Wonder Woman - Good
I'll preempt my review by saying that I'm going to repeat a singular word a lot. Normally I would diversify my wording, but there's a very important reason for this.
Elephant in the room: the feminism thing. How was that played out in the film? Actually, not very heavy at all. Obviously there were a few things here and there, but it was light. Ultimately, they didn't ram SJW logic down my throat, so that's a good thing. I got very scared when they did that whole female-only screening. Apparently that wasn't Warner Brother's decision though, so that was good.
The plot overall was good. It's a classic that has been retold in a good way. I won't go into too much detail, but the plot twist at the end was good.
Gal Gadot's performance has been highly praised. I thought she was good. Same goes for Chris Pine.
The acting was good. The music was good. Characterization was good.
Have you figured out that singular word yet? Should be obvious by now.
Yes, just about everything in the movie was good. That's not a bad thing, right? No, not inherently. And yet...
Here I sit two weeks later, after having seen a bad film and then a good film. I asked myself a very important question. Which did I enjoy more? Believe it or not, I enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean more than I did Wonder Woman.
Is it because of the theme difference? No, definitely not. Super heroes and WWI are definitely more to my interests than pirates. Is it because of the woman thing? No, also definitely not. I felt they did the movie justice by not shoehorning in a bunch of SJW stuff. Someone on the Guardian even complained that there wasn't enough of it. Meaning that SJWs are complaining about the movie in some ways. In my opinion, that means they did something right.
I'll tell you why this is a thing. Wonder Woman is a movie that hits most or all of the boxes on the checklist of what makes a movie good or solid. If you judge a film from the perspective of how many problems there are, you will probably rate the film very high. I'll get into some specifics that I felt the movie suffered from later.
Here's the problem though. It felt as if they did the bare minimum or just over that to satisfy each checkbox. There was no aspect of the film that stood out marginally to me. They spent too much time trying to make aspects good and not enough time making good aspects better. Here are some specific examples (spoiler alert):
- Spoiler:
The main plot followed a formula and stuck to it. There was one major twist at the end and that was that Ares was actually the English guy. Diana being a goddess was obvious from the start of the movie. She was either going to be Zeus' daughter or Ares' daughter.
How could this have been made better? Diana should have struggled with humanity more. Never once was she actually angry at the human race. It would have been justified given what she saw. I also think Steve should have been a very good friend and not a love interest. At the very least, never admitting love until that final scene with them and never sharing a kiss. I feel like that would have gripped viewers harder than a typical love interest that had to end in flames one way or another. This way there would have been more regret from Diana and more that actually linked her to humanity. That could have given her a stronger reason for fighting for the humans.
The fight with Ares at the end was good, but it could have been so much better. Ares looked sick with the armor, but the fight didn't go on for too long. Man of Steel's best trait was how fast paced and DBZ-esque the action was. We needed more of that brutal battle between siblings. It was too easy for Diana at the end. It should have come down to the wire, with them beating the living shit out of each other. Instead, Diana just destroyed him at the end with no issues.
The fighting style of the Amazon warriors was really...really...inefficient. It looked cool on camera, but it also looked like they had just gotten done playing D&D.
- Spoiler:
(Which is probably why they were as susceptible as they were)
They fought with swords that were meant to be used with a shield and they fought squared off against each other, making them extremely easy targets for swords, arrows or otherwise. Why was there such a lack of shields there? You would think an advanced warrior race would learn how important shields are, especially with a sword that has little to no hand protection.
Now, don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the movie. I do give the movie credit for making it both a solid movie that was enjoyable. I just felt that there was so much more potential that was untapped. If Batman vs Superman was an unsalvageable movie because they tried to do too much in one movie, Wonder Woman was a golden opportunity that they didn't do enough with.
Either way, this was a step in the right direction. Also, Justice League looks decent. I'll await that one in November.
