Review of Wonder Woman (2017) by Baberuthless38 — 14 Jun 2017

A few comments:

- Most reviewers overlook the most obvious thing about the fight on the beach: there was nothing villainous about the Germans (who were just chasing a spy), so when the amazons ruthlessly attack them without provocation and slaughter them to the last man, it arguably sets a much darker tone than anything we've seen yet in the DCEU. Contra their self-rhetoric, the amazons seem to revel in warfare and killing and make sport of it (after all, their whole raison d'etre is to hunt down Ares and kill him); note that unlike Batman and Superman (who fight with grim determination when the situation demands it) Diana actually smirks cheerfully as she slices terrified German infantrymen to mincemeat, even though they're just anonymous people fighting for their country. This was a very shrewd, very dark take on "empowerment" as an excuse for celebrating morally gruesome behavior.

- Despite Gadot's indifferent performance (she apparently went to the same acting school as Daisy Ridley: "Open your eyes wider! Scrunch your brow up! Good, now pout! pout!"), the character of Diana likewise undermines well-worn superhero tropes. She is notable for her feminine passivity and receptivity; powerful she may be, but nothing she does is self-willed. She merely fulfills missions and directives handed down from Hippolyta and Steve, without knowing or caring about the larger picture (what middlebrow critics are calling "innocence" and "moxie" is really blithe naivete and ignorance). The one thing she does do impulsively is to leap up and gratuitously slaughter some Germans when the opportunity arises, but like I said, the amazons clearly love killing. Her lack of serious inner struggles or flaws to overcome throws her in sharp relief against the other superheroes on offer these days.

- Other tropes are undermined. There is almost no cliche more overworked these days than the Hollywood-diverse squad of sidekicks, but the striking thing here is that they're portrayed with wicked wit as mostly-useless caricatures: the grumbling Indian helps by providing SMOKE SIGNALS, the Muslim poses as a bumbling servant, and the Scotsman just babbles and gets in the way. The fact that the writers slip this by without being called out on these problematic blackface performances shows the true subtlety of imagination that went into the script.

- Similarly, Diana's mission ultimately fails. Yes, she kills Ares, but so what? It doesn't end the war, it doesn't prevent the next (far worse) war, it really doesn't do anything. This leads to the savagely cynical ending where Diana asserts that "only love can save the world" while retiring from heroine work to a life of obscurity (note how when she reappears in BvS no one has ever heard of her). Meanwhile Steve Trevor actually saves the day by destroying the poison gas (a threat Diana repeatedly made clear she didn't care about), making the ultimate heroic sacrifice to actually save lives and change the outcome of the war.

- In Man of Steel Clark overcame humanity's mistrust of his alien nature by proving his willingness to abandon loyalty to Krypton and fully assimilate to American society; the movie ends on a hopeful note that he'll be able to use his power to guide humanity toward a brighter future. Wonder Woman ends with Diana more alone and alienated than ever, withdrawing from the world having failed to save anyone or change anything. Again, this is the kind of brilliant subversion that Suicide Squad was supposed to have.

- Danny Huston looms hilariously over the movie as a caricature of a generic, scenery-chewing face of evil. I definitely think the filmmakes made some bold choices, but they are far from making "warfare itself" the villain as some have proposed; if anything they provide a postmodern critique of that approach by showing how trench warfare -- so horrifying to the men who fought it -- is basically a fun game (and chance to show off) to the indestructible Diana. Huston's deliberately underwhelming and absurd fight with Diana is a blackly comic take on the bloated 3rd act showdown these movies always feel obligated to provide (this is then FURTHER lampshaded by actually giving us a bloated 3rd act showdown, against a literal mustache-twirling Dark Apparition From Nowhere with less gravity than a Final Fantasy villain). - Lastly it was amusing how the Germans were so Nazified despite this being WW1. This itself comments on the absurdity of the whole concept of putting a superheroine (especially a cheesecake lingerie-model superheroine in a padded leather corset) in the middle of a horrific meat grinder historical event like WW1. The point is that the studio is saying "WW1, WW2, Nazis or not Nazis, what's the difference? You think the proles in Dayton (and Beijing) will care? They're Krauts! They deserve to die!". This is black humor at its finest, and makes a trenchant jab at the similar dehumanization of the Other seen in movies like Saving Private Ryan.