Wonder Woman review

Jdawg

Commodore
wow I just dont get it, I saw wonder woman today and it is WAY OVERHYPED. Bad acting every where (except chris pine) special effects that were really subpar especially the final battle scene, and the movie was shot in such a way that it gave my wife a serious headache that had her in tears by the end of the movie. This rant will contain mild spoilers

First off lets talk about the positives which there are some, loved how they handled the backstory and everything on the island. the major battle scene with the amazons on the beach was epic and well shot. Chris Pine has proven to me he is not just a good actor but a freaking fantastic actor. He is good in the star trek movies but his role in hell or high water last yr was wonderful, and to me he single handedly carried this movie through a much too long run time. I also really enjoyed the music and gal gadot def looks the part.

Things I didnt like, super one note villains with stupid looking phantom of the opera masks to boot. I dont see why gal is getting such high praises for her acting, she is not terrible but not very good either, I think it is bc chris pine carried her through the movie. After the first action scene the rest was not very good especially all the slow motion shots, which on at lest one occasion I spotted that it was not gal but a stunt double. The final battle was awful with how wonder woman beat ares with what basically boils down to a shield made of love. Going back to Gal gadot and her acting I have seen several reviewers say she was just as good as christopher reeves was in the original superman. All I can say is hahhhahahahaha no way, Reeves was so good and such a good actor he actually made people forget that superman and clark kent were the same person. Also to keep this star wars related if rey is a mary sue, than move over bc the mary sue ship has a new captain and her name is Wonder Woman. She never struggled even as a kid, I think she might have taking some form of damage a grand total of 4 to 6 times in the movie. She was half god half Amazon and she took down ares (A god in the movie that killed every single other god ever) with no problem. Back to the seizure inducing edits and quick shots, it gave my wife such a huge migraine that she was in tears by the end of the movie, it got real bad when ares was defeated and the screen flashed a bright white. I actually have a small headache too. For the record a lot of movies give my wife a small headache like a guardians of the galaxy and both new star wars films, but nothing like this. Final thing The CGI was really bad for a lot of the movie, I thought GOG2 had the same problems with its effects. Even though im not a huge rogue one fan, bc of the characters and acting. the action in rogue one and how the scenes were staged, blow wonder woman out the water.

For the record I dont hate the movie but it is way overhyped and the only reasons I can see why it is getting such good reviews bc it is a female lead movie with a female director.

I dont know maybe im just getting older and big cgi blockbusters just dont do it for me anymore. My two favorite movies from last yr were hell or high water and the nice guys. Although I did really like star trek 3.
 
I don't know. I didn't have high hopes and was entertained. I'd watch it again sometime.

WW wasn't half amazon at all though. She was as much a child of Zeus as Ares (and why she calls him brother at the end) and created apparently specifically to kill Ares.... which does leads to some other plot questions that it's best to not think too hard about. Gal's acting was never terrible. Some of the big action scenes were obviously computer assisted though. There's a few times when WW is zipping around at god speeds where it just feels computer generated. It looks good, but just enough off to nag at you. I didn't really have any issues to speak of with the editing.

Oh yeah, and all that "people like it because she's a woman" nonsense? Just leave that shit at the door. You're better than that.
 
:-(

I only read the first two paras of that because I hate spoilers. But sad to hear, I had high hopes. Although I suppose considering it's by the creators of "Batman -v- Superman" anything better than bloody awful is a step up.
 
Oh yeah, and all that "people like it because she's a woman" nonsense? Just leave that shit at the door. You're better than that.

Eh, we don't get tons of superhero films with female leads, so it's safe to assume it helps, probably not that much though, if Elektra and Catwoman are anything to go by.
 
oh sorry didnt mean to spoil anything for yall. A lot of people love the movie Im def in the minority some of it for me also has to do with superhero fatigue and being able to predict what will happen in the movie beat by beat. But if you are someone who has migraines bc of flashing lights and out of focus backgrounds watch out; the movie really hurt my wife bad.
 
I don't know. I didn't have high hopes and was entertained. I'd watch it again sometime.

WW wasn't half amazon at all though. She was as much a child of Zeus as Ares (and why she calls him brother at the end) and created apparently specifically to kill Ares.... which does leads to some other plot questions that it's best to not think too hard about. Gal's acting was never terrible. Some of the big action scenes were obviously computer assisted though. There's a few times when WW is zipping around at god speeds where it just feels computer generated. It looks good, but just enough off to nag at you. I didn't really have any issues to speak of with the editing.

Oh yeah, and all that "people like it because she's a woman" nonsense? Just leave that shit at the door. You're better than that.

she was ares half sister her dad was zeus and her mom was the queen of the amazons so she was half god and half amazon.

Im not making a political statement it is what I truly believe. this movie is tons better than elektra or catwoman or even tank girl, but it is just an avg superhero movie that is retro in the vein of dick donnner's superman. I think one thing that is spurring the good will is bc it is the first decent super heroine flick and patty jenkins is a talented director. For the record my wife said she is even tired with the over the top girl power messages. One thing I will give this movie huge credit for is they didnt make chris pine useless and he has a lot to do in the movie.

As far as gal's acting like I said it is passable, there are time where it is good like at the end where she is looking at the board with the picture of chris pine on it, and than there are times where she has no reaction. Like at the beginning of the film when WW aunt is training her and she accidentally unleashes her power on her aunt which hurts her real bad, she just kind of stares off into space then runs to the cliff where she see chris pine's plane.
 
Last edited:
SPOILERS FOLLOW

I saw Wonder Woman on Thursday and had a very different opinion! I thought that it had the light, heart and earnestness of the best of the Marvel movies. I grew up greatly preferring the DC heroes, but have been ashamed to say that since their movies have felt like they were made by a dad trying to be edgy for so long (and I’d go all the way back to Batman Begins for that.)

I thought that it was a very well-made movie. Where BttVS layered dark on dark all the way down and Suicide Squad was… who even knows… this was lush and beautiful when it needed to be, harsh and cynical when it needed to be. It built a world that you felt needed saving, which is something that again you have to go back to the Donner Supermen to find done right by DC. There were very artfully done shots, which you don’t always see in these movies: locking on Diana’s eyes, seeing her stand out in the trench or in the crowd and so on.

And then I thought it was very impressive that it never became one thing. This wasn’t a war movie or an action movie or a romance… but it swirled all of those things around you very well, with an excellent move in tone from act to act. Divide it up in your head: Diana on the island is nothing like the fish out of water comedy in act two which is nothing like the moody war in act three. But that all flows together very seamlessly (it’s also some nice parallelism for the era itself, the death of Romanticism and the darkness that rapidly follows… someone read The Great War in Modern Memory going into this.)

I also thought the setup was fantastic. Telling a good superhero origin story is getting very difficult, with even Marvel seeming to opt for ‘just do Iron Man again’ lately (Antman, Dr. Strange.) So this incredibly fun story about needing to kill Ares to stop World War I felt totally fresh and interesting. (And it kept the audience wondering! When was the last superhero movie where you thought there was a good chance the lead’s motivation, however well-intentioned, might be completely wrong all the way through to the climax?)

And I think kudos to Gal Gadot. I’ve never thought Wonder Woman was an easy character to adapt and I would have thought you needed to go campy (invisible jet, S&M lasso) or hyper-sexualized… but she pulled it off straight, without falling into either of those traps. I will be interested to see how she works in Justice League without the vintage mirror, but in this outing I’m super impressed.

As for the woman question, I’ll first say yeeeesh, 21st century controversy is embarrassing and stupid. Our generation’s legacy is, at best, going to be a single well-deserved and mean-spirited caption in a history book about what doofuses we all were. But that note aside: it was great that she was a strong female character ON HER OWN. I am surprised by the backlash, because it’s not rah rah #girlpower women-are-just-like-men pop feminism at all. If anything, it was 100% argument and 0% claim: Diana isn’t Chris Pine’s clone… she’s someone who matters to us because we see that she brings an entirely different set of abilities and more importantly an entirely different perspective and worldview. And it’s never ‘she’s right and men are wrong!’... the entire revelation of the movie is her learning the power of love from these hard 20th century men’s interpersonal relationships. It was handled differently than any other big budget blockbuster movie I’ve ever seen, and I thought that was great.

Alexis mentioned after the movie that she was especially impressed by two scenes I didn’t even think twice about, which I think is the heart of why this movie matters. She said that the conversation between Diana and her mother as she was leaving the island and then the moment at the end where she is completely alone in a crowd scene were both strong expressions of what it feels like to be a woman. Which isn’t something I’d have thought about… but you know, that’s exactly how every other movie works with men: we have these superheroes who do astounding feats we fantasize about… and then they get tied to us with their downtime, where we see them acting ‘like us’ and make us feel like that could be us. They love their moms, they play Galaga, they worry about the future, etc. Giving that same experience to women is pretty cool. You have all wanted at some point to be Iron Man, Cap, Hulk, Thor, Antman, Deadpool, cool old Logan, Dr. Strange, Starlord, Superman, Batman, etc. Can you imagine watching Suicide Squad and wanting to be Harley Quinn, some teenager’s neon candy boob fantasy? Women get stuck with that and that makes this film important even if it’s not 100% ‘for us.’)

What I didn’t like:
  • Conflating World War I and World War II. I know this is a broad trope that’s a problem in pretty much all modern depictions of the conflict, but it was amplified here and it was very frustrated to see Diana (initially) facing off against evil Nazis. The movie clearly KNOWS this, but it treats the very-clever revelation with way too much subtlety for the audience (the reveal that Ares was in fact the British politician responsible for punishing Germany after the war IN ORDER TO CAUSE World War 2 was great pop-x-history! But you blinked and you missed it. But what a smart way to do the ‘evil Admiral’ reveal with some teeth!) And given that reveal the evil scientist creating high tech poison gas and the every-SS-General villain felt really out of place.
  • Similarly, I thought the ending set piece was bad. A giant bomber that Chris Pine has to crash in order to stop the Germans? Where have I seen that… oh yes, it flew in straight from the finale of the first Captain America. (Also, some plot holes: the bomber was bound for London, so he must have had time to simply ditch it in the Channel or land it somewhere else… between that and the (explained-but-poorly) sailboat that traveled from Greece to London overnight) the director clearly has JJ Abrams’ appreciation for travel distances. At the very least, they should have embraced one more World War I trope and made it a cool Zeppelin.
  • I’m not a huge fan of Chris Pine. He plays a fine ‘what people who didn’t watch TOS think Captain Kirk was like’ in those movies, but he’s… not my ideal lead. I would have preferred him as a self-serious spy who comes to understand Diana instead of as a love interest. Her realization that love rules the world could come entirely from her coming to know the squad of misfits instead of from any romance. (Also: the brave American hero fighting World War I is really tiresome… and I love Wings of Glory, Flyboys, Young Indiana Jones, etc. And he’s known the oddball team of friends for years despite America having only just entered the war?) And can we PLEASE STOP LETTING HIM DRIVE OLD-TIMEY MOTORCYCLES IN MOVIES?
  • I hated the ‘shopping scene.’ Diana was so frustrated by Chris Pine wanting to deliver his book that she was going to walk to the front line by herself… and then suddenly she was okay trying on hundreds of outfits for a reason never really expressed to her? It certainly felt like a producer note: women love clothes, let’s add a sequence where she tries fun clothes! (In fact, it’s literally Homer Simpson’s suggestion to Mel Gibson: “Okay, here you need a musical montage where you try on lots of funny hats. It will let us see your playful side!”)
(Finally, honk if you assume Chris Pine and Young Indiana Jones probably had some adventures together while they were both American spies.)
 
SPOILERS FOLLOW

I saw Wonder Woman on Thursday and had a very different opinion! I thought that it had the light, heart and earnestness of the best of the Marvel movies. I grew up greatly preferring the DC heroes, but have been ashamed to say that since their movies have felt like they were made by a dad trying to be edgy for so long (and I’d go all the way back to Batman Begins for that.)

I thought that it was a very well-made movie. Where BttVS layered dark on dark all the way down and Suicide Squad was… who even knows… this was lush and beautiful when it needed to be, harsh and cynical when it needed to be. It built a world that you felt needed saving, which is something that again you have to go back to the Donner Supermen to find done right by DC. There were very artfully done shots, which you don’t always see in these movies: locking on Diana’s eyes, seeing her stand out in the trench or in the crowd and so on.

And then I thought it was very impressive that it never became one thing. This wasn’t a war movie or an action movie or a romance… but it swirled all of those things around you very well, with an excellent move in tone from act to act. Divide it up in your head: Diana on the island is nothing like the fish out of water comedy in act two which is nothing like the moody war in act three. But that all flows together very seamlessly (it’s also some nice parallelism for the era itself, the death of Romanticism and the darkness that rapidly follows… someone read The Great War in Modern Memory going into this.)

I also thought the setup was fantastic. Telling a good superhero origin story is getting very difficult, with even Marvel seeming to opt for ‘just do Iron Man again’ lately (Antman, Dr. Strange.) So this incredibly fun story about needing to kill Ares to stop World War I felt totally fresh and interesting. (And it kept the audience wondering! When was the last superhero movie where you thought there was a good chance the lead’s motivation, however well-intentioned, might be completely wrong all the way through to the climax?)

And I think kudos to Gal Gadot. I’ve never thought Wonder Woman was an easy character to adapt and I would have thought you needed to go campy (invisible jet, S&M lasso) or hyper-sexualized… but she pulled it off straight, without falling into either of those traps. I will be interested to see how she works in Justice League without the vintage mirror, but in this outing I’m super impressed.

As for the woman question, I’ll first say yeeeesh, 21st century controversy is embarrassing and stupid. Our generation’s legacy is, at best, going to be a single well-deserved and mean-spirited caption in a history book about what doofuses we all were. But that note aside: it was great that she was a strong female character ON HER OWN. I am surprised by the backlash, because it’s not rah rah #girlpower women-are-just-like-men pop feminism at all. If anything, it was 100% argument and 0% claim: Diana isn’t Chris Pine’s clone… she’s someone who matters to us because we see that she brings an entirely different set of abilities and more importantly an entirely different perspective and worldview. And it’s never ‘she’s right and men are wrong!’... the entire revelation of the movie is her learning the power of love from these hard 20th century men’s interpersonal relationships. It was handled differently than any other big budget blockbuster movie I’ve ever seen, and I thought that was great.

Alexis mentioned after the movie that she was especially impressed by two scenes I didn’t even think twice about, which I think is the heart of why this movie matters. She said that the conversation between Diana and her mother as she was leaving the island and then the moment at the end where she is completely alone in a crowd scene were both strong expressions of what it feels like to be a woman. Which isn’t something I’d have thought about… but you know, that’s exactly how every other movie works with men: we have these superheroes who do astounding feats we fantasize about… and then they get tied to us with their downtime, where we see them acting ‘like us’ and make us feel like that could be us. They love their moms, they play Galaga, they worry about the future, etc. Giving that same experience to women is pretty cool. You have all wanted at some point to be Iron Man, Cap, Hulk, Thor, Antman, Deadpool, cool old Logan, Dr. Strange, Starlord, Superman, Batman, etc. Can you imagine watching Suicide Squad and wanting to be Harley Quinn, some teenager’s neon candy boob fantasy? Women get stuck with that and that makes this film important even if it’s not 100% ‘for us.’)

What I didn’t like:
  • Conflating World War I and World War II. I know this is a broad trope that’s a problem in pretty much all modern depictions of the conflict, but it was amplified here and it was very frustrated to see Diana (initially) facing off against evil Nazis. The movie clearly KNOWS this, but it treats the very-clever revelation with way too much subtlety for the audience (the reveal that Ares was in fact the British politician responsible for punishing Germany after the war IN ORDER TO CAUSE World War 2 was great pop-x-history! But you blinked and you missed it. But what a smart way to do the ‘evil Admiral’ reveal with some teeth!) And given that reveal the evil scientist creating high tech poison gas and the every-SS-General villain felt really out of place.
  • Similarly, I thought the ending set piece was bad. A giant bomber that Chris Pine has to crash in order to stop the Germans? Where have I seen that… oh yes, it flew in straight from the finale of the first Captain America. (Also, some plot holes: the bomber was bound for London, so he must have had time to simply ditch it in the Channel or land it somewhere else… between that and the (explained-but-poorly) sailboat that traveled from Greece to London overnight) the director clearly has JJ Abrams’ appreciation for travel distances. At the very least, they should have embraced one more World War I trope and made it a cool Zeppelin.
  • I’m not a huge fan of Chris Pine. He plays a fine ‘what people who didn’t watch TOS think Captain Kirk was like’ in those movies, but he’s… not my ideal lead. I would have preferred him as a self-serious spy who comes to understand Diana instead of as a love interest. Her realization that love rules the world could come entirely from her coming to know the squad of misfits instead of from any romance. (Also: the brave American hero fighting World War I is really tiresome… and I love Wings of Glory, Flyboys, Young Indiana Jones, etc. And he’s known the oddball team of friends for years despite America having only just entered the war?) And can we PLEASE STOP LETTING HIM DRIVE OLD-TIMEY MOTORCYCLES IN MOVIES?
  • I hated the ‘shopping scene.’ Diana was so frustrated by Chris Pine wanting to deliver his book that she was going to walk to the front line by herself… and then suddenly she was okay trying on hundreds of outfits for a reason never really expressed to her? It certainly felt like a producer note: women love clothes, let’s add a sequence where she tries fun clothes! (In fact, it’s literally Homer Simpson’s suggestion to Mel Gibson: “Okay, here you need a musical montage where you try on lots of funny hats. It will let us see your playful side!”)
(Finally, honk if you assume Chris Pine and Young Indiana Jones probably had some adventures together while they were both American spies.)

Wow very well written reply but I just didnt have that experience at all, to me it was trying so hard to being an homage to dick donner's superman that it ripped several scenes off from that movie as well as the first toby maguire spiderman. the scenes im talking about where WW stops the bullets from hitting chris pine is straight outta the first superman movie where superman stops the bullet from hitting lois, and the scene where WW is climbing the tower is pretty much beat for beat this scene.


But like I said I knew Id be in the minority in my dislike for the film as far as chris pine goes he should have won an oscar for this scene alone, along with jeff bridges. this is the final scene of the movie, so heavy spoilers

 
Last edited:
Eh, we don't get tons of superhero films with female leads, so it's safe to assume it helps, probably not that much though, if Elektra and Catwoman are anything to go by.

I probably said that harsher than I needed to, but when reviewing a movie the last thing anyone should care about is what gender the director was. This movie is definitely getting attention from the media for it and I'm sure it affects other people's perceptions about things, but frankly I don't care about that discussion and whether the mainstream media is giving the film bonus points for whatever political acronym-of-the-day-cause is in vogue.

she was ares half sister her dad was zeus and her mom was the queen of the amazons so she was half god and half amazon.

While it's not conclusively stated, there's a plot thread in the movie about how
her mother's story of her birth is complete BS, formulated to both cement the bond between Queen and daughter but to also conveniently conceal her nature and to keep Diana hidden. It's why Wonder Woman has to keep discovering her own potential and power as the movie progresses, because the story she was told and the stuff about keeping her from doing combat training was just a ruse. She was given to the Amazon queen by Zeus to be sheltered and protected, presumably until she was old enough to fulfill her role. The implications are that we really don't know who her true mother is or whether she was just outright created by Zeus. But all the same the queen is as much a mother to her as any flesh and blood.

I don't mind when movies pay homage to what came before. The problem is when movies just ape stuff out of lazyness and lack of originality. The only scene that stands out to me as out of place was the clothing montage stuff. The rest could be chalked up as loving nods to the genre.
 
Seen it, and indeed the bullet in the superman-ripoff-scene I was like "really??"? Same goes for the WW1 / WW2 mix-mash, and the movie felt very, very predictable to me. The one exception is the british guy being Ares, but the fact that the german guy was on drugs and had to use it to boost his strength made it obvious he was not Ares, still I did not expect the plot twist. The hype of "a superhero movie with a woman and directed by woman!" might have been revolutionary up to the 1970's, but in this society and era, where we have female defense ministers, female leaders of countries, etc, etc I would not even consider it a relevant issue.. this is ofcourse not thesame everywhere in the world. The movie all-in-all fits together well, great scenery, special effects were good enough, but the movie is not worth the hype IMHO.
 
Seen it, and indeed the bullet in the superman-ripoff-scene I was like "really??"? Same goes for the WW1 / WW2 mix-mash, and the movie felt very, very predictable to me. The one exception is the british guy being Ares, but the fact that the german guy was on drugs and had to use it to boost his strength made it obvious he was not Ares, still I did not expect the plot twist. The hype of "a superhero movie with a woman and directed by woman!" might have been revolutionary up to the 1970's, but in this society and era, where we have female defense ministers, female leaders of countries, etc, etc I would not even consider it a relevant issue.. this is ofcourse not thesame everywhere in the world. The movie all-in-all fits together well, great scenery, special effects were good enough, but the movie is not worth the hype IMHO.
agreed also thought the plot with the german guy taking the drugs went no where, Wonder Woman still kicked his butt in 3.5 seconds. Also maybe im just an old fart with young kids but I didnt really appreciate all the d**k jokes when chris pine got out of his bath on the island, dont think it is suitable for young kids, and would not want my daughter to see that. Just my 2 cents.

ps the media is making the movie having a female director a big deal, bc it is now the highest grossing female directed movie of all time. It beat 50 shades of shit oops I man grey. So I am happy about that bc wonder woman is a million times better than that garbage.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/20...emale-director-overtakes-fifty-shades-of-grey
 
I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. Maybe it had something to do with wanting a DC franchise movie to not suck so the bar may have been a bit lower. Marvel/Disney seem to have a formula dialed in for four-color comic films. So here are my thoughts:

Pros:
  • I like that WW tried to split the difference between the four-color patriotism of Captain America 1 and the absurdly gritty DC universe. It was refreshing to see a DC movie with a color palette that went beyond grays and blacks.
  • Gal Godot - She played the part with equal parts naivete and confidence. In her element, she is nigh unstoppable but her sheltered upbringing made her goals "unrealistic" which she comes to realize at the end. Some of the best scenes with her IMO were the scene where she leaves her mother, and any scene where she's confronted with the horrors of the war. In all those she was able to convey a sense of compassion with a few looks.
  • Chris Pine - I think he did alot of the understated heavy lifting in the film, acting as a good world-weary foil to Godot's blind optimism. While I'm not sold on the love interest angle, he did a credible job as a spy, especially the gala scene with Dr. Poison.
Cons:
  • Ares - Ares was kind of blah. Not that the actor did a bad job per-se and some of the writing was very clever, but his "come to the dark side" argument fails on its face because of the four-color nature of the plot. In order for that argument to have any teeth we need to see the heroes do some morally questionable actions that have a broader justification (needs of the many quandaries). The closest we get is the part where Chris Pine wants to focus on the mission rather than help a Belgian village (which is perfectly justifiable given that he's a guy with a shotgun not possessing any superpowers at all - and the mission would end the war thusly saving said village). It might have been a better choice to do something else like Pine opts to leave some civilians or allied soldiers to their fate rather than intervene, and keep WW in the dark about it, because he knows she'd run off and endanger the mission. But the good guys are paragons of virtue so Ares must play the part of mustache twirling villain. He's better as a multi-faceted nemesis. That said, I did like his statement that he puts all the weapons on the board but doesn't make anyone do anything with them, humans choose to use them on their own. I had high hopes for Ares that were kind of unmet.
  • The Plucky Band of Heroes - Cardboard cut outs, the lot of them. Basically the Howling Commandos of the DC universe. The movie didn't need them at all because it didn't have the time to invest in them. So when they lived I was like, hooray? Why couldn't any one of them blow up the plane instead of Pine...oh yeah, because Pine is the only one we care about.
  • Random sex scene - though not graphic at all it had no purpose other than...the sex. Take those five minutes and invest in some character building.
  • Dr. Poison - is she an irredeemable murder or something else? Perhaps she later took up shelter in a theater and terrorized the acting company? WHY?! Obviously she's the same cardboard cut out as the Plucky Band of Heroes (tm).
All told I'd give it a 6-7 out of 10, which is far better than the median score of 2 that I normally dole out for the steaming piles of poop that DC and WB churns out.
 
Back
Top