Wonder Woman

WONDER WOMAN
(2017)
Dir - Patty Jenkins
Overall: MEH

As has been the case a few times before in recent memory, a sequel of sorts, (or a prequel in this case, doubling as the forth entry of DC's cinematic universe), appears to be more pleasing than it is.  This of course is based heavily on the "quality" of the installments that came before it.  Wonder Woman follows Man of Steel which most people loathed, Batman V Superman which EVERYBODY loathed, and Suicide Squad which this here reviewer could not even stomach to sit all the way through, (brave as we were, me, my wife, and a buddy of mine managed to hit the fifty-one minute mark only).  You go into Wonder Woman with those films as its predecessors and the bar is set so very low that simply seeing a competent, Point A to Point B script will suffice.

This is pretty much what WW delivered.  As opposed to Suicide Squad and BvS, (yes I will be comparing these films to each other often, as DC is insisting we must), this here movie actually felt like a movie and not forty-five movie executives sitting around a huge table tweaking every nook and cranny of their property for maximum audience appeal.  To the best of my knowledge, the only re-shoots that took place here were due to Gal Gadot being five months pregnant at one point and understandably, a waiting period to wrap it up was a logical move.  Yet it at least felt like no test audiences were quizzed time and again, coupled with DC having their nervous little brains firing at all hours of the night trying to make their franchise as witty and enthralling as Marvel's, all with less than half the time and effort spent on it.

Still the winning team.  Suck it DC!

Wonder Woman in fact seems like a genuine, old fashioned movie with a story to tell.  There is a brief intro and outro setting up that it exists in the same world where Bruce Wayne found an old timey picture of her, then a long origin story, then some fish-out-of-water stuffs, (as a Goddess amongst the world of men for the first time, this is necessary to depict), then an inner-challenge to overcome, then a CGI-exploding fight to the death.  All the proper pieces in place.  No part of Wonder Woman seemed messy and little seemed forced to make it something it should not be.  It was a competent superhero movie from front to back, playing all the rules to a tee in pretty much every frame.

So all that being the case, I kept asking the question throughout if I was actually enjoying myself while watching this.  And if I constantly have to ask, one could argue that the answer is probably not a positive one.  What I realized very clearly is that all the safe, appropriate, superhero movie stuffs that is all dependably interwoven into this genre by this day and age was in fact most of the stuff I did not like about Wonder Woman.

Linda Carter must be spinning in her grave.  Or dueting with Tom Jones.  Either/or.

The modern, blockbuster Hollywood film has long surpassed the two-hour mark now and Wonder Woman is not an exception.  For the first time though that I can remember while sitting in the theater, I really felt it.  I could not help but be very bored during all the island of Themyscira stuff, with Diana's elders talking about her true destiny being kept from her, the dangers of war and men, the history of their gods and peoples, all the honor and duty that comes with it, etc.  These are the backstories and ideals that make many a superhero and it has been in Wonder Woman's comic book DNA for decades upon decades.  So why did I have such a problem with sitting through it finally with a character that should have had her own movie made much sooner ago than this?

The answer I would reckon is what year this is and how long we have been getting used to so many, many superhero films as moviegoers.  Simply put, we have seen all this before, just not with Wonder Woman.  So, is it enough that this time the female, Amazonian comic book character is the one we are watching on screen for the first time in her own staring vehicle?  Many people, (comic book dorks like myself included), seem to say, sure, why not and they are probably right.  For a lot of people, this is enough.  Shit, for most people even the fact that this was not a shot for shot remake of BvS is enough.

Never forget.

I have said this before on this blog, but I really do want to keep my expectations a little higher for this genre of film.  Yet it not limited to the origin part of the experience.  With that chunk being what it was, by the time we got to the meat of WW, I was already waiting for it to be over.  Sure the middle of the movie did have the better fight scenes and the most humor that worked, but that was already like an hour and a half in.  Once the ending battle was upon us though was when I really started to get seriously peeved at something else.

Along with the always annoying lack of color in these movies which may as well go full black and white by this point, the dialog in the finale was the other part of WW that definitely made it fit in Batman V Superman land.  Saying "I believe in love" right before delivering a super duper, deluxe CGI laser blast to the chest of thine enemy is a moment that is as laughable as an "Aw shucks, both our mom's are named Martha" one.  Also, you actually could have taken all of Ares dialog once he revealed himself and swapped it for another baddie in pick-any-other comic book movie and it would have seemed 100% in character and in place.  Am I bitching about this kind of shit being phoned-in and by the books?  Yes.  Yes I am doing that.

The most colorful moment of the film right here.  Not exaggerating.

Speaking of textbook villains, we once again have Danny Huston as the only thing he ever seems to get cast as, this time as a Naz...sorry, I mean World War I General Erich Ludendorff.  He is so very evil-German-man that Stephen Spielberg may as well have handcrafted his performance.  There is a moment where he and his crazy, mad scientist partner Doctor Poison, (comic book characters sure have silly names don't they?), manically laugh at how "terrible" their hydrogen-based gas weapon is once it is proven successful in a lab.  All while loud, "bad guys doing bad guys stuff" music blares and the camera pans back from them.  Unless this was meant to be intentional, Batman & Robin-esque schlock, pretty sure the filmmakers fucked up a wee bit there.

Also, did it strike anyone else as rather funny, (*cough* embarrassing *cough*), that when Diana was at her lowest point in her punchy/throwing tanks fight with Ares that the one thing that made her scream in anger, rise up, and realize that the plot needed her to epiphanize her awesomeness was the death of that man with the pretty eyes who kissed her earlier?  Even in a film about and named after the most iconic female superhero of all time, leave it to a dashing man to truly show her the way.  Yay feminism!

Chris Pine you ole dreamboat you.

This is all harmless nitpicking though, to be fare.  Lame, one-dimensional villains, hokey dialog, and a muted color pallet to the point of "why bother shooting in color to begin with?" are all sadly the norm now.  As is the film's running time.  As is the computer generated-ness, even in a 1918-set period piece for this here go around.  Yet should any of this stuff be taken for granted and just dealt with because superhero movies nine times out of ten seem to follow the same rules?  If dough, tomato sauce, and cheese are what every pizza is made out of and someone keeps eating pizza who does not like dough, tomato sauce, and cheese and keeps bitching about how it tastes like it did last time, should that person stop being a doo-doo head and just enjoy his fucking pizza already?  Sorry, I had pizza for dinner while writing this.  Moving on.

None of my problems with Wonder Woman made me angry in the least, (Batman V Superman took care of those emotions).  Even fewer here made me utterly baffled, (which is where Suicide Squad comes in).  Instead, I yawned a handful of times, got restless in my seat, and innocently enjoyed most of what I was seeing.  Yet the pessimistic feelings I had towards it were a shame really.  A shame that it took until 2017 for christ sake for a beloved, incredibly popular comic book character, (who happens to NOT be a man), to get her own full length movie.  Twenty years ago with the exact same plot and execution, this movie could have been a game changer.  Yet coming out when it has, it is simply very competent and very better than the other films the same company that made it have recently produced.  That is the best you can say about it and the most fair assessment it deserves.  Wonder Woman certainly deserves better circumstances, if not necessarily a better film.

Up next, the three and a half hour music video for "We Are Family", "Holding Out for a Hero", "We Are the Champions", "We Will Rock You", "My Hero", "Let's Get It Started", "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger", "Raw Power", "Heroes", "I Need A Hero", "Superbowl Shuffle", "YMCA", "All My Exes Live In Texas"......