Wonder Woman is a fantastic example of how low expectations can sway public opinion.
At this point in time, you can very clearly divide superhero movies into two major empires: Marvel and DC. Wonder Woman belongs to DC, which has recently seen a number of financially successful yet critically panned releases. With each DC release, an angel dies, and expectations for the next DC film drops just a little. Also, an ever-shrinking hoard of die-hard DC apologists come out of the woodwork to tell us all about how we need to reevaluate our opinions on their beloved franchises.
Wonder Woman comes to us in the wake of two major DC disasters: Batman Vs. Superman and Suicide Squad. I had no hopes or expectations for BvS, and it turned out to be one of the most arduous movie-going experiences of 2016, mostly because of its unnecessarily long run-time, and utter failure to entertain. Unfortunately, I jumped on the Suicide Squad hype train, and was horrendously disappointed with the final product. Both films would go on to make tremendous amounts of money in the Asian market, ensuring that there will be plenty of shitty DC snore-fests in our future.
You see, I am not Wonder Woman’s audience. I am an adult male who finds it utterly baffling that the childish concept of a “super hero” has bled so far into the world of adult entertainment that it now accounts for most of a given year’s box office returns. I find it absurd that audiences wish to constantly revisit a disgustingly naive series of fantasies that serve to glorify years of poorly-written, formulaic children’s entertainment. As a child, I was never into traditional American comics, so I have no nostalgia for any of these characters, and no affinity for a particular distributor. Showing me Batman is not enough for me to care about Batman, I don’t get warm fuzzies when I think about Lois Lane, and I don’t have any bias toward one super hero or another. When I see a super hero flick, I’m there to see a movie, not to masturbate sadly to some character that’s being brought back from years of well-earned obscurity.
Thankfully, America’s obsession with guys in tights has attracted plenty of talent to balance things out. I still enjoy Nolan’s Batman trilogy, Logan, Deadpool, and Guardians of the Galaxy. In the months leading up to Wonder Woman’s release, I was very interested in who would be attached to the project. My curiosity was sparked as soon as I heard that Patty Jenkins was attached as director. I only knew Jenkins for one film, 2003’s fantastic Aileen Wuornos biopic Monster, and I assumed that was a great sign. I then noticed something rather alarming…Jenkins has only directed one movie prior to Wonder Woman. I know that, traditionally, Hollywood is not terribly receptive to female directors, but to attach someone with so little experience to a large-budget film that’s expected to make serious money at the box office just seems absurd. Shortly after Jenkins was announced, Gal Gadot (from those fast and furious critical leper movies) was revealed to be the titular character, and Wonder Woman quickly fell off my radar.
After seeing so many mostly-positive reviews, I decided to at least give Wonder Woman the old college try. If it were not for the fact that it has provided me with the impetus to write a review trashing superhero films in general, I would say it was a monumental waste of my time.
You see, I’ve seen this movie before. I didn’t like it when it was called “Captain America: The First Avenger,” and I don’t like it now. The first Captain America movie was bland as hell, lacked a villain or hero that I could give a shit about, was full of hammy acting, and pulled the same “WWI/WWII setting transplant” bullshit that Wonder Woman does. They are startlingly close to being the same film, and of all Marvel/DC movies of the past ten years, the first Captain America has easily aged the worst.
The film begins with 20 minutes of a female-lead Disney film. Diana is a sheltered young woman living as the princess of a matriarchal society on an isolated island with no men. Chris Pine, a spy being chased by Nazis, washes up on shore, and for whatever reason fails to immediately notice that he is surrounded by people who have absolutely no connection with the outside world. WWI predates cosplay by many years, so I’m not buying his reaction for a second. It’s only when he decides to take a bath in a conspicuously public fountain that he begins to understand his situation. Diana approaches him unapologetically as he steps out of the tub, and as you’d expect, he quickly covers himself, then proceeds to tell Diana that his junk is above-average in size. Rather than modestly rushing to the nearest towel, he stands naked in front of Diana for at least half of a conversation, pretending to be ashamed of his nudity.
Diana, being sheltered and stupid, quickly becomes convinced that this “great war” that Chris Pine speaks of must be the work of Ares, god of war. All she has to do is defeat Ares, and everyone will stop fighting. So Diana and Chris Pine go to London to tattle on some nasty Nazi doctors that are hitting the amyl nitrate a little too hard. The moment she leaves the island, Wonder Woman becomes a fish-out-of-water story. In this case, Diana is the fish, and men are the water.
With the exception of shitty Zach Snyder slo-mo action sequences, and the awkward, chemistry-free Chris Pine romance scenes, the rest of Wonder Woman follows a clearly defined formula that takes a single joke and stretches it as far as it can possibly go. Every time Diana does something, there is a man present to tell her that she’s wrong. Diana proves herself, and then we’re presented with another scenario involving another man who doubts Diana. It stops being funny immediately, and it’s not nuanced enough to really say anything about the feminine struggle to be taken seriously. If anybody has tried to sell this to you as a poignant display of feminist solidarity, promptly smack them in the face. The statement Wonder Woman makes about feminism is akin to a young girl with Down Syndrome raising her fist in the air and shouting “girl power!”
As with nearly all DC films that aren’t The Dark Knight, the villain in this is bland and forgettable. We’re led to believe that these two Nazi scientists who are developing a new kind of poisonous gas are the true villains, up until the final act. These two characters are so 2-dimensional that I couldn’t believe they got ANY screen time at all. (Spoilers ahead, if you care.) When we finally learn that Ares is the true villain, it’s actually a relief, until you realize that Ares is going to be another tacked-on antagonist who explains his logically-dubious motivations in great detail, then promptly dies. It was almost interesting that Ares turned out to be a character we met several times earlier in the film, except that he didn’t do anything particularly notable that would make his transformation shocking. Chris Pine sacrifices himself to save his friends and his acting career, and Diana pretends to give a shit about his death for a few seconds, until realizing that martyrdom is totally cool. Wonder Woman’s greatest strength is then revealed to be her credits, because after being guilted into sitting through scrolling text by every super hero film for the last ten years, WW decides that it doesn’t need a post-credits scene. Hallelujah!
You’ve probably been hearing from the average moviegoer that “Wonder Woman is way better than BvS and Suicide Squad!” That seems to be the general critical consensus as well, even for critics that didn’t care for the film overall. I know Wonder Woman was seen as the great white hope for DC this year, but if I’m being completely honest, I’d put it right down there with Suicide Squad. It’s not a good movie. It gets so lost in its “Women can’t do THAT” joke structure and Gal Gadot/Chris Pine’s stiff-as-a-board romance that it just leaves me feeling rather empty; an emptiness that no amount of slo-mo can fill. I can honestly say that if this were released prior to Suicide Squad and BvS, we’d have far more Wonder Woman haters out there.
If you love super hero movies, you’ll probably find this to be at least somewhat passable. It’s definitely too long, but it’s not nearly as boring as some of the other DC travesties out there. I cannot in good conscious recommend it, but I also understand that I’m just not the kind of guy that gets into movies like this.
3/10