Krishna
This one took the world by storm and launched Gal Godot, the Israeli actress into the world of US Sequels. Some of you may know that she won this solo role based on the smaller role she did as Wonder Woman in the earlier Batman vs Superman movie but based on the buzz that this one received, she is now one of the sought after stars, as they say ‘in the Hollywood firmament’.
But I have multiple gripes about this film. I confess that, even though I grew up reading comics so long ago, I have not read the Wonder Woman series when it came out as comics and so this movie may be truthfully following the comic books but I still do not like it. What am I complaining about? Mixing jingoism with a fast paced story. I know that some of you will point out that the entire existence of Captain America is jingoistic. That I can take. After all the entire army of Superheroes seem to make America their primary home and protecting other countries is just an incidental benefit when they primarily save Americans from evil forces. But at least they fight the supernatural villains. Here, the whole story is about fighting the Nazi Germans. They just gave a double twist – one of them being who is the real super villain who is orchestrating the whole thing; and the second, making that person a divine deity taking human form to deceive others.
In spite of this, this is all about an all American pilot Steve Taylor (played well by Chris Pine, he of the newly rebooted Star Trek series fame) and Diana aka Wonder Woman, who does not realize her own divinity until very late into the movie, played to perfection by Gal Godot. They battle the evil Germans to the bitter end, and also face Ares, the God who turned evil and wreaks destruction upon the whole world through Nazis, silently, until forced at the end to take on the elemental Super Villain form to battle it out one on one with Wonder Woman.
The movie is fast paced enough. Well made with tight sequences with a faux evil man fronting all the time – and it is a genuine surprise when he (relatively) tamely dies in the hands of the Wonder Woman. Minutes later, we realize who the real deal is. This is a nice surprise!
Let us briefly think about the story. Diana grows up in an Amazonian island where God Zeus hid them to escape the wrath of Ares, the fallen God (Shades of Satan, the fallen angel, right?) She learns to fight in spite of her mother’s reluctance because the mother realizes that the fight is coming with Ares and that only the God Killer, the special sword that they have as a gift from Zeus. She becomes superlative in her fight and unwittingly hurts her teacher through anger translate to a powerful blow. That is a hint to us about her supernatural abilities (as if we could not tell from the title of the movie) though she does not understand what it is. The fact of her supernatural origins is kept a secret from her. Of course.
She meets and falls in love with the pilot Steve Taylor when he and the Germans following him crash into the hidden Amazonian world. The Germans have guns and the women have only swords and arrows and predictably a slaughter ensues even though ultimately, by sheer expertise in war, the women win. One of the slain is the teacher, dear to Diana’s heart.
Diana leaves with Steve knowing that Ares is behind the evil force of the Nazis (huh? This is where I lost the ‘even cartoon world’ logic that they were trying to portray) and that she had to find and kill him. She of course takes the God Killer with her with her mother’s consent.
Hilarious scenes follow of her trying to understand modern American way of life – it is kind of predictable but still cute and endearing. They both predictably fall in love and in the end, she is left alone – no doubt to pursue or be pursued by suitable other romantic interests in the sequels.
Ares tests her to the limit and she almost gets killed a number of times, escaping by a hair’s breadth. So it is all interesting and fun but the nagging entanglement of the War and the Good Vs Evil still seems out of place in a superhero movie.
Good entertainment but I would give it a 6/10, perhaps shocking many of you.
– – Krishna (Dec 2017)