RageLite review - Wonder Woman

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about any DC films and it seems like they’re starting to get back on track by basically ditching the extended universe and focusing on standalone films. Justice League being a critical and financial disaster clearly forced a rethink on they’ll handle their properties, but that doesn’t mean no good came out of it. Wonder Woman’s minimal role in Batman v Superman was among the better aspects of it. It didn’t stop that film being utter garbage but it did give me optimism going into her solo movie.

Female solo superhero movies have in general been pretty bad up to this point, with Catwoman obviously being the worst. But then you look at the writing talent, and worries start to crop up again, we have Zack Snyder, who I have had issue with in the past, Allen Heinberg, if I’m not mistaken he wrote the awful Wonder Woman run post Infinite Crisis (the one where she couldn’t pump gas) and Jason Fuchs, who… co-wrote an ice age film. Notice how there are no women on the writing team, either.

Of course, Patty Jenkins is the one directing so at least there’s representation there, but her experience is mostly in television. Does this hold the film back? Well it certainly didn’t seem to, as the film made $821m on its $150m budget, more than Man of Steel or Justice League and managed an impressive 93% Rotten Tomatoes rating and an 88% audience rating. So what helped here? Let’s take a look.

Diana (Gal Gadot) grew up on the island of Themyscira with her fellow Amazons. She became a skilled fighter in her own right but things take an interesting turn when Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), a British Intelligence Officer lands on the Island. She’s been told stories about Ares corruption of man and upon hearing the stories of WWI, she believes Ares has returned and it’s her duty to fight.

Upon arriving in London, she finds out that General Ludendorff (Danny Huston) and his scientist Dr Poison (Elena Anaya) have developed a poison gas that gas masks are useless against. But the British do not want to send in the army given an armistice that’s soon to be signed by the germans. It’s then up to a rag tag team of Diana, Steve, Sameer (Saïd Taghmaoui), Charlie (Ewan Bremnar) and Chief Napi (Eugene Brave Rock) to fight their way through to stop Ludendorff unleashing the gas, all whilst Diana continues her search for Ares in hopes of stopping the war.

This film has 4 distinct sections to it. For the scenes on Themyscira, it’s nice to see colour in a DCEU film again. Themyscira itself looks great, and since Wonder Woman isn’t as well known, at least not by origin, to the wider public, I understand dedicating a significant amount of time there, seeing Diana grow as a fighter, and her relationship with her mother Hippolyta (Connie Nielson) and foreshadow how naïve she is.

The one thing that raises question marks with me about this section is the necessity for the section where Wonder Woman creates a pulse with her bracelets that injures Antiope (Robin Wright), I really don’t feel that scene served any major purpose for Diana’s arc, especially since her death follows quickly after.

You discover fairly quickly this film is not afraid to go for the darker moments but it works better here than in Man of Steel or Batman v Superman because it’s viewpoint being challenged. Wonder Woman’s belief that Ares is responsible for the war and that men are intrinsically good is challenged with all the horror she sees in the war.

And World War 1 is a good idea for Diana to start with, first off there isn’t an Adolf Hitler to put all the blame on (plus with WW2 basically being Captain America’s territory anyway) and by placing the story in war time, it allows the darker moments to not come out of nowhere. The one thing I will say hamstrings this a bit is the PG-13 rating. None of these fight scenes have any blood, it’s almost distracting.

The second part of the movie takes place in London, it’s painful but thankfully brief as we see Diana fail to integrate or understand the culture she’s just stepped into. It has the odd funny moment, but there are some head-scratching things like Steve’s over-protectiveness of Diana despite having seen her in action.

The third part takes place on the war-front and it’s the best part of the movie, it contains the best action scene where Wonder Woman helps liberate an occupied town, and the biggest gut-punch as everyone in the town is killed by Ludendorff’s weapon test. They give us just enough time in the aftermath for us to get to know the town enough that seeing it devastated this way hits you hard. The supporting characters each have their own charm to them, even if Diana essentially outclasses them in every way.

The final part is the climax on the airfield and I have mixed feelings about this. First off, everything with Steve Trevor is great, Pine really nails this version of the character carrying complicated feelings for Diana but being more of a realist about what’s going on. To really explain the problems I really have to talk about the film’s villains.

Dr Poison is barely a footnote in the film, she’s a means to an end and whilst she does get screen time, she does nothing of consequence and doesn’t have an action moment to herself. Ludendorrf fairs better in that department thanks to some strength-enhancing sh*t he has (Poison make that too?) but he’s ultimately a kinda dull villain, cackling maniacally as he poisons people. He apparently has motivation but most of that’s tossed aside so as to hide the fact that he isn’t really Ares. I’m pretty sure everyone in the audience already guessed that.

Ares in this film serves for someone for Wonder Woman to fight and debate, his role in the plot is actually pretty minimal. He goes by Sir Patrick Morgan, a politician who was supporting the armistice and helped the spy team work against the poison in secret and it turns out it was all manipulation and the war would never truly end.

His reveal is supposed to be surprise and I guess it works on that front but at the same time, he has the same problem most Disney twist villains have in that we know little about him, save for an exposition dump during the battle. I do believe David Thewlis was badly miscast for this role as he doesn’t carry the gravitas needed to make him intimidating. Not helping him is the CGI being pretty bad during the fight, not to mention the quality of the dialogue dropping considerably around this point.

Wonder Woman is a decent film that knows how to use its dark tone without it being entirely depressing. The character growth and insight is well handled but the villains suffer, especially Ares who is a miss in pretty much every way.

Rating 65/100