Wonder Woman

If you recall my review for Batman V Superman, I was one of the few critics who legitimately enjoyed the film. I noticed friends and critics I follow who detested that movie. One of the few things about BvS that received nearly universal approval is Wonder Woman’s introduction to the DC Cinematic Universe. Gal Gadot absolutely nailed the part, and I vividly recall when she dawned the iconic Wonder Woman costume accompanied by her badass, thunderous theme song late in the film a fellow filmgoer near me letting out an audible, super-fan ‘yeah!’ That film was the perfect appetizer to set up her feature-length, lead starring debut in 2017’s Wonder Woman (trailer).

I do not recall reading much of the Wonder Woman comics over the years other than seeing her in a handful of JLA issues I read over the years. I have vague memories of catching a few re-runs of the classic Lynda Carter TV show off cable when I was a kiddo, and also Wonder Woman’s guest appearances on the awesome animated DC cartoons that ran from the early ‘90s to the mid-00s. I had a basic knowledge of her origin and her powers, but having her reintroduced in BvS was a great refresher of what to expect in this film.

I do know that the original comic’s origin had her kicking Nazi butt much like Captain America. They tweaked her origin for the film by having her debut toward the end of World War I instead exactly 100 years earlier. There is a nicely done opening sequence of Diana growing up on the mysterious island consisting of the all-female warrior race of Amazons. One day a British spy, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crash lands near the island and Diana rescues him, but a German fleet is right on Steve’s tail and Amazons and Germans wage war. Steve catches Diana up to speed on WWI events, and Diana is convinced Ares, the God of War is corrupting the minds of the Germans and convinces Steve to take her to Europe to find Ares and destroy him, thus ending his corruption of the Germans and bringing peace.

Diana’s conviction that Ares is behind World War I is adorable, and I ate up her affable culture shock to the European conventions of the time such as dancing and ice cream. Eventually, Diana and Steve find out the dreaded German General Ludendorff (Danny Huston) is about to unleash a deadly chemical attack and round up a team of Steve’s former running mates to stop him. Steve’s team consists of Sameer (Saïd Taghmaoui), The Chief (Eugene Brave Rock) and Charlie (Ewen Bremner). They are all well casted and naturally all play well off each other as they provide support to Diana’s and Steve’s quest to stop Ludendorff. Pine and Gadot have the best chemistry of the entire cast, and by the end of the movie, much like the first Captain America film it had me despondent that this is the only film we will see these two pair off in before the sequels presumably jump to modern times.

The ‘money’ scene in this film is when Wonder Woman cannot take witnessing the pain and suffering in the trenches no more and heroically charges headfirst into no man’s land against a barrage of German gunfire. Watching Diana and her team proceed to eradicate an entire enemy squadron is such a powerful rush that it easily ranks as one of my top action moments in all of superhero films. If you have not seen this film yet, then by all means please click on that link to the scene and max out your speakers/headphones and prepare to be blown away! Eventually Diana and company have a final confrontation with Ludendorff that stunned me with a twist I did not see coming. Best of all, the twist makes sense and the filmmakers pull off some spectacular CG to make it all come together for a dramatic final clash to close off one of the best superhero movies, bar-none from start to finish.

Speaking of CG, I had fun joking with my dad about how good the CG was in the film. My dad is way more of a comic book buff than I am and read a nearly everything Marvel and DC put out from the late 60s until the early 90s so naturally I had to pick his brain to see if Wonder Woman did the comic justice. He went on about how there was no Rex the Wonder Dog or invisible plane. I retorted by stating the CG was so good that he could not spot the invisible plane; invisible cars in films are a whole other story however.

The BluRay is stacked with just over two hours of extra features, and all but a couple of them are worthy of consumption! There is one moment in the bloopers package that popped out to me when the cast erupted into giggles and director Patty Jenkins rushed the set and worked some kind of bizarre hand motion/trance voodoo magic to get the cast quickly focused again and not waste precious filming time. Of the six behind-the-scenes features I would recommend Director’s Vision and Crafting the Wonder as the two must-see features. Patty Jenkins breaks down five key scenes in Director’s Vision and spends about 25 minutes dissecting them and how they relate to the comic and updating it to modern conventions. Crafting the Wonder is a thorough 16-minute piece on how the Wonder Woman film came to be, how Gadot perfected the character and how Jenkins mastered the nuances of cinematography throughout the film.

If you cannot tell already, I absolutely loved this film. I went back and forth in my best of rankings between Wonder Woman and Logan as my favorite film of 2017. It is easily in the top tier of the pyramid of superhero films. I cannot gush about it anymore, so if you are hung up about the DC side of superhero films, at least go out of your way to see just this one and you will not regret it. There were a lot of rumblings among film enthusiasts about the state of the DC films after the polarizing results of Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad, but Wonder Woman gave the DC Cinematic Universe a much need boost to salvage it. Justice League stirred up the pot again several months later, but that is a story for a future blog!

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

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12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Countdown
Creed
Deck the Halls
The Eliminators
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Guardians of the Galaxy
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Ink
Joy Ride 1 & 2
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jobs
Man of Steel
Man on the Moon
Marine 3-5
Mortal Kombat
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
The Replacements
Reservoir Dogs
Rocky I-VII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Shoot em Up
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
The War
Wild
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Days of Future Past