Wonder Woman

We can all officially take a deep breath now. Why you ask? DC has finally produced a quality movie!! Sure some people liked Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel (2013), but with a critic score of 55%, I think it is fair to say that DC has fallen short on all three of its feature films since 2013. I am pleased to say that Wonder Woman has surpassed all expectations. Director Patty Jenkins killed it in only her second feature film ever as a director. There is hope for the future of DCEU!

The Bad

As is to be expected with a movie about an Amazonian Goddess, there is some funky mythology at the beginning of the story. A lot of it was it was pretty heretical and maybe a little too much to handle at times. I couldn’t help but get the feeling that they could’ve spent half the time on the mythology part of her origin story and it wouldn’t have hurt the film at all.

Parts of this movie move a little bit slow. To give you an illustration of this point, I remember needing to go to the bathroom about an hour into the movie and looking for a slow part of the plot to duck out on. Luckily for me, there was about a 20-30 minute segment where nothing much really happens and your just kind of waiting for the next big plot point. I shouldn’t complain too much about that though. If it didn’t have slow parts then I could’ve missed something important in the bathroom.

My least favorite thing about Wonder Woman has to do with the way the twist in the conflict goes down towards the end. I am definitely not planning on spoiling it for y’all, but I will say that I didn’t think that it was really that necessary. I was liking the way the conflict was progressing up to that point and the change just felt kind of dumb.

The Good

The two main things that made this movie so enjoyable for me were named Chris Pine and Gal Gadot. Since I didn’t necessarily love the story, it put a lot more pressure on the likability of the characters for me to love this movie. The supporting cast was good as well, but Pine and Gadot are on another level. Gadot has really come into her own with the role and has proven the casting choice to be an excellent one. When she arrives in London for the first time she is basically a fish out of water. She did an excellent job in portraying the kind of misunderstanding innocence of someone who had never been off of her island was bound to have. As great as she was, Pine was even that much better in my opinion. His signature style of deadpan humor was what made this movie so enjoyable and appealing to more than just DC Comics fans. Humor isn’t something you really expect out of DC movies these days, and that is probably the main reason why Marvel reaches out to such a broader audience than DC tends to attract to its movies. Chris Pine and Gal Gadot’s performances are both hilarious and heartfelt. They elicit more than just a couple laughs while also bringing out some emotions from the audience in the end.

I found the style of cinematography to be very interesting to me. It came across as kind of old fashion in order to match the era at times but also unique for some of the action sequences. It reminded me a little of the original Captain America in that way. I also really enjoyed the music of the film. The score was composed by Rupert Gregson-Williams and really added a lot to the tension and tone felt by the audience.

The Rating

There is no question to me that Wonder Woman is the best DC movie since The Dark Knight Rises. It is an all-around enjoyable film that I think most audiences will enjoy. It is much lighter than most of the DC movies have been of late and I think it will probably be a fun watch for kids in their early teenage years and up. I am really thankful that this movie is so good because it gives the world a reason to be excited about the upcoming Justice League film. Wonder Woman is definitely worth a watch!