I loved this movie.
First and foremost, it never insulted me. There were so many opportunities for this movie to have the powerful female lead and a dumb klutzy male lead who constantly needs her help, but instead we got a fantastic male lead who contributed and helped her out and was awesome too. Or there were multiple situations where they could have pointed out that she’s a woman and not a man, for example “no mans land.” I was dreading the inevitable ROTK line “I am no man,” but instead they went with “that’s what I’m here for” and gave us one of the best action sequences in any film.
Next, the characters were all great. Obviously WW and Steve were great. WW is relentless in her quest. She doesn't waiver (well for 10 seconds at the end), and she's a fucking badass. You care about Wonder Woman as a character because she's so awesome and because of what she stands for. We root for her because of this. We (or at least I) didn't root for Wonder Woman because she's a woman, or for some shitty SJW bullshit. I was glad she wins because of how great her character was. And also the supporting crew were great too. Most movies just have the supporting crew as mindless tagalongs without much story. But we had Sami, who wants to be an actor, but couldn’t because of the war, and found a way to still get to do what he loves while in the war. And Charlie is an ex-sniper who is an alcoholic with PTSD and self esteem issues. And you get to see how much Charlie and Sami and Steve all care about each other (like when they’re consoling Charlie after he can’t snipe.) And then Charlie gets “healed” by Wonder Woman (singing again) after they have a good day and a victory. My point is that the side characters had depth to them (unlike, for example, almost every character in Suicide Squad.)
The action was incredible. The opening beach fight scenes are great, with the super moves by the queen and the general (*everyone* had to be in awe when the general does the first “shield” jump and you get the beautiful wide shot of her flying backwards and shoot the three arrows.) The first “no mans land” scene and the Veld village scene are phenomenal. They are extremely powerful and you get to see WW kind of figuring out just how much of a badass she is. When she walks up on the battle field at first, it’s insanely dramatic. And when it finishes with her destroying the church tower, oh my god.
The two leads had amazing chemistry. You get to quickly see how much they like each other. In the “no mans land” sequence there’s a scene where Steve shoots someone who was about to attack WW and she looks at him, and then the wonderful sequence afterwards in the village where they dance, Charlie sings, and then the scene when he brings her to her room. Who’s heart didn’t melt when he walks back in the room, closes the door, and she gives him “fuck me” eyes.
Not to mention she is so insanely gorgeous that you literally can’t take your eyes off of her. Without a doubt true definition of beauty. I think half the country is in love with Gal Gadot right now.
Also, there’s a great youtube video that explains something that was new to me, called bathos, which is a concept in writing where you take something serious and then make a joke, which take away the emotion you had for it being serious. I had felt this way about the marvel movies (I still love them too), but I didn’t know there was a name for it. They use as an example Dr Strange, where its supposed to be the epic moment where he becomes a badass, the cape flies on him, and we are supposed to be emotionally invested in this scene, and then the cape tickles his nose and we laugh, but then we lose the sense of importance of this scene. Marvel does this a lot. But WW didn’t do this. It had serious scenes, you get invested in them, and they don’t cheap out and ruin it by putting a joke in. It makes you care so much more about the movie.
The movie wasn’t perfect. The accents on Themyscura (..) were ridiculous, and honestly when the movie first started (like 4 minutes in) I had serious doubts and was worried this would be a terrible movie. The ending got a little sloppy, but I’m not sure how they could have improved it. The chemist lady was ridiculous.
Anyway, I loved this movie. Gal Gadot was perfect casting. I give it a 9.9/10. My favorite superhero movie by far.
