Review: Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman is the latest movie in the DCEU and it's without a doubt the best so far.
Plot:
Before she was Wonder Woman, she was Diana, princess of the Amazons, trained to be an unconquerable warrior. Raised on a sheltered island paradise, when a pilot crashes on their shores and tells of a massive conflict raging in the outside world, Diana leaves her home, convinced she can stop the threat. Fighting alongside man in a war to end all wars, Diana will discover her full powers and her true destiny.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0451279/plotsummary?ref_=tt_stry_pl
What really surprised me is how good Gal Gadot is as Wonder Woman. We got a quick glimpse of her in Batman v Superman but I still had doubts she could carry a movie on her own. But she does a fantastic job. Gal Gadot is no experienced actor and in some of the more emotional scenes you can still see that. What she is great at is the physicality of the action scenes. She is believable as a superhuman warrior. The other thing she excels at is the naivety and good heartedness of Diana when she leaves her home themyscira and enters the world of men. When she gets excited to see a baby or eat ice cream, it not only makes for good comical moments, but also makes her so likeable, that we don't want her to lose that childlike view on the world.
A lot of that is Patty Jenkins achievement, directing Gal to bring out her strengths and masking her weaknesses. Overall the movie is incredibly well directed and the fact that Warner Bros seems neglectful in hindsight.
The standout performance in this movie is Chris Pine as Steve Trevor. He really acts his heart out, especially in one scene in the third act, he shows what a great actor he truly is.
Let's talk about the movie itself. The movie is very clearly structured in 3 acts that all have their own atmosphere and color palette.
The first act in themyscira introduces Diana and the amazons. Bright colors with a lot of green and white shows what a paradise themyscira is, with beautiful and strong amazon warriors. When Steve Trevor shows up and introduced us to The War and the villain, the sacrifice Diana is willing to make is also enhanced by the difference in color. With Steve being the "fish out of water" we get explanation about the mythology of the amazons and some funny moments.
The second act then shows us the world of men, the war with London and the front line. everything gets muddy with brown and grey colors. This time it is Diana, who is the "fish out of the water" to explain things a create comical situations. Steve picks up a rag-tag band of fighters to join them, but they only get a few scenes that develop the characters, so that i never really cared much for them. Once we leave London for the frontline, the action gets really rolling. The "no man's land" scene is visually stunning and choreographed really well. It's just a cool scene that shows what Wonder Woman is capable of.
The third act is when the movie sadly turns into a CGI fest. We still get a couple of great character scenes between Diana and Steve, but the reveal of the big bad guy and the following action scene fall flat for me. With that the movie doesn’t end on a low note, but is not able to keep up the high of the first two acts.
Overall the movie is a remarkable success on many levels.
It' a success for Gal Gadot, who showed us that she is able to carry a movie as a lead. hopefully it will lead to more female led superhero movies.
It's a success for Patty Jenkins who will not definitely not have to wait for 14 years to get a shot at another big movie. Hopefully it will also lead to studios giving more female directors a chance to direct big budget movies.
It's a success for Warner Bros who seem to steer the DCEU in the right direction. Hopefully they are able make Justice League great so that we get a great third superhero universe.
My Rating: 8/10
