Movie: Wonder Woman

Proposed Wonder Woman subtitle: "Finally. A DC Movie I Can Get Behind. (Generally.)"

(Note: I know I have missed out on reviewing so many movies, but that's coming in a compiled post, so bear with me. It will be published! Haha.)

General Review

Was this the best superhero movie ever? No. Will it make me join the DC fandom (Young Justice, general love for Barry Allen, and casual mentions of Dick Grayson aside)? Possibly. Is it the best movie in the DCEU thus far? Absolutely.

From start to finish, this was a wonderful (hah) movie to watch. It was easy to get into, fun to get lost in, and honestly just beautiful to watch. The fight scenes were insane, Gal Gadot absolutely kills it as Diana Prince...ss of the Amazons, and it has a cool villain - it ticks off every box in the Good Superhero Movie checklist, and then some just for being the first female-led superhero movie in the recent boom of the genre.

While sometimes erring on the side of "too much" in terms of humanization and not always delivering climactic finishes to cap off the eyegasm of slow-mo fight scenes, this movie was still an insane leap forward not just for the DCEU, but for the comic book movie genre itself. 

I'm going to say this as a very devoted MCU fan: GET ON THIS LEVEL, MARVEL.

What Worked

• Gal freakin' Gadot (and yet another Chris playing a Steve)
  You know what, I'm just going to come right out and say it: Gal Gadot is probably the smartest casting choice in the DCEU so far. Not only does she look the part, she knows how to act. She's able to carry the not inconsiderable weight of the Wonder Woman mythology on her shoulders, and she does it with such finesse that you can't look away. When Steve says she's "distracting," you know he doesn't just mean her appearance.
  
  I'll also be honest and say that I couldn't help but see parallels between Diana and existing MCU characters. She's an amalgam of the mythology (and general cluelessness about The Real World) of Thor, the origin story of Captain America, the identity crisis as (spoilers for Netflix's Daredevil Season 2) The Weapon like Electra in Daredevil, and the jumping powers of Quake in Agents of SHIELD. She's all that and more, so, really, Marvel, there's no excuse!
  
  ALSO, and I'll get more into this later, Gal Gadot has pretty good comedic timing.
  
  -- and speaking of comedic timing: CHRIS PINE. Yo. Good job, man. Even beyond his usual comedy, that scene where he (spoiler) blows up the plane with the bombs, the few seconds before he does it and he has to make that decision was pretty amazingly acted. It was agonizing, and I felt every bit of it. Good job, man.
  
  

• STRONG WOMEN
  There's something so novel about seeing an intense training montage featuring just women. It's kind of amazing. I said this already when the trailer came out, but there's really so little that could go wrong with this movie. There's nothing to live up to. No previous legendary Wonder Woman movie, no other female-led superhero franchises in recent history. Literally just give us a bunch of fight-training women and we'll be on our way to at least a 70% in RottenTomatoes.
  
  But yeah, this went above and beyond that. They even had the child!Diana do the x-arms-with-the-gauntlet thing that also happened in Batman v Superman! CALLBACK! It's always great to have fight-training that means something instead of just pandering to the audience.
  
  Really, the whole movie had distinctly and meaningfully strong female characters (and in different ways too -- holla at ya girl Etta Candy).
  
  
• HUMOR?! IN MY SAD AND GRAY DCEU?!
  There was some train of thought I was having before the movie where I distinctly remember thinking, "Well, it's not like it's gonna be funny." BUT HEY! Way to branch out, DC! I didn't expect that amount of levity in any movie not including Barry Allen, but you've really exceeded expectations in more ways than one.
  
  I loved the humor of this movie, from the laugh-out-loud parts with Etta to the small bits like Diana fawning over a baby (same, Diana). Still, and I think this is important to say especially to all Them Marvel Haters out there, having some humor in the movie didn't make it Marvel-like at all! It was its own brand of humor distinct in this franchise, and it didn't take anything away from the movie's... DC-ness(?). It has its own voice, its own styles, its own way of telling the story that is distinctly un-Marvel-like.
  
  So, yes, the age-old question can finally be answered: humor and distinct DC-ness can co-exist without having the whole movie blow up in your face in a confusing neon mess called Suicide Squad.
  
  
• Good villain!
  I kept expecting Lupin to stop everything and offer Diana some chocolate for her ~dark feelings, but in the end, he made a pretty decent villain. Clear motivation, very cool (if slightly vague) powers, plot twist reveal - all topped with the cheesy but not untrue declaration of, "I'm evil, but see - humanity's even worse. They made this mess themselves!"
  
  This kind of villain is smart too because not only does it make sense in a cohesive narrative, but it adds a new layer of complexity to Diana's understanding of humanity - the understanding that it's not as simple as "can't we all just get along?" GOOD STUFF. I thought Dr. Poison might be Aries, but that would have been too predictable I suppose.

What Didn't Work

• Too many sexually charged scenes between Steve and Diana (enough already, we get it)
  WE GET IT, THEY LIKE EACH OTHER. I'm guessing all these scenes (and some of them, like the boat one, seemed to go on and on) existed to humanize Diana for the casual audience member. But, really, she was relatable enough when she wanted to go out and ~play (train) instead of study in the castle. Some of the scenes felt distinctly cringey, with an underlying feeling of, "Can we get on with the story now?"
  
  To clarify, I don't hate that she has a love interest in this movie. It's cool. It probably just didn't need to be quite so... played out. There was already enough chemistry established from the get-go for the audience to buy into their romance. It felt like we didn't even get a scene of them seeing each other - or I should say, of Steve seeing Diana - as anything other than a potential love interest. Even when he tried his best not to, all I could see was how he was trying not to see her that way, versus him trying to see her in literally any other way.
  
  Overall, I don't think this took too much away from the movie, but it bears saying.
  
  
• Fight scenes sometimes fell flat
  The scene in The Avengers (2012) that solidified my feelings for the franchise was, surprisingly, not one that involved Steve nor Tony. It was the scene where the Hulk jumps from the side of one building to another chasing down Chitauri. When he leaps, gets stuck in mid-air in almost-slow-motion, and body-slams into a Chitauri soldier, it awakened some intense fandom desire within me. I watched that movie at least six times in the theater, and each time, even when I knew it was coming, I could not watch that scene without doing a full-body twitch, stomping my feet, and slamming my arms together. It's invigorating.
  
  I feel the need to say this because a lot of the fight scenes in Wonder Woman, though beautifully choreographed and shot, felt like a bunch of the Hulk's leaps between buildings without the full-body-slam climax. I kept wanting it to happen, waiting for that moment where I'd have a full-body twitch, but it never came. The closest was when they started playing the theme (I think this was the scene in the town in No Man's Land?), but no cigar.
  
  
• Meh supporting characters
  Steve and Diana aside, Etta was probably the most interesting supporting character there. The other soldiers Steve recruited didn't do much for me emotionally - they were there, and then they weren't, and I wasn't too curious about where they ended up or how they got there.

So, yeah, overall: Some intense congratulations are in order, DC.

*ceremonial Dumbledore clap-clap*

(Imagine this is changing from "DC Movies Suck" to "#NOTALLDCMOVIES")

Bonus Round

All the parallels between Captain America (CA) and Wonder Woman (WW).

*deep breath*

• Main guy's name in Steve
• Steve is named by a scruffy-frat-bro-but-in-a-good-way white guy named Chris
• Except Steve in WW is actually the Peggy in CA, and Steve in CA is Diana in WW
• Diana believes in the natural goodness of humanity, Steve (WW) embodies that goodness; Steve (CA) actually is the embodiment of that goodness which is how the superserum works on him
• Diana doesn't understand how ~normal human life works; Steve (CA) doesn't understand the culture of the future
• Steve (WW) rallies a bunch of misfits to help them trudge through the war; Steve (CA) rallies the Howling Commandos (see: a bunch of misfits) to help them trudge through the war
• Both feature wars as the setting of origin stories
• The bad guys have taken some sort of ~enhancer (serum for Red Skull in CA; those little gas things in WW)
• Steve in WW has to blow up a plane with him in it to save a bunch of people from being bombed; Steve in CA has to dive a plane into the Arctic to save a bunch of people from being bombed
• Steve (WW) gives his watch to Diana to remember him by; Steve (CA) keeps a picture of Peggy in a pocket-watch
• Diana as a child is small/has to be trained, but is incredibly stubborn about wanting to fulfill her duty as an Amazon; Steve as his pre-serum self is small/cannot be trained because of various health issues, but is incredibly stubborn about wanting to fulfill his duty as an American
• Diana is looked down upon for being a woman; pre-serum Steve (CA) is looked down upon for being a frail man
• Diana wins an unwinnable fight in No Man's Land; Steve (WW) wins an unwinnable fight saving Bucky in the Hydra base
• Both were alive in the past but live in the present in their respective canons
• Diana eventually becomes part of the Justice League; Steve eventually becomes part of the Avengers
• Similar color schemes!
• Super strength!
• Shields!

(insert at-least-Diana-did-the-Do joke NO I'm classy and I won't do that) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯