not just in the sense that she has no experience with the outside world environment, but she was raised in a much less complicated, much more egalitarian world where fairness and justice are supposed to be the norm, not the exception. Each in their own way believes in Justice: Batman believes no one should be above it, Superman believes power should be used to defend it. Wonder Woman believes justice is worth fighting for. When Steve Trevor basically asks her, near the end of the movie, "what do you believe in" he's not teaching her anything, he is reminding her of what we've already seen throughout the movie. By the end of the movie, I know Wonder Woman.
- Movie understands what it wants to be. Probably the biggest problem with every recent DC movie not directed by Christopher Nolan is a sense that the movie doesn't know what it wants to be. The Dark Knight trilogy knows what it wants to be. The Marvel movies by in large know what they want to be - whether people like it or not. Man of Steel opens looking like one movie, then morphs into another movie for a short interval before becoming a different movie at the end. BvS is a story board possessed by a special effects demon. Wonder Woman appears to have that thing people have been trying to articulate was missing from MoS and BvS: a consistent tone. WW has dark moments, and it is a serious movie. But it isn't lifeless, or depressing, or hollow. From the beginning to the end of the movie, it felt like a single story with tragedy, comedy, romance, and action, but a single story about a main protagonist and her trajectory.
- Movie is successful. I mean, as a story. Man of Steel had so much potential, and I don't think it lived up to it. BvS is a text book example of wasted potential. Suicide Squad was a crazy amount of lost potential. I believe Wonder Woman, while not a perfect movie, doesn't feel like a waste of potential. It feels like achieving the potential of the character. We all knew you could make a great Wonder Woman movie with her as the center of it, and the WW movie achieves that in spades. I left the theater thinking the same thing I thought after seeing Batman Begins: this is the movie I didn't know I wanted until someone made it.
- Chris Pine plays second fiddle well. Personally, I don't mind Chris Pine. But I know a lot of people who aren't keen on him. Most agree he plays a very likeable, very believable, very capable side kick to Wonder Woman. He is a strong character that doesn't overshadow the main character. And I think Pine and Godot have pretty good chemistry on screen. Their relationship arc is believable to me.
The bad:
- Ares. I found the last act with Ares to be not as interesting as the rest of the movie. Ares in particular is not a good villain. He is practically invisible, and that makes it difficult to build him up to be the big bad of the movie. His presence is always lurking about in terms of Wonder Woman's dialog, but mostly I felt he was bussed into the movie's last act to end the movie.
- The Godkiller. Yeah, I'm too jaded. I saw that coming from a mile away.
- The Amazons. Yes, they are bad-asses. Yes, they put up a kick-ass fight. Yes, they ultimately win. And yes, if Themyscira was ever discovered by more than twelve guys in a rowboat or a modern army they'd be toast. I kinda felt they should be stronger, although there were obvious narrative reasons for things happening they way they did.
The Ugly:
- Wonder Woman's strength. So just exactly how strong is Wonder Woman anyway? We know how strong Superman is. He's all but bullet proof. Is Wonder Woman? She deflects bullets with bracers and her shield. Can she take a bullet? We see her wielding power that could rival Superman, but on the other hand we often see her fighting more like Batman. When she holds off the machine guns with her shield, she looks like she is struggling with something Superman wouldn't. But she picks up a tank like it was an inflatable duck. The one thing that I don't think the DC movieverse has figured out yet is just exactly where Wonder Woman is in terms of power. And this was the one inconsistent thing in the movie that bothered me a little.
Overall:
Go see this movie. Compared to similar relatively origin story superhero movies, it probably has the most in common with Batman Begins, Thor, Captain America (of course), and Iron Man. I think it is better than Thor, and a little better than Captain America. It is probably the equal of Iron Man and maybe just a little under Batman Begins in my opinion, which I think is the gold standard of reinventing a character for the big screen. It feels the most like Captain America, and hopefully that is a good thing. Captain America pulled off a miracle in my opinion, making Cap relevant by telling his WW2 story and pulling him into the modern era. And Cap managed to pull the hat trick in making each sequel pay off dividends from the previous movie and top the success of the previous outings. If Wonder Woman can achieve the same thing, taking the slow and careful approach that Marvel did and DC seemed too impatient to do with Superman and Batman, she could become the anchor to the DCEU it desperately needs.
Wonder Woman does what no DC movie has done since The Dark Knight: make me want more. It isn't perfect, but it transcends its flaws enough that I care more about what it gets right than what it gets wrong. I give it an 8.5 out of 10 on technical merit. But I have no reservations about recommending that people see it.
