William Moulton (Wonder Woman created by), Harry G. Peter (un-credited Wonder Woman created by)
Diana, an Amazonian warrior in training, leaves home to fight a war, discovering her full powers and true destiny.
Present-day Paris. Diana Prince receives a letter of herself and four men taken during World War I. She recalls her youth, teen and early adulthood, first as a young girl, living and later training among the Amazons - Women Warriors created by the Olympian gods to protect mankind after the strife between Zeus and Arès.
But, in 1918, when Steve Trevor, a pilot, crashes and tells of the conflict in the outside world, Diana decided to leave her safe heaven - the hidden island of Themyscira - and to fight the war in order to save humanity from Arès' corruption.
Wonder woman is rooted the DC comics' re-imagined Greek mythology, and places the new heroine - Diana, Wonder Woman, and the Amazons, (still) living by the 20th century, just as well as the Greek God of War, Arès, as a real character within the fictional Earth of 1918...
I find that sadly, after several years waiting to watch the movie that was much hyped and revered as a feminist one, that it defeats itself in its efforts.
First, it doesn't know what it wants to be, either a film that feels like a high budget b-movie, but which also seem to take itself far too seriously...
Secondly, its pace is horrible! it felt much much longer than 2h21, even before reaching the half-point !
Thirdly, as a feminist icon, Diana seems at first great, but the dialogues of the movie, with a forced romantic interest and a plethora of men (the majority of which are white) and which soon take over screen time and dialogues, Diana's strength is sometimes set aside for men flirting with her and having innuendoes which also felt forced...
By the time Diana - and us - learn the truth about her origins and destiny, even her feminism is reduced, because of who she is, no longer just a powerful woman... I feel this is reflected in the fact of hiring a woman director, a main female cast for the early part of the movie, replacing them with a majority of men - Gal Gadot as Diana, Wonder Woman, is frequently the only woman on screen, surrounded by men - but also a bigger male cast, and writing team. it really feels like pandering, but not a movie written with natural feminism (are they any ? that I can watch?? meaning, not super graphic ? that remains to be seen).
Fourthly, the villains were either under-played, or over-played as cartoons, and were thus very disappointing.
Can you believe that there is also a fifth issue ? actually, several more, let's see: far too many anachronisms, with songs, inventions, military stuff, with errors between 3 and 70 years (!), forced jokes, battles scenes that sometimes flow, and others are almost like stop-motion, slow-mo's... and the ultimate and very corny reasoning behind fighting for the sake of humanity : that love must conquer all.
I didn't mention the issues regarding tropes (a ginger man and a fat woman as the comic reliefs, for ex) ; predictability ; unrealistic that people, starting with the pilot, wouldn't be shocked and horrified at Diana's attire ; buying eye glasses at a clothing store without passing by the optometrist's ; and a character which seems to fulfil more than one position ?!
CInematography and special effects are only ok, because always visible and never forgotten. The movie is driven on them and whatever depth it needed in story and dialogues, they end up corny and uneven in storytelling.
The music is ok but seems to borrow from other soundtracks of block buster action movies, much like the narration at the start of the movie sounds very inspired by that of the Lord of the Rings trilogy... but lacking it's own personality, in my opinion.
The concept was good, but all in all, I feel that Wonder woman isn't my taste. Perhaps am too old for it ? It had potentials but it feels that most have been squandered, and due to the many continuity, factual and anachronistic errors, feels a very lazy film-making, with no reliability.
Besides that, I'm not a huge fan of super-hero and heroines to begin with, so I'm glad I never went to pay the cinema spot for it back in 2017, because it's largely a disappointment.
Starring : Gal Gadot, Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen, Lilly Aspell, Ann Wolfe, Chris Pine, Danny Huston, David Thewlis, et al.
Comments
Post a Comment