Review of Wonder Woman (2017) by Dramatic15 — 01 Jun 2017

Yes, go see Wonder Woman! It is, straight out, the best film of the 20 super-shared-continuity tentpoles of the past decade. The innovation: tell an interesting human story, with well observed moments about rounded characters. The care extends to the action sequences which are interesting to watch and carry emotional weight, not simply relying on manic editing.

Great casting across the board. Real actors, committed to a role (not merely slumming for a paycheck), and met halfway by a screenwriter, can work wonders for a genre film. (See: the collected work of Patrick Stewart) Robin Penn Wright is a standout as an early mentor, but all the supporting parts are well drawn. Gadot and Pin work exceptionally well together. We've never seen super/sidekick relationship done this well before in the movies.

Why is the movie good rather than great? It's downfall is the inevitable lifeless "climax shapped" third act CGI slugfest that inflicts the modern comic movie. If you ask someone about the best moment from the end of a recents supers movie, most people will struggle to recall anything other than the post-credits shawarma scene from the Avengers. It is likely that this is a failure attributable to the (not altogether unreasonable) cowardness of contemporary film executives in the face of budgets of 100s of millions of dollars. It is certainly not attributable to the action movie form itself. Each of the Star Wars films, for example, ended on a remarkable action sequence with real emotion stakes, each of which capped the emotional journey of the protagonist.

But if Wonder Woman, with all its strengths, can't quite overcome the boat anchor tacked to the end of a modern franchise flick, it does inject a few twists to redeem it. The director makes a rough, but serviceable landing in the face of the overwhelming headwinds of the form, showing a possible way forward beyond merely ending on a joke filled set piece ala Guardians and Avengers. Hopefully the film will be a great success, and the director will be given the latitude to make a great sequel.