Review of Wonder Woman (2017) by Dane H — 14 Oct 2017

This movie was terrible.

They pissed all over the fundamentals of movie-making. The shots were bland and lacked creativity (compare to something like Inglourious Basterds), none of the music was memorable (except for the extremely out-of-place electric cello piece), the CGI stuntwork was keyframed so poorly it looked like Wonder Woman had been replaced by a goddamn inflatable Gumby doll during the action sequences, the story was utterly incompetent, the dialogue was cringe-inducing, the movie couldn't even keep a consistent tone throughout the runtime and repeatedly shit all over its own message, the acting was ABYSMAL (Chris Pine can't act for shit), and the final twist (and villain) was so goddamn ridiculous I nearly burst out laughing in the theater.

The tone of the movie is what really makes it look incompetent. At first, their entire premise was that "Ares makes men kill each other, he's the bad guy" and start building him up. When the cocaine-snorting German general is impaled and nothing happens, the film actually begins to adopt the far less juvenile message of "Human beings are complicated, often violent, and that needs to be respected if you're to understand and prevent misery", but then the movie throws that completely out the window when Nigel Thornberry, the God of War, appears out of nowhere and engages in a laser light show with Gal Gadot, saying, "Humans are like this all the time anyway, I just give them tools for destruction." When Gal Gadot puts on the puppy dog eyes and says "Love is the answer", and then vaporizes Nigel Thornberry with a goddamn lightning bolt, the German soldiers all immediately sit up, smiling like idiots, as if they were freed from the evil influence of Ares, completely annihilating whatever (slightly) intelligent point they were going for. It was messy, it was wildly incompetent, and I'll never understand how $150 million was poured into such a travesty.

I wouldn't normally complain about things like trivializing the importance of an armed conflict, but when a director so cheerfully glosses over one of the biggest wars to ever occur in such a wildly egregious manner, I can't help but bring it up. You can't honestly tell me it was a good idea to write a movie about an invincible woman who waltzes through the hellish trenches of World War 1 in HEELS AND A MINISKIRT, and then ENDS THE WAR WITH THE POWER OF LOVE. It's insultingly stupid, and should never have been written, let alone executed in its entirety with a budget of $150 million behind it. It's a trainwreck.

This all might have been bearable had the characters been well-developed or likable in any way. Chris Pine is a terrible actor and his awfulness immediately breaks immersion for whatever movie I see him in (notably Star Trek: Beyond). He was so absorbed with trying not to trip over his damn lines (which he does do, numerous times), that he ends up saying them in a completely emotionless and vapid way. It's like he's a robot. There's a scene where the script calls for him to improvise (on the boat), and he blows it in ways I never knew an actor could blow a performance. It's like Chris Pine had stage fright and the team was unable to do so much as a second take when they realized he couldn't improvise worth shit. He mumbles about awkwardness (watching him forget what to say while on-screen creates an intensely awkward moment on the boat), and spouts some nonsense that I can only imagine was intended to be funny, but ends up executing it similarly to a wildly insecure high-school drama student who shakes uncontrollably when he goes on-stage. He pours all his effort into not having a breakdown while on set and forgetting what to say that he's got NOTHING left to actually put into facial expressions, intonations, gestures, or really anything at all. This fool is payed millions JUST to act well, and he can't even put forth the effort to learn his lines.

The same is mostly true with Gal Gadot, though not to such an incredible degree as Chris Pine. Gal Gadot suffers from the same "Too wrapped up in the lines to show any emotion whatsoever" issue as Chris Pine. It quickly becomes clear that she is unable to cry on cue, which is a major must for any aspiring actor. She's clearly got insufficient skill or experience to pull off a role she's being paid millions for.

Though it's not as if either of them had anything to work with. The script was horrendous. It's got a ton of pointless filler that does nothing to develop or create investment in the characters, which, hilariously, causes the movie to rush through the sections that contained actual meaningful character development or plot progression. If it weren't so messily paced, they perhaps could have developed the character of Ares a bit more than the awful motivation of "EVERYTHING THEY BUILT WILL FALL, AND IN ITS PLACE, WE'LL BUILD A BETTER ONE" that the universally-panned X-Men: Apocalypse movie had. He comes out of nowhere, and fights Wonder Woman in another shameful display of two invincible idiots punching each other to no end, and then gets obliterated with a lightning bolt for whatever reason. And on top of that, he looks like a British caricature, with a weak chin, bald head, and a mustache. Who's idea was it to cast this man as Ares? It's like a Rottweiler with the head of a poodle! He looks ridiculous!

The movie is essentially a very poorly-done rendition of Captain America: The First Avenger. If you compare the two, you'll notice a disturbing amount of similarities. In both movies, a gaudy superhero with a shield is dumped into the front lines of one of the World Wars, and fights their way to a secret enemy base. A villainous enemy leader fights the hero while a huge armored plane containing doomsday weapons is taking off, with a male protagonist leaping on at the last second to sacrifice himself by destroying the plane.

If you want to watch a movie like Wonder Woman, but actually enjoyable and not insultingly stupid, I would highly recommend Captain America: The First Avenger. The villains are compelling and rich, not some one-dimensional cocaine-snorting gorilla and a surprise appearance by Arnigel Thornzennegerberry. There's threat, there's development, there's a great color palette with great special effects. The vehicle design is great and it doesn't feel anywhere near as contrived as WW.