Wonder Woman

Starring: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, David Thewlis, Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright & Danny Huston

Directed by: Patty Jenkins

Rating: ★★★½

I honestly wasn’t too keen on seeing yet another superhero prequel/sequel/spinoff after the poor quality of the most recent crop, but I thought I might as well give Wonder Woman a go. And I’m glad I did. Action packed, entertaining and at times genuinely funny, Wonder Woman is a high-quality superhero movie that stands well above the other DC dross of recent years- but that doesn’t make it perfect.

Wonder Woman is ready to kick some ass!

What is essential a prequel/flashback to the age of The First World War, Wonder Woman is an origin story with a difference, in that it mixes Greek mythos with conventional superhero tropes to create a world that is just about believable. 

Ancient Greek gods are real??

After receiving a photograph from Batman- which was seen briefly in Batman vs Superman- Wonder Woman, aka Diana Prince, tells us the story of how she came to be the superheroine we last saw beating the crap out of a giant green monster whilst Batman hid and Superman saved Lois for the seventieth time.

Strike a pose...

Diana grew up on the secret mystically hidden island of Themyscira, home of the Amazons, a race of warrior women tasked with looking after a weapon that can ‘kill the gods’. Diana’s mother, Queen Hippolyta (Nielsen) is not happy when her sister General Antiope (Wright) trains Diana to be a warrior, but it’s a good thing she does because when a World War I spy called Steve Trevor (Pine) crashes off the coast of the island and brings Nazi invaders with him, the warrior woman must put her millennia of training to the test. 

Chris and Gal are good together...

After the encounter, Diana realises that she must leave the sacred island so that she can help Steve end the war by stopping General Ludendorff (Huston) from releasing toxic nerve gas on London.

Diana dancing with the devil...

There’s also a random side story about Ares, god of war, for no real reason.

Don't mess with the Amazons!

Overall, Wonder Woman is a pretty good film. Watching Diana and Steve team up with some random secondary characters to save the world is great fun, and the fight scenes, although similar to 300 in their superfluous slow-mo, are the best I’ve seen for quite a while. On the whole, the characters are well developed and both Gadot and Pine given solid, likeable performances.

It's time to save the world!

However, I have two main issues with the film. 

'With moi?'

My first is that the tagged on additional ending and extra villain is completely unnecessary. We have already seen Wonder Woman take part in an epic monster battle in Batman v Superman so do we really need to see another one?

That man from Harry Potter is in the film for no real reason...

My second problem is that, as much as Diana is a kick-ass warrior woman who gets character development and can beat the crap out of everyone, she is often reduced to a secondary player. In typical Bond Girl style, Diana is introduced as a strong independent woman not to be messed with- and then becomes subservient to the male lead by standing around behind him and allowing him to dominate most of the plot.

Who is really the star of the film?

Although this doesn’t ruin the film, I can’t imagine this type of lapse of agency happening to Diana’s male counterparts: can you imagine Iron Man standing behind Pepper Potts for most of the movie, or Batman always deferring to a female counterpart? No, we can’t, and the reason why is because they are men and so must have the authority. As a woman, Diana can’t be allowed to be ‘too strong’- or else every man watching might discover that their genitalia have withered and died by the end credits.

'Where has it gone??'

In the movie’s defence, they justify this by saying Wonder Woman is just a ‘fish out of water’ in a man’s world she doesn’t understand and so she must take Steve’s led- but at times I found his character too bossy, dominating and patronising towards someone who has never met a man before and has been raised to be a warrior princess. I’m not sure she’d realistically take this kind of crap from him. 

In standard Bond Girl style, Diana gets to wear a beautiful dress...

They try to diffuse the situation by saying ‘everyone in the old days was sexist so Diana should know her place’- and although this sort of works, I found it a touch unbelievable. I also didn’t like the fact there was a love interest storyline, but I guess they had to put this in otherwise the world would have exploded or something.

'Can't I save the day by myself?'

Regardless of these predictable issues, Wonder Woman is, for now, the best we’ll get on the big screen for any superheroine out there, so we should probably just accept it, embrace it and enjoy it for what it is.

Don't mess with Diana!

Overall Wonder Woman feels fresh, is funny and has a light touch that doesn’t make the film boring or harrowing. The sexual innuendo is amusing and the action sequences are brilliant- especially the ones on the front line. 

No really- don't mess with her!!

And although the film ends with Diana jumping out of an open window and floating through the air for no real reason, I would recommend it to anyone who wants to watch a decent, solid superhero movie. Especially when there’s nothing else worth watching at the moment.