Wonder Woman

This review may contain spoilers!

Well at least it wasn't as bad as Suicide Squad. I would give Wonder Woman a 4.5/10.

This film serves out a really interesting character study of Wonder Woman, from the overprotection of her mother at a young age to the hard rigour of training she is later subjected to in life. I found Diana to be an origin story unlike most; she would often feel very naive and grounded in absolute morality which is quite refreshing,the way in which she interacts with the world of mankind is quite a bit of fun entertainment too. There's a scene in this film that is absolutely perfect where she's told there's a line which she cannot possibly cross and then despite this Diana steps out and marches across an open battlefield, deflecting mortars and bullets. It's a big scene for showing what is at the heart of this film and despite a lot of the feature lacking this scene does good work. The film addresses it's wartime setting quite well, often putting injured soldiers and battered civilians under a spotlight. The score for the film is great, I especially loved the use of Zimmer's Wonder Woman theme.

Gal Gadot, who played Diana, is  great central protagonist for this film; I love the amount of heart Gadot puts into this character, it truly makes her feel like a purely good heroine. Said Taghmaoui, who played Sameer, is an especially witty role in this film; Tagmaoui has some great chenistry with Pine and the pair play off one another well. Ewen Bremner, who played Charlie, is quite a gruff character who's a bit crude when first you meet him; but Bremner puts in the hard work to show how afflicted by war his character is and the gentler side to his role that exists. Lucy Davis, who played Etta, was an incredibly fun bit of comedic relief; Davis brought a lot of carefully placed wit into scenes that needed a bit of livening up. Lilly Aspell, who played Young Diana, was a really cute take on our central protagonist; I loved how headstrong and determined she was right from the start.

However the best performance came from Chris Pine, who played Steve Trevor. You can't help but like Pine in this film, he has a cockiness and bravado about him that makes him quite a charismatic role. I really enjoyed his chemistry with Gadot and the discussions they had around human morality and war. Pine presented a truly heroic figure who charged into battle and showed a real strategic eye to conflict. There were plenty of moments of intense emotion from him too, especially in the scenes where he was bound by the lasso or dancing with Diana. Pine absolutely steals the show in this feature and if there's one character who will stay with you above all else after viewing it'll be Steve Trevor.

This film was really solid for the first two acts but the final act of the film brings it right down to the level that I've come to expect from a DC feature. Throughout the film there had been a strong focus upon human morality and Diana as a champion of what is naturally good in the world; yet in the final act this gets really distorted and the idea she begins to champion is that love triumphs over all, with her love for Steve being thrust into the foreground as opposed to being a nice background subplot. Furthermore we're introduced to the film's major villain, Ares, who has had a lot of set up for the rather tragic reality. Somewhere amongst Ares deluge of lines you start figuring out that his motive this entire time has been to get Wonder Woman on his side, a trope as old and convenient as the hills. Ares is the type of villain that the film banks a lot on and he's far too generic for a lot of what the film has been trying to say up until this point; it's a let down to see Wonder Woman go off on a tangent to fight him while Steve and the others go and face a completely separate threat. The manner in which the German soldiers act as if they've been released from an evil spell once the bad guy has been dealt with is a real eye-roll moment too; the film had some great messages about war and human morals and taking such a simple route really compromised what it was trying to say. The Amazons at the start of the feature also deal out a heavy amount of exposition and we keep revisiting this exposition throughout the film; the pacing feels slow and bogged down with a lot of information and many more unnecessary scenes. The entire feature feels quite poorly set up with the whole concept around justifying the photograph of Wonder Woman that we see in Batman V Superman, there surely could have been a far superior manner in which to introduce this character to the world than through a pen pal exchange with Batman. The cinematography shows a good eye in select battle sequences but it often plays things quite safe, in fact many of the shots aren't very well framed and for a blockbuster it lacks impact. The special effects are also riddled with gratuitous moments of slow motion, Ares looking like a poorly animated World of Warcraft design and CGI animated props like the lasso feeling out of place in the scenes they were used in.

Connie Nielsen, who played Hippolyta, had no emotional range as a monarch character or as a motherly figure; it was extremely hard to find any shred of chemistry between her and Gadot. Robin Wright, who played Antiope, was a character that was clearly going to die from the minute she appeared onscreen; her emotional range extended to the same length as that of Nielsen and it was hard to tell the pair apart at times. Danny Huston, who played Ludendorff, was a very two-dimensional evil German general; whether it was snorting super strength drugs (???) or giggling over doing evil deeds Huston went way too over the top here. David Thewlis, who played Sir Patrick, has to be one of the blandest performers in the trade currently; Thewlis does not fit the role of Ares and fails to capture the menacing presence this role required. Eugene Brave Rock, who played The Chief, adds very little to this film other than some lip service to crimes against Native Americans; he often falls into the background and fits the 'tag along' stereotype quite well. Elena Anaya, who played Dr. Maru, was such a weak evil scientist role; the way she stumbles along blindly following Huston without ever really having much impact of her own.