"Wonder Woman" review

Hell has finally frozen over.


Sometimes you just can’t beat around the bush and with each successive film of the DC Extended Universe being received more as train wrecks carrying massive dumpster fires, it’s too damn important to get right out of the way before anything else that “Wonder Woman” is a damn good movie.

Covering her arrival into the world of man during World War I and the harsh lessons that she must endure regarding the shades of grey of the world after living a life under the belief of black and white morality controlled by mysticism and gods, the final film comes together not only as a calculated antithesis of everything that has been wrong with the film based DC Extended Universe to date but hearkens back to the golden period of superhero filmmaking from 14 to 15 years ago when the focus was on powerful  single entry storytelling independent of serving as cogs to ham-fisted shared universe franchise building machinery.

Dialogue actually sounds natural to the human tongue and is recited by actors that feel like real people as opposed to cardboard spouts for faux philosophical claptrap laid out over what essentially boils down to a dude-bro punch face contest.

But I digress. Measuring the accomplishments of “Wonder Woman” against the failure of every other DCEU project would be a redundancy since I’ve experienced dental appointments more satisfying than “Dawn of Justice” and “Suicide Squad” combined. What makes the film so damn refreshing beyond comparative success is just how much it works on its own.

The film has seen many comparisons to “Captain America: The First Avenger,” right down to the theory that shifting the titular hero Diana Prince’s origin to focus on the first World War as opposed to the infamous second was to help it stand a bit more uniquely.

Anybody who has read my previous work knows just how high up I hold “The First Avenger” as a film so I hope that that praise best illustrates my love of director Patty Jenkins’ second feature film when I say that “Wonder Woman” is essentially that very movie but even better.

Regardless of what prompted the shift to World War I, the conflict’s messy nature makes for an excellent sort of coming of age story for a larger than life figure who has all the power to make the world a better place but must pull back and learn exactly how to use it in order to do so, as well as learn from the mistakes of humanity rather than judge them.

This is just about the most human superhero movie that I’ve probably seen since “Spider-Man 2” and the mileage that they get out of the war time setting is outright astonishing; a strong mix of excellently shot and imaginatively choreographed action set pieces on living locales and brought together by a cast of actors that really go above and beyond the call of duty.

Gal Gadot still has some room for improvement in her craft but she utterly owns this role from the physicality, to the sensitive and nurturing side of Wonder Woman’s personality, to the fierce determination in the heat of the moment and even on the smaller comedic fish out of water bits which are so earnest in their execution that they never get old and are less laugh out loud funny and more admirably endearing despite their quirkiness.

Chris Pine’s take on her career military guide to the world and leading man Steve Trevor damn near steals the show, managing to subtly display aspects of being a product of his time but without devolving into downright sexist caricature.

His banter and chemistry with Gadot’s Diana would have been a pleasurable 2 hour watch through alone but once the subtle characterization for his military comrades and the strains of war and mortality begin to kick in, the film builds to something damn near transcendent that brought a tear to my eye just out of the awe inspired by its sheer level of imagination through the nuances of a particularly strong screenplay that Jenkins brings to life in ways that really make me wish that she hadn’t departed production on “Thor: The Dark World” nearly 5 years ago.

“Wonder Woman” is damn near everything you could possibly ask for out of a Summer blockbuster and more and I have a hard time believing that it won’t end up being one of my favorite films of the year. That said however, it is not without a healthy share of hiccups.

Despite the action being generally well choreographed there are several editing and visual choices that are more than a little bit suspect; a slight overabundance of slow-motion, particularly in the first half of the film, makes it feel like a bit more of a drag than it really should be and several usages of CGI models in combat not only become egregious but raise questions on exactly what Wonder Woman is capable of in terms of certain types of physical prowess.

The villains are a little bit on the weak side, although one could more argue that the war itself is more of a metaphysical antagonist than any individual being. While this rather apt interpretation of the film would perhaps be the most accurate, it is also unfortunately undermined by a third act twist that opens the door to a climax that was so visually bonkers and divorced from everything the film had been doing up to that point that I was beginning to suspect my auditorium had been gassed with some sort of hallucinogenic.

As far as disappointing climaxes go, it still has far more worth than a lot of its peers but for a film that had managed to delightfully surprise at just about every possible corner, it’s a bit disappointing to see it leave you on a pedestrian note that it almost had to crowbar in as it was a slip up that had been previously nowhere in sight.

It becomes the biggest flaw of the movie and unfortunately plants itself as one of the final notes that the movie ends on before that electric cello kicks  in for the credits and reminds you that her previous film appearance also sabotaged the opportunity for her to have a decent musical theme.

All of these flaws are very noticeable but what they are not is detractive from the experience. “Wonder Woman” may use templates of films that came before it but the sheer strength of its execution puts it toe to toe with some of the better Superhero films of the last decade and even manages to find its own voice without falling into the trappings of formula established by its contemporaries.

It’s been quite a while since I came across a film that I actually want to see again in theaters damn near immediately.

8 Truths Lassoed out of 10