Wonder-Woman

[Arcana]

Everything gets rated these days.  I'm referring to the sickness that makes people think that only a rating akin to 9/10 or higher is good.

8/10 is a great movie and not just 'for a DC movie'.

8.5/10 recommends itself, it doesn't need to be recommended *despite* the rating.

Madness.

If that is directed at me, I should point out that a) I give numbers only as an abbreviation for a more expository review, b) my number scale is my own and defined by me alone, and c) I don't grade on a curve, so by definition any movie that doesn't rate 10 out of 10 has flaws that would moderate any recommendation to see a movie.  The notion that everyone should see all movies rated 8.5 or higher implies something I don't agree with, which is that the quality of the movie alone determines whether I should recommend someone see a movie.  I would rate Requiem for a Dream a 9 out of 10, but I would have some reservations about recommending whether people actually watch it.

To me, 8 out of 10 means there's 2 out of 10 bad things in the movie.  That's not a great movie.  That's a very good movie.  An 8.5 is a significantly better movie, because 25% of the stuff wrong with an 8 are gone in an 8.5.  A 9 is a movie in which half of everything wrong with an 8 - which itself doesn't have much wrong - is gone.  It is not easy to remove half the problems in a very good movie.  My scale doesn't start at 7, it starts at zero, and every point matters.

That is, at the end of the day, still a subjective attempt at quantifying an otherwise qualitative score.  But it is a judgment I'm perfectly capable of justifying.

[Valtyr]

- 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 end boss fights were indeed a mess. I think allowing the real Ares to survive could fix it - maybe. I think the realization after she kills the general is an important part of her arc, but after that I'm not sure how to have an exciting and satisfactory ending. I think it's important that Diana not realize that she didn't complete her mission but the audience gets a relatively subtle reveal.

But I don't make movies for a living and I'm just spit-balling here.

- 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.

I saw it as more of a progression, fulfilling Antiope's insistence that Diana is much stronger than she believes. Kind of like the whole faith the size of a mustard seed moving mountains. It's very, what is word, wishy-washy. The more right, faithful to her cause, or something, the better able she becomes to realizing her full potential. It's softly demonstrated during her final training sequence; she's looking around, to her mother and other Amazons to gage their reaction to how well she is/is not doing. And when she later takes ti the No Man's Land, she gains more confidence and begins her journey of inner confidence and outward strengths.

Or something. I'm on meds so my clarity may be wonky.

Though, even then, her strength grew or shrank as the plot needed it to. I think they tried to show she is bullet resistant after the attack on the island, as a graze on her arm healed surprisingly quick. But that could have also been Amazonian medicine also.

[Arcana]

I saw it as more of a progression, fulfilling Antiope's insistence that Diana is much stronger than she believes. Kind of like the whole faith the size of a mustard seed moving mountains. It's very, what is word, wishy-washy. The more right, faithful to her cause, or something, the better able she becomes to realizing her full potential. It's softly demonstrated during her final training sequence; she's looking around, to her mother and other Amazons to gage their reaction to how well she is/is not doing. And when she later takes ti the No Man's Land, she gains more confidence and begins her journey of inner confidence and outward strengths.

Or something. I'm on meds so my clarity may be wonky.

Though, even then, her strength grew or shrank as the plot needed it to.

There is a fridge logic explanation for much of it, although in my opinion not all of it.  But it requires spoiler protection:

Spoiler for Hidden:

It is a common trope that the power that gods (small g) wield comes from faith, worship, and belief.  In the same way that Ares feeds on war, it is possible that the power that Wonder Woman taps into is influenced by the degree to which people believe in her, and she in herself.  It is implied that Wonder Woman is a small-g god, created by Zeus to be a weapon that could bring down Ares.  So it makes sense that her strength is lower on the island where few actually believe she is a god, becomes stronger when she inspires other soldiers in no-man's land, and ironically because Ares knows she is the godkiller his belief in her makes her powerful enough to defeat him

But it doesn't fully explain all of it.  Another tiny spoiler:

Spoiler for Hidden:

When she attacks the sniper in the town, she just rams through the building without being significantly injured.  That is resilience on a Kryptonian level.  And yet she seemed to be capable of being injured or at least kept at bay by a normal human being that was drug-enhanced when fighting the general.  That seemed to be too big a swing in power level to be anything but power-fiat to me.

[doc7924]

Wonder Woman no spoiler review.

8.5 out of 10

The good:

- Movie understands Wonder Woman.

I just cut out the rest of the post to make this easier to scroll through.

This is exactly why the Marvel films work IMO. They understand and do the characters justice. Even though details of origins change, or backgrounds - the fundamental basis of their characters are there.

DC keeps trying to make their heroes into people they are not. The first few Chris Reeve Superman films - got Superman, what motivates him, what makes him work.
Batman has been hit and miss. I remember back in the day people groaned when Keaton was announced as Batman/Bruce Wayne, but he made it work. And the movie 'got' Batman.

The Bale ones for the most part 'got' Batman as well.

They may have gotten lucky with WW but I hope it wasn't just luck. Maybe they learned a bit from their mistakes.

I love the Flash TV show and it will be hard to watch another version on screen, but where DC is concerned, you get used to it.
Looking forward to the full out JLA film. Hope they don't blow it.

[hurple]

- 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.

I believe the insinuation in the movie is that her powers/strength grew as she progressed through the movie until that final battle with Ares when they exploded to her full potential.  So, she learned all that fancy fighting and used it.  Then, when confronted with the no-man's land battle, she grew strong enough to lift that tank and demolish that church tower.  Then, in the final battle with Ares, she ramped up again to "juggle tanks" level and gained rudimentary flight powers (?)

I could be wrong, but that's how I saw it.

[hurple]

The Bale ones for the most part 'got' Batman as well.

Except for that last one.   

[MyriVerse]

I believe the insinuation in the movie is that her powers/strength grew as she progressed through the movie until that final battle with Ares when they exploded to her full potential.  So, she learned all that fancy fighting and used it.  Then, when confronted with the no-man's land battle, she grew strong enough to lift that tank and demolish that church tower.  Then, in the final battle with Ares, she ramped up again to "juggle tanks" level and gained rudimentary flight powers (?)

I could be wrong, but that's how I saw it.

Not even sure I'd call it "insinuation." We're told throughout the movie that her powers are growing or that she hasn't reached her full potential. Her mother explicitly was fearful of her gaining too much of her powers before she was ready to face Ares.

As for her smashing through the bell tower, I think she might have been helped by her bracelets. They seemed to create like a force bubble around her. We first see it when Antiope attacks her just before Steve shows up.

[Arcana]

Except for that last one.   

Compared to The Dark Knight, Rises is not as strong of a movie, I would agree.  But I think it does "get" Batman in the sense that The Dark Knight Rises says something kind of daring about Batman.  I think that the Nolan trilogy isn't about the birth, life, and death of Batman.  It is really about the birth of the Batman legend.  Nolan's Bruce Wayne is in some sense Batman, but in another greater sense he is the deliberate author of the Batman myth.  From the very beginning in Batman Begins Nolan has Bruce Wayne saying his goal is to create something incorruptible and everlasting; Ras al Ghul tells Bruce that as a man he can be beaten or destroyed but a legend cannot die.

We are supposed to see that Bruce Wayne just isn't really Batman anymore in Rises, and cannot be.  But he can finally create the thing he set out to create from the beginning: a legend, like Robin Hood or Zorro.  Someone that symbolizes justice for the people without actually being there as a crutch people think will save them.  The Nolan Batman is the statue in City Hall that finally recognizes that Batman was always fighting for the people, even when people thought he was a murderer and a cop-killer.  Batman transcends Bruce Wayne and becomes an incorruptible idea.

And that's really what Batman is.  Batman transcends individual depictions of Batman.  That's a very Nolan-esque idea.

[hurple]

Compared to The Dark Knight, Rises is not as strong of a movie, I would agree.  But I think it does "get" Batman in the sense that The Dark Knight Rises says something kind of daring about Batman.

No.  As soon as the movie opens and explains that Batman basically "gave up" and went into hiding after the events of the previous movie it blows any chance of "getting" Batman/Bruce Wayne. 

Of course, that's IMO.

[Arcana]

No.  As soon as the movie opens and explains that Batman basically "gave up" and went into hiding after the events of the previous movie it blows any chance of "getting" Batman/Bruce Wayne. 

Of course, that's IMO.

I don't interpret the information in Rises that way.  The movie states that it takes place eight years after the last "confirmed" sighting of the Batman, but that doesn't mean he immediately retired after the events of The Dark Knight.  There is evidence in the movie that Bruce Wayne continued to operate as the Batman for several years afterward until he felt the combination of the Dent Act and the more aggressive posture by the police towards organized crime allowed Batman to be no longer necessary.  I believe Alfred notes that after they moved back to the rebuilt Wayne manor Bruce continued to use the Batcave for at least some time, which would have had to have been after TDK (since they were still operating from other buildings and Wayne manor was still being rebuilt at that time).

It is also clear that while the official stance of the police department was that Batman was a cop-killer and to be arrested on sight, not all of the police were buying that even eight years later.  It is entirely possible that the last confirmed sighting of Batman was the last one that any police officer was willing to confirm.

Also, it is confirmed in Rises that Bruce Wayne himself did not go into hiding after TDK.  He remained in public for some time, specifically when he turned his attention to the fusion reactor project.  It is implied that Bruce Wayne became a recluse after that project failed.

We know that in the interim Bruce Wayne was still active in monitoring the activities in Gotham, and specifically looking for things that might have been a threat: that is how he came to discover and acquire the Clean Slate program, explicitly to keep it out of criminal hands.

[Tenzhi]

Alright, I saw it today and the only thing that really bothered me was the really awkward attempt at a moral/message.  Other than that, it's the best entry in the MCU so far, though that's a pretty low bar.

[eabrace]

MCU

[Tenzhi]

"Martha Cinematic Universe"...  how could that possibly be confusing?

[HalcyonS]

"Martha Cinematic Universe"...  how could that possibly be confusing?

That's my mother's name!!!

[eabrace]

Oh, yes!  Of course! 

[HalcyonS]

Speaking of Martha....

[Dev7on]

"Martha Cinematic Universe"...  how could that possibly be confusing?

"Why did you say that name?!" lol

[doc7924]

"Why did you say that name?!" lol

Up until that I never even thought about the fact that both Bruce and Clark's mother were Martha.

I knew they both were named Martha , but never thought -  "Hey, Batman and Superman's mom have the same name." (not counting the 4 or 5 imaginary tales where they actually are brothers)

[Excidia]

I'm sure Flash's mom's name will get changed to Nora Martha Allen for the movie.

[eabrace]

I'm sure Flash's mom's name will get changed to Nora Martha Allen for the movie.

Or Barry will end up boding with Mr. Freeze.