Wonder Woman is a Masterpiece!
People here probably know that I've struggled to appreciate the superhero film genre. I loved the Wonder Woman movie though! And, surprisingly, that's not even the first movie from this genre that I've actually liked this year: I also thought Logan was basically a good movie. Those mark the only two films from the genre to date that I can honestly say I've enjoyed, and I've seen a lot. Perhaps it helped that I'm not otherwise familiar with these characters and their adventures outside the movies, but let me focus on my favorite for our purposes here: the latest one, Wonder Woman.
The set-up for Diana's (nobody calls her Wonder Woman in the movie) origin story is a tad cheesy: the movie begins and ends with her staring at a picture sent to her from Bruce Wayne (a.k.a. Batman). Fortunately though, that's pretty much the only in-film advertising for other DC "universe" movies. That fact alone makes this film far less annoying to yours truly than a lot of the other superhero movies that get made these days. For example, last year's Batman vs. Superman was more in essence a two-hour commercial for other DC movies yet to come than it was a proper movie in its own right. I hate those kinds of films! Anyway...
The actual origin story begins with Diana being born and raised on the island of Themyscira and learning of its past. Themyscira is home to a race of female warriors called the Amazons, who were created by the gods of Mt. Olympus to shield humankind from the corrupting influence of the god of war, Ares. In the distant past, Ares slew all his fellow gods, but was mortally wounded by his father Zeus. Before dying, to guard against Ares' return, Zeus left behind a weapon for the Amazons capable of killing his renegade son, known as "the Godkiller", which Diana believes to be a ceremonial sword. Diana wants to train as an Amazon warrior, but her mother, Queen Hippolyta, refuses to allow it, insisting that Ares will never return. (Surprise! The queen is wrong.) However, Diana and her aunt, General Antiope, disobey Hippolyta and begin training in secret. When the two are discovered by Hippolyta, Antiope convinces the queen to allow Diana's training to continue.
As a young woman, Diana rescues an American pilot after his plane crashes off the coast of Themyscira, whereafter the island is attacked by German soldiers who have been pursuing him. The Amazons fend off the invasion and use the Lasso of Truth (yes!!) to discover that the Great War is going on outside their sheltered island and that the pilot, Steve Trevor, is an Allied spy who has infiltrated the German intelligence forces and discovered that they are researching a deadlier form of mustard gas. Believing Ares is responsible for the war, Diana arms herself with the ceremonial sword and leaves Themyscira with Steve to find and destroy Ares and thus end the war.
I won't spoil the second and third acts for you (unless you want me to), but the bottom line, thematically speaking, is that this all leads to a clever plot twist that has Diana seriously question whether human nature itself is the root problem and whether, accordingly, humanity is, in fact, worth saving at all. She enters this wider world on the naive side, only to discover just how disappointing and untrustworthy people can really be. But she finally musters the faith in human nature that she needs to complete her self-assigned mission when she witnesses a genuinely heroic and self-sacrificing act and concludes that there is a good side to humanity that it must be her goal to bring out through inspiration. And that right there is what makes this a worthy film from the genre, in my opinion: it offers a good justification for the existence of what might construed as a power fantasy. Diana is not simply aiming to make you feel strong for the sake of feeling that way, but rather in order to give you the willpower to do good things for others.
In contrast to the other DC films of this generation, Wonder Woman also does not take itself more seriously than is merited. There is a healthy balance of seriousness and humor to be found here, along with an emotional intelligence that can only come from a genuinely heartfelt project. One senses that the creators of this movie truly meant what they were trying to communicate, and that makes all the difference. One can tell. The movie never degenerates into a lot of predictability. I also found the way this movie makes fun of sexist attitudes to be enjoyable. I've always enjoyed that approach to tackling the subject since the days of Tank Girl and Mulan.
Of course, because this is the first "tent pole" superhero film to have a solo female lead, it has been subject to some controversies so pitiful that they're amusing. I've found the funniest one to be the calls to boycott the movie nationwide over one theater's decision to host one women-only screening. The theater in question responded defiantly by announcing a whole bunch more women-only screenings and that, furthermore, all proceeds would go to Planned Parenthood. All of them sold out. Another tragically amusing controversy revolved around lead actress Gal Gadot's ethnicity, as the film was banned in Lebanon just simply because Gadot is an Israeli.Film critics broadly liked the movie, but the critiques of those who expressed overall disapproval were sometimes almost as amusing as these controversies. For example, a (male) writer for The Guardian criticized the Wonder Woman movie for "over-earnestness". You know, that's a new one on me. Never until the release of this film have I heard a professional film critic claim that a movie was insufficiently corporate and plastic in feel.
What I am trying to say is that the objections to Wonder Woman are largely pretty pathetic and reaching, so go see the movie.
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Originally Posted by IMPress Polly
