2017 Films: #6. Wonder Woman

June 13th in Charleston, WV. It seems we've been  waiting for years for Wonder Woman to hit the big screen. During that time in the DCEU, Superman was rebooted twice. Batman had three films with Christian Bale then switched to Ben Affleck and a forgettable Green Lantern film was released. There was even a failed Wonder Woman TV pilot. What we did get was a taste of everyone's favorite Amazon on last year's lousy Batman v. Superman. She was one of the very few bright spots.

Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a staggering 92%. The film has made over $350 million domestically to date to with a $100 million opening weekend. Now I don't feel the movie warranted a 92% rating. The story borrows heavily Captain America: The First Avenger. But I guess they the writers wanted to stick with a proven formula and they did, heck, they even found a way for Chris Pine to ride a motorcycle. It took a long time to get Wonder Woman to the big screen and it's a huge success. Wonder Woman will be appearing next in the upcoming Justice League film set to be released later this year. Of the four DCEU films that have been released so far, this one is by far the best. That may not be saying much but it's a good start.

The picture is directed by Patty Jenkins and she did a nice job putting this blockbuster together. So much so that she's already attached to the sequel as a writer. The action scenes are put together well and the film is a lot of fun. The film has an all-star cast with stand out performances from  Connie Nielsen as Hippolyta, Diana's over protective mother and Robin Wright as Antiope, Diana's aunt who trains Diana as a warrior against her mother's wishes. To be honest, it's the females that have all of the good parts and do the best work. Chris Pine is essentially Jim Kirk; Danny Huston, as usual, plays a bad guy and David Thewlis plays a British guy. Elena Anaya is the evil Dr. Maru, who I thought could've used a bit more development. That brings us to Gal Gadot. Gadot took a lot of static when it was announced in 2013 that she would be playing the role. I felt she'd be fine and dammit! She was awesome. Shes does real well in the action scenes and she has a bit of innocence about her when she ventures into man's world (the old fish out of water cliche) for the first time. It seemed to me like the women in the cast, not to mention Jenkins, knew what was at stake (this being the first super hero film with a female lead meaning that box office failure would have turned it into the only female superhero film) and knocked it out of the park. Oh, by the way, most of the problems I have are with the story which was written by three men. Which is probably why Jenkins is attached to the sequel as a writer.

The story is derivative. We get an Amazon backstory but Diana's arc follows the "you're special/the power comes from within you" trope. Make no mistake, just because "she's special" doesn't mean that Diana doesn't work her tail off. Antiope trains her and "good enough" isn't part of her vocabulary. I can sit here and make fun of the story (as I mentioned earlier it borrows a lot from the MCU overall which is probably a good choice seeing how Marvel has had their sh*t together for sometime now) and poke holes in the plot all day long, personally I would wait until Cinema Sins releases their video as they are much better at it than myself. This film is a lot of fun and a must see on the big screen.