Wonder Woman review: Patty Jenkins delivers the best DC movie yet with Gal Gadot returning as the titular superhero.
Wonder Woman review, Tom Fordy.
Wonder Woman review
Just like our dear old mums, Wonder Woman has a lot resting on her shoulders – not only the fate of mankind, but also the first (proper) female-led superhero movie, and the so-far-so-fucking-woeful DC Universe. Poor cow.
But she can handle the pressure. Because – also like our dear old mums – it turns out that she’s twice the hero that either Batman or Superman is.
The story – Amazonian warrior princess journeys to the real world and fights in WWI – draws obvious comparisons to Marvel’s Captain America: The First Avenger. But it takes its best cues from Thor, as a fantastical fish-out-of-water story.
Wonder Woman review
Wonder Woman AKA Diana Prince’s naivety and misunderstanding of the real world (for instance, trying to accessorise a sword and shield with her new posh lady duds) is what gives the story its charm – plus Gal Gadot’s charming performance, of course – and puts it miles ahead the rest of the otherwise po-faced DCU.
Suicide Squad was a mess. Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice descended into a dick-swinging contest over whose mum was the deadest. But Man of Steel was the worst offender: a horribly judged effort to give Supes the Dark Knight treatment and make him “work” in the real world – by stripping away the magic (and pants) that are so integral to the character.
Wonder Woman doesn’t make the same mistake, despite being having fans around the world holding a microscope to it. Instead, the film embraces the character’s fantasy elements to give the film some much-needed self-awareness. The Lasso of Truth makes an early appearance and there’s a good laugh from the fact Diana was moulded from clay.
Wonder Woman review
A better compassion than anything from DC or Marvel is last year’s Ghostbusters remake, which set out to present women as proper action stars – without being sexualised – for the first time.
Wonder Woman reveals similar(ish) intentions in the opening minutes: as a young girl, Diana watches her fellow Amazonian warriors in training and emulates their double-hard sword-swinging moves – a none-too-subtle message about presenting girls with a fighting champion to idolise.
It‘s not long before she’s chopping the balls off action movie convention by saving Hollywood leading man Chris Pine’s arse from a submerged aeroplane.
Pine’s a good choice of sidekick foil for the feminist superhero (in a parallel dimension he’s Captain James T. Kirk, the galaxy’s greatest – or should that be worst? – womaniser) and there’s plenty of fun with in the inevitable gender play between Diana and Pine’s US spy, Steve Trevor.
The humour comes from Trevor trying to prove his masculinity to a woman who has never met a man before, and has zero sense of what masculinity means – or why it matters.
The male/female dynamic is, of course, crucial to the film. The gods created the Amazonians specifically to sort out men’s problems (i.e. their insatiable lust for war and squabbling amongst themselves) and the best stuff in the movie comes when Diana first arrives in London and undermines the traditional male/female roles.
Trevor spends most of this time trying to shush Diana and telling her to cover up, to not alarm the ordinary man-folk, while Diana has no problem storming a meeting of stuffy war generals and giving them a few hard truths.
Wonder Woman review
Lucy Davies is best of British here as Trevor’s secretary (or as Diana dubs her “slave”) Etta, playing both a contrast and sort-of mentor to Wonder Woman. Etta’s quip about getting the vote is a reminder of women’s political history – and how ridiculous that sounds stood next to a woman we’ve already seen deck a boatload of German baddies.
By the time Diana gets her next major action sequence – a gripping charge into no-man’s-land (hey, nobody said anything about it being no-woman’s-land) – she’s smashed the rest of the DC rabble in both the action and personality stakes.
Unfortunately, Wonder Woman doesn’t quite have the flaps to go all the way. The final act drops the gender politics and reverts to a standard CGI smackdown with a tacked-on big bad – the bane of the origin movie – while Chris Pine steals some of the heroic thunder.
The film’s feminist credentials feel occasionally ropey, too. Whereas Ghostbusters succeeded in creating non-sexualised action stars, Wonder Woman sells itself on the obvious sex appeal of the character – every fanboy’s biggest wank fantasy (sorry, Buffy).
And with its lead surrounded by male characters, in many ways this is still a film about men – their world, their wars, their less-than-wondrous ways.
But the film’s at its best when holding a microscope to men and using the action genre and historical context to show them up for the ridiculous beasts they all too often are. Wonder Woman is strong enough to even teach them a bit of humility.
I don’t fancy her chances of overpowering the self-important machismo of Batman and Superman when they all return for the Justice League movie, but for now she’s whipped the DCU into decent shape.
All it needed was a woman’s touch.
Wonder Woman review by Tom Fordy, June 2017.
Wonder Woman is released in UK cinemas from 1st June 2017.
