Why Wonder Woman Will Age Poorly (A More Thorough Analysis).

| | | The Basics: The more one considers the 2017 cinematic rendition of Wonder Woman, the more troubling the film becomes, especially for fans of the iconic character.


I waited about thirty-seven years for the film Wonder Woman (I'm assuming I was not necessarily a fan for the first couple years of my life). I have been a lifelong fan of the character Wonder Woman and in the last decade, I have actually become much more educated about the character of Princess Diana Of Themyscira. This weekend, I have found myself in an incredibly odd position, though. I rushed right out to see Wonder Woman (and reviewed it here!) on opening day on the biggest screen I could reasonably get to and in the days since, I have read the chatter and tried to interact with people about the film, but I've discovered that the hype machine for the film is still alive and well.

I have been feeling out-of-sorts about the film Wonder Woman because the more I think about the film, the less I liked it. This is a confession I anticipate more people will articulate in the days and weeks ahead and I am pleased, for once, to be well ahead of the curve. When I saw Alien Covenant (reviewed here!), for example, it seemed like people in the audience knew they had just watched a terrible film. When the screening was over, the fans who had rushed out to the earliest possible screening on the 70 ft. tall screen were silent; there was no chatter in the audience and people filed out of the screening like they were leaving a funeral. By contrast, when Wonder Woman ended, people were enthusiastically talking and I left in kind of a daze and felt compelled to ask one viewer, "Did you like that?" Rather than argue, I simply listened to her answer; she was impressed that Patty Jenkins managed to get a movie of that scope made and she was excited about going to see it again.

So, when I came home, I began looking at other people's responses to Wonder Woman and the more conversations I saw about the film, the more I came to believe that people were seeing what they wanted to in the movie, as opposed to what was on the screen. I also came to recognize that there was a strong divide between the people who were fans of the source material - Wonder Woman comic books - and the generic idea of Wonder Woman. But, on every major front - Themyscira as a matriarchal society, Patty Jenkins's direction, Ares as an adversary, and the heroic nature of Wonder Woman - Wonder Woman is not only a disappointment, but a betrayal of the ideas for which the character stands.

It is worth noting, before I delve into each of these aspects, that this article is intended to speak frankly about aspects of the film Wonder Woman and it is intended for people who have seen the film. If one enjoys the way a film unfolds and surprises within it, this is not the article for you who have not seen Wonder Woman. That said . . .

Themyscira

Themyscira is the island of the Amazon warriors and to be fair to writer Allan Heinberg and director Patty Jenkins, the island is fairly well-characterized in Wonder Woman. The Amazons are a mostly warrior culture, though Wonder Woman takes time to pull out a book and have Hippolyta reading to a young Diana.  Viewers see the effects of a Themysciran education later in the film when Diana flawlessly speaks many languages with Sameer. So, Themyscira is a place of military training and education (though, seriously, my next viewing I'm going to be scouring the background for a single Amazon sitting somewhere actually reading a book!), set aside from the world by Zeus to keep it safe from the Ares-corrupted world of mankind.

The problem with Themyscira in Wonder Woman is that the hook is a cheap one and the environment quickly becomes indistinct from the world it is supposed to be separate from.

Themyscira is a matriarchal society that is supposed to be different from the World Of Man. Great. It is populated by women entirely and people there seem generally happy. But, outside of the lack of a Y chromosome on the island, what makes Themyscira different from the rest of the world? The citizens are immortal, there is that. But beyond that . . .

Themyscira is governed by corrupt liars. Themyscira is populated by people motivated by fear who lie to one another to advance their own agendas.

Allow me to clarify those assertions. Themyscira is governed by a corrupt liar. Hippolyta is a liar. She spends decades or centuries lying to Diana both directly and through omission. Hippolyta shares information with Diana about the nature of Themyscira, including the fact that it is the repository of the God Killer. The child Diana assumes that the God Killer is the name of the sword kept in the Amazon's vault of precious things, when Hippolyta and every other Amazon knows that the God Killer is Diana herself. Hippoltya is an authoritarian leader in Wonder Woman; she orders Antiope not to train Diana and viewers are forced to assume that at some point Hippolyta ordered her people not to tell Diana her true nature. None of the women of Themyscira contradict Hippolyta's lie of omission when others know the truth about Diana's true nature. The Amazons lie to Diana.

The other well-developed Amazon in Wonder Woman is Robin Wright's Antiope. Wright does an amazing job of portraying Antiope, but the character only helps to reinforce that Themyscira is fundamentally no different than the world it has been isolated from. Hippolyta orders Antiope not to train Diana in the defensive arts. Antiope does it anyway, under the cover of night and behind Hippolyta's back for (presumably) decades, if not centuries (how immortals age is not clearly chronicled in the film). Antiope wants to be prepared because she wants the Amazons to be able to defend Themsycira for the time when Ares inevitably finds the hidden island. Antiope is afraid of the world and wants to be prepared, so she lies to her government and prepares the God Killer.

So, Themyscira is not actually different from Man's World in Wonder Woman and while there is the valid feminist argument to be made of "here we illustrate that women are no different from men," there is something incredibly unsatisfying about that view being applied to Wonder Woman. First, as a place segregated by the gods, it stands to reason that there ought to be something fundamentally different about Themyscira. Second, embodying Themyscira as "just the same as Man's World" robs the film of the ability to laud the benefits that could be created by a matriarchal society - a lack of prudishness, marriage that does not need a government to enforce it, honest dialogue between the citizens, etc. (all of which are lacking in the film). Finally, from a storytelling perspective, Themyscira being just the same as Man's World undermines the potential to tell Princess Diana's story in a more compelling way. Instead of setting up a reversal where Diana is the last person to get to the realization that she is the God Killer, if she had been raised knowing she was the God Killer, it would give her a strong sense of destiny and purpose in leaving Themyscira. That is the difference between the character being self-motivated and plot-motivated (Diana leaves the island as a reaction to Steve Trevor, regardless, but she would have had greater moral authority in leaving to slay Ares had she been armed with the information of her true nature in advance).

Patty Jenkins's Direction

As I write this, news is breaking that Wonder Woman is now the film that has the highest-grossing box office debut for a film by a female director and, despite my issues with the film, I could not be more thrilled about that. I was especially happy because that meant that Fifty Shades Of Grey no longer has that honor. But, in reading people's thoughts on Wonder Woman, it got me thinking about directors who happen to be female, whose work I enjoyed. Last night, I asked myself "What female directors do you like?" and I was very happy that I instantly was able to name Roxann Dawson and I've been very aware of Robin Wright's episodes of House Of Cards when she directs. But, when I went through my video library, for films - despite having many in my collection that have strong female characters or tell vital stories about women - I discovered I only had The Incredibly True Adventure Of Two Girls In Love (reviewed here!) and Waitress (reviewed here!) that were directed by women. Both of those films are much smaller films than Wonder Woman in terms of scope.

But . . .

. . . visually, they aren't truly twenty years behind Patty Jenkins's Wonder Woman. Obviously, the special effects in Wonder Woman are better than films from the late-90s and early 00s, but the direction of Patty Jenkins was one of the ways I felt most isolated in discussing Wonder Woman. Many people seem to be generically lauding the scope of Wonder Woman and praising Patty Jenkins for that. I saw something very different in Wonder Woman: Patty Jenkins seemed very cautious in using the scale, seemed outright terrified in dwelling on key moments and created an entirely derivative battle sequence.

I saw Wonder Woman on big screen and I was very excited about that. It did not take long into Wonder Woman, though, before I started to become troubled by how scale was being misused. How places within the environments of Wonder Woman fit together is very problematic and are not very well presented. Take, for example, the first big encounter in Wonder Woman. Many, if not most, Amazons are watching Diana show off her military training for Hippolyta. Diana inadvertently wounds Antiope and runs away to the cliff where she sees Steve Trevor's plane fall into the sea. That leads the Germans into the waters of Themyscira and the beachfront battle. How those locations fit together is not made clear by Patty Jenkins; we do not get wide shots and clear trails and that leads to a problematic suspension of disbelief.

Are we supposed to believe that no one followed Diana? Is she truly so friendless that none of the Amazons saw her go over the cliff into the water and saw the Germans piercing the veil around Themyscira? If so, why did it take the Amazons so long to get to the beachfront when they were pretty much all in the same place to begin with?! The failure to show the scale and how pieces of the whole fit together is problematic for the storytelling and is not great filmmaking. The best battle sequences hold up because the relation of places for the battle are established and make sense and the Themyscira beach battle is one that crumbles under the most basic scrutiny. Sure, it looks good to have the horses thundering across a beach, but why didn't the Amazons stay on top of the cliff and shoot down the Germans from high above? And, based on the way the battle was filmed, if the Germans had tried to infiltrate the city from the beach, any survivors who tried would have been easily cut down by the attempt as Patty Jenkins showed viewers only one clear way from the beach to the city! In other words, the direction undermines the themes as the Amazons, who have been training for centuries to protect their homeland and have multiple home field advantages, utilize a military strategy that is reckless and invites casualties.

But that problem carries on throughout the film. Jenkins frames rooms so their size, shape, and the relationship between people within the environment is not clear until Diana enters that room or setting. One of the key scenes that has magnitude that is undermined by having such a myopic view of scale is when Diana enters No Man's Land at the front. Diana takes a stand and it is not clear until she starts her stride just how much terrain she must cross or how much weaponry might come to bear upon her. The magnitude of her act is undermined because the potential consequence of it is not made clear in advance. Furthermore, the moment Diana starts taking serious fire, Jenkins is forced to continue cutting back to Steve Trevor and Sameer following and trying to cross No Man's Land as well. This, sadly, becomes almost worthy of parody in that - because the scale of the trenches, No Man's Land and the Front are not made clear - the men who follow Wonder Woman are not cut down by what should be a slew of other guns that could not possibly have been aimed at her along the same vector.

Patty Jenkins also makes a lot of very quick shots that gut the emotional significance of key moments within Wonder Woman. When I think of the two films I have in my collection directed by women, one of the aspects that differentiates them from many of the other films I have is how the directors linger on faces to capture emotions, emotional transitions and actual reactions between characters. Sure, art house films are often more willing to capture clunky human emotions than blockbuster films, but it is hard to see how Patty Jenkins would have taken a hit as a director for attempting to show genuine emotional consequences for the actions within the film. Themyscira is an environment populated by immortals where that has been no evidence of violent death for centuries (since the island was segregated by Zeus). Early in Wonder Woman, at least ten women are killed (albeit some utterly ridiculously like a bullet to the gut that kills an armored woman instantly). How do the Amazon's react? One background Amazon runs forward, screaming in anguish to fall by Antiope's side and lift her head up. I'm pretty sure that before her first tear can actually fall, the shot has changed to Diana and Steve Trevor again. Regardless, that one Amazon's anguish is filmed in a wide shot, so it is part of a much larger tableau. By contrast - even if it was not initially clear and had to be seen many times to understand - when Legolas sees a fellow elf die in The Two Towers (reviewed here!), Peter Jackson lingers on Orlando Bloom's expression of shock, sorrow, and confusion. Jenkins guts almost every major moment of emotional resonance in Wonder Woman by cutting away from characters who are having reactions to the next moment of action.

Finally, there are the battles in Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman is a particularly bloodless film, which is nice in that one finally gets a film without anyone getting their throat slashed. But, just as cutting away from emotional moments undermines them, the impact of warfare is completely gutted by making everything bloodless. Diana pins a human to a roof by running him through with her sword, then stands in a room below the sword and there is no blood dripping from it. Really?! So, war is horrible and bad, but people don't really bleed in it, including a woman who is shot such that we see the bullet pierce her and her limp body swinging afterward for several seconds.

The final battle of Wonder Woman is one that seems to be garnering a lot of praise from fans and that has left me especially baffled. I've started playing video games over the last two years and that has truly opened me up to the idea that special effects are truly only special when they are rendered in a way that can be comprehended. I don't like playing video games with other players because I actually derive joy from exploring the virtual environments, walking around and seeing the nooks and crannies that programmers have bothered to develop. So, when the final battle of Wonder Woman is a daring nighttime raid, I felt cheated on two significant fronts. The first is that nighttime battles afford the special effects departments a number of opportunities to absolutely cheat on the special effects. There are numerous moments in the final battle of Wonder Woman where there is a clear light source presented - high light, building on fire, etc. - that allows for the bulk of the screen to be filled with shadow. In other words, detail is lost and the magnitude of the battle gets lost in darkness. That can work exceptionally well to create mood, especially in horror films. In action adventure sequences, it just obscures.

The second disappointing aspect of the final battle of Wonder Woman was very easy to define. It's a daring nighttime raid and a big special effects-driven sequence. When was the last time I saw that in a film based on comic book source material? Oh yeah, the last DC Comics film. Once the home video version is available, I fully expect that someone will do a comparative analysis between the battles from Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice (reviewed here!) and Wonder Woman. But, for those who are inclined to praise it excessively, I would ask, what is the virtue in Patty Jenkins simply replicating a Zack Snyder battle sequence?

The Problematic Nature Of Ares As A Villain

From a storytelling perspective, I was put on-guard the moment Ares was mentioned in Wonder Woman. To be clear, I love the use of Ares as a villain in Wonder Woman graphic novels. The God Of War is a great foil character for Princess Diana. In the books, some of the best, most complicated thematic work has been done by writers who are willing to differentiate Diana from Ares.

Ares, however, is a terrible choice for a villain for Wonder Woman and an atrocious adversary for a period piece.

Handled with adeptness and philosophy, Ares is not a bad Wonder Woman villain, but by the time Ares is mentioned in Wonder Woman, it is pretty clear that the movie is not That Type Of Film. Ares creates two huge problems within Wonder Woman, both of which are borne out in the worst possible way. The first problem is the suspension of disbelief aspect Ares forces into the narrative and how it affects the protagonists, the second problem is the historical aspect of Ares and his influence.

Adding gods to the narrative for what is intended to be a "real world" film creates a true challenge for writers. Wonder Woman is, in many ways, a fish-out-of-water story in which the Fantastic Element (in this case Diana Of Themyscira) is thrust into the entirely recognizable real world. Diana enters the world outside Themyscira with a core belief that Ares is directly responsible for World War I. This sets Diana up to either have the epiphany that she is wrong and Ares is not directly responsible for the war or puts the burden on showing how Ares is orchestrating and feeding off the war.

Wonder Woman falls down because it tries to do both.

Diana fails to identify the mundane personality of Ares correctly, which is fine. But then, of course, Ares is revealed and it turns out he is responsible for World War I. So, we get both actions - Diana has the moment of horror where she believes she is wrong when her first kill does not end the fighting and then Ares is revealed and it turns out he is trying to prolong the war. Wonder Woman then takes a horrible turn that clearly differentiates between those who love the source material and the johnnies-come-lately to the film: Wonder Woman fights Ares. In the books, Wonder Woman realizes in her very first battle that she cannot defeat Ares utilizing a physical confrontation. That makes absolute sense; you can't defeat warfare or the concept of warfare by beating the shit out of it. How did no one in the creative process for the film get to that philosophical truth? The critical fault of using Ares as a villain in a "kill the villain" action adventure film is that the climactic fight ends up being philosophically stupid. But, Allan Heinberg and Patty Jenkins go for it - Wonder Woman slays Ares and we see a German soldier losing the impetus to fight and embrace one of Diana's allies.

That leads to the critical problem of using Ares as a villain for a period piece: If Ares was defeated to end World War I, how the hell did World War II, the Korean War, The Vietnam War, genocides in Africa and Cambodia, and every other military conflict that followed ever happen? Did Wonder Woman just get lazy? Was Wonder Woman unable to find the reincarnation or reconstitution of Ares before those conflicts reached their boiling point? There is a simple fix for Wonder Woman - that Ares acts as a virus that slaying him does not fix, that he has infected the hearts and minds of Men such that even after he is killed his influence lives on - but it is not within the film and utilizing it would force major changes to the DC Comics Cinematic Universe. But, within Wonder Woman, the premise is that Themyscira was segregated from the World Of Mankind to keep it safe from Ares's influence and wars sprung up outside Themyscira because Ares could influence everywhere else. Ares started World War I, Ludendorff and Dr. Maru leap on that, but Ares needs war to continue beyond the initiatives they take, which leads to the climactic battle.

In a contemporary piece, where the consequence of a climactic battle could actually be used to entirely reshape the reality of the cinematic universe, Ares could be a great villain. Wonder Woman could have shepherded humankind into a more enlightened era after destroying Ares. But, alas, making Wonder Woman a World War I period piece puts a burden on the film that makes Ares a virtually impossible adversary to use well.

How Wonder Woman Became Second Fiddle In Her Own Film

Wonder Woman is being hailed by a lot of people as a great example of a strong female character and reading and hearing those arguments has made me wonder what film those people were watching. Diana is headstrong and she has some moments where she stands up to do both her own thing and acts independently of anyone else's wishes. Chief among the actions Princess Diana takes is taking a moral stance to the civilian bombing of the village of Veld by running directly through No Man's Land to decimate the German forces in the area.

But, objectively viewed, Wonder Woman is far more problematic. Steve Trevor has a great role in Wonder Woman and it is easy to see exactly why Chris Pine was excited about the project. While people might want to laud Wonder Woman as a great feminist story wherein an icon steps up to solve problems, that is not what actually happens for the bulk of Wonder Woman. The majority of incidents in Wonder Woman feature Princess Diana haplessly rushing into situations in blind defiance of others or being pulled out of a place by Steve Trevor, who then solves her problems.

Princess Diana speaks many languages, but otherwise she is presented with surprisingly little intelligence. As a fish-out-of-water story, Diana is expected to be ignorant and lacking in assets, that makes sense. But in Wonder Woman, Diana is presented without being particularly resourceful, smart, or articulate. Before Diana ever leaves Themyscira, she takes it upon herself to steal the sword she thinks is the God Killer and run away with Steve Trevor. Wonder Woman features a scene where Hippolyta exerts authoritarian control over the Amazons when she tells her people and Steve Trevor not to leave Themyscira to fight Ares's influence. A character who is ethical, articulate, smart and resourceful would debate the issue. Seriously, why doesn't Diana argue her point and try to persuade any other Amazons to accompany her?

In London, Diana is told "no" more often than anything else. Rather than take the initiative to build her own coalition that she leads, which she reasonably could have done by starting with Etta Candy, she is dragged along through most of the narrative by Steve Trevor. The thing is, Wonder Woman rewards initiative with disaster. Steve Trevor, a tactically-minded spy, attempts to use his skill and intelligence to defeat Ludendorff and Dr. Maru. To do that, Trevor has to infiltrate a German party and all he asks of Diana is for her to stay outside so he can do his job. Diana, "taking the initiative," knocks out a woman in a stunning dress, poorly infiltrates the party (drawing a lot of attention to herself) and sets the Germans off such that the cover is blown for Trevor and the Germans wipe out Veld. Wonder Woman is not so much about a smart character solving problems as a woman forcing herself into situations because she arrogantly believes she knows best at the cost of many people's lives. What kind of message is that?!

But, backtracking, Steve Trevor is given most of the heroic moments of Wonder Woman. Trevor has Dr. Maru's notebook, which is fine and makes sense. But after the set-up, Wonder Woman misses all sorts of opportunities to raise Diana's heroic stature. Diana is literally asleep when Trevor gets the pair to London. Diana starts to assert herself with the British government and military leaders when Trevor extracts them and persuades her to do their own thing. Diana does not leave rooms because she realizes that the men there are bull-headed idiots who aren't actually listening to her, but because Trevor pulls her out, tells her to fight the right battles and tells her the conclusion she didn't get to on her own.

While Steve Trevor has the resources - maps, situational knowledge, and personnel (Sameer, Charlie, and The Chief) - within Man's World and that makes sense, Wonder Woman continues to elevate Trevor at the expense of Diana. In the battle for Veld, for example, Steve Trevor (who witnessed the maneuver once!) moves everyone to the fallen door to launch Diana up to take out the sniper. The difference here is all the difference; here Diana has a moment where she is in the exact same position with all of the same knowledge, tactical experience and observational skills as Steve Trevor and the moment is given to Trevor. Diana has the opportunity to lead and command in a way that will lead to the desired outcome instead of disaster, but instead it is Trevor who once again asserts authority successfully.

Wonder Woman is one of those films that becomes more and more insulting to women the more one deconstructs it. Steve Trevor makes the heroic sacrifice that inspires Diana to take action as a reaction to the most banal form of love (Diana kicks Ares's ass after Trevor sacrifices himself and she has flashbacks to her experiences with Trevor as opposed to, for example, her decades of love for Antiope, who risked everything to train her as an act of love, against her mother's wishes). Even the set-up of Wonder Woman is an insulting form of mansplaining. How? Diana is given the photograph she has (apparently) coveted for almost a century by Bruce Wayne. But why? In Wonder Woman, World War I ends with Diana in Germany mere miles from Veld, the place where the photograph was taken. Everyone in Veld is dead, Diana is in mourning for the just-killed Trevor, and the photograph was taken maybe a day prior? Why wouldn't Diana just go and get the picture?  But, instead of Diana going back to Veld and finding the photograph, she has to delay her gratification until Bruce Wayne provides it almost a hundred years later?! Talk about women being put in positions where they have to be given what they want or deserve instead of being able to take it on their own. This is suppression of women to an almost hyperbolic extent!

Conclusion

Wonder Woman is an amazing character and a great feminist icon; almost none of her complexity, grandeur or intellect transferred to Patty Jenkins's Wonder Woman, regardless of the hype or how much Wonder Woman fans and women in general would want to argue otherwise.

For other movie articles, please check out my Film Review Index Page!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Why Is It So Hard For Movie Studios To Do Wonder Woman Right?

The Good: Decent acting, Moments of character, Most of the writing in the first half, Use of humor/fish out of water elements, Good use of computer effects for characters in battle scenes
The Bad: Used a terrible adversary for the story, Set up defies suspension of disbelief, Mediocre direction and editing, Forced romantic subplot, Obvious reversals
The Basics: Wonder Woman is painfully average . . . when it could have been so much more.


For as long as I can remember, I have been a fan of Wonder Woman. While my siblings were into Superman and Batman, I remember having a Pop-Up Book of Wonder Woman and it's such a distinctive memory that I can actually remember various pages of the book so many decades later. I'm a big fan of Wonder Woman, to the extent that in my writing career, one of the first big movie scripts I wrote was one for Wonder Woman. I advocated Anne Hathaway for the lead in Wonder Woman (in the article here!) and wrote the full script and treatment for the sequels for the film I envisioned with her as the lead. I even got the script within an inch of the hands of the man who could have made the film happen (Warner Bros. has lawyers who have trained their executives exceptionally well; the executive was enthusiastically reaching for the script after a very nice, albeit abstract, conversation and when he saw the title on the script, he physically recoiled!). So, when Wonder Woman was announced, I was both excited and apprehensive.

I was excited because I have waited my whole life for a live-action Wonder Woman that might follow on the progressive aspects of the television series Wonder Woman (reviewed here!), but with a more modern sensibility for dialogue (and costuming), I was apprehensive about Wonder Woman because none of the credited writers for the film were women (I know, Wonder Woman was created by a man), which suggested to me that the film would end up devolving into a mindless action-adventure film instead of being philosophically complex and banking on the character's intelligence and reason instead of big special effects-driven battles. I was apprehensive when Gal Gadot was cast because the casting seemed to suggest an actress who could handle the physical aspects of the role instead of long passages of dialogue. I was apprehensive because, despite Diana and Wonder Woman being a bright spot in Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice (reviewed here!), that film was a dismal mess that lived down to the worst expectations of what a film based upon a comic book source material could be.

Despite the concerns I had, I rushed out to the earliest possible screening of Wonder Woman that I could. And the latest big screen Wonder Woman was not worth driving 90 miles each way to the giant screen. Actually, that became surprisingly relevant as the direction and editing were disappointing. I drove ninety miles each way for the screen that is the closest to an IMAX in my area and it did not take long into Wonder Woman before I began to notice that the film's scale was being used incredibly poorly. Director Patty Jenkins utilized a number of very large sets and locations in Wonder Woman, but the shots are often framed to show a small area within the location, a quick shot of the full location, then Diana enters with the camera focused fairly tightly on her while she moves through the location. In other words, the full magnitude of the scope or how the elements and characters within that environment are not clearly related using the visual medium in order to make the story flow organically. In comic books that problem exists when the artwork does not create large environments; in Wonder Woman, virtually every room seems tiny until Diana starts kicking ass in it. Even in the first big battle, the scope is erratically rendered to undermine the flow and undersell the setting.

Usually, I do two paragraphs on the film's plot, but with Wonder Woman, the plot is so simple it does not warrant it. Themyscira is an island occupied by Zeus's chosen Amazons, women who once warred Ares to a standstill when Ares slew the other gods and exerted his influence over mankind. Princess Diana grows up on Themyscira wanting only to learn combat, despite her mother's express wishes. On the day that Diana defeats the greatest Amazon warrior, Steve Trevor's plane crashes in the waters off Themyscira. Trevor, an American spy working for the British government, unwittingly leads the Germans to Themyscira. The Amazons thwart the Germans and in the aftermath, Trevor tells the Amazons about the war going on. Convinced that Ares is influencing the world of man and he must be stopped, Diana and Trevor leave Themyscira and head toward the Front to find a weapon's lab and Ares in their attempt to end World War I.

Wonder Woman is told in flashback and it did not take long for that set-up to wear thin with me. First, Diana is in Paris when she receives a package from Bruce Wayne. The package is the photograph Bruce Wayne found online when he was investigating Diana in Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice. Seeing the photograph causes Diana to remember her childhood and the circumstances that led to and followed the taking of the photograph. It does not take long in the flashback before the narrative goes into alternative storytelling - Hippolyta telling the story if Themyscira and flashbacks within the flashback, like Steve Trevor telling the story of what he was doing before his crash. The conceit that sets up the flashback story turns into absurd by the film's end; Diana had unfettered access to the photograph near the film's end and good cause (from a character point of view) to go find it. Why she had to wait for Bruce Wayne to track it down almost a century later becomes a real headscratcher.

Wonder Woman peaks very early on the aspects that work. In the first half of the film, the movie has some funny lines and is very high on charm, though it is mystifying that Steve Trevor seems unable to say the word "penis." The character of Antiope is wonderful and well-played by Robin Wright. Ironically, Wright is underused as she has proven time and time again she can handle long monologues about ethics and machinations, but she is used almost exclusively in an incredibly physical performance as Antiope. Robin Wright almost makes it possible to ignore the problematic aspects of Themyscira her performance is so good in Wonder Woman.

Themyscira is troublingly rendered in Wonder Woman. In the first season of Star Trek The Next Generation, there was a terrible episode called "Angel One" (reviewed here!). "Angel One" was pretty lousy because the whole gimmick of the episode was that the Enterprise visits a planet that is a matriarchal society. The episode is disappointing on two fronts: 1. Women being in charge of a planet hardly seems novel or interesting (it's a planet being run by women, not by cats or fungi . . . of course women can run a government!) and 2. The matriarchal society is just as corrupt and petty as a male-dominated government. While I can get that there might be a statement being made that women are just as corruptible as men when put in power, it makes it somewhat pointless to bother with making a matriarchal society in film for the purpose of a statement. In Wonder Woman, Themyscira is presented in a similarly problematic way.

Themyscira is ruled by Hippolyta and most of the Amazons spend their time training constantly for the potential of a military incursion. Themyscira, however, is both cloaked from the outside world and features women who Zeus himself segregated as a different type of person from mankind. The set-up for Themyscira would have been great, if only the film had managed to maintain that idea for more than two minutes. Diana wants to train with Antiope to learn to fight, Hippolyta tells both the child and Antiope that Diana is not to be trained and when Diana sneaks out, Antiope spends years lying to Hippolyta by training Diana. So, the Amazons are just as much liars as the men of the world.

Worse than that is that Hippolyta's story about how Themyscira was formed climaxes with the Queen of the Amazons telling Diana that Zeus housed powerful artifacts upon the island, most significantly the God Killer. The God Killer is presented as the weapon that can be used to defeat Ares. Sadly, Patty Jenkins adequately captures facial expressions from Connie Nielsen's Hippolyta, Robin Wright's Antiope, and all sorts of background Amazons to indicate that Diana is wrong when she leaps to the conclusion that a prized sword on the island is the God Killer. Right away, Wonder Woman sets up a painfully forced reversal by seeding early the idea that Diana is the God Killer and in that way, the film feels like DC is yet again chasing Marvel; Diana being seeded early as the God Killer feels virtually identical to Elektra being the Black Sky in the second season of Daredevil (reviewed here!). As well, because Jenkins captures the right expressions and Antiope makes a pretty clear declaration, Wonder Woman is entirely undermined in its climax when the primary villain of the film makes it explicit to Diana that she, not the sword, is the God Killer.

So, the Amazons are a bunch of liars. Great. The thing is, if Wonder Woman were written better, the idea of Diana being the God Killer is not an inherently bad one. Instead of setting up a ridiculously artificial reversal, a far more compelling story would have been Diana growing up knowing she is the God Killer and training for it; leaving Themyscira ultimately because she feels it is her destiny and purpose to save mankind from Ares . . . instead of her sneaking out like a thief in the night.

The Themyscira section of Wonder Woman is also set up with a criminal level of suspension of disbelief required for the level of coincidence it presents. The Amazons are immortal and Diana has been training with Antiope and the other Amazon warriors for a considerable amount of time when she has the chance to show off for Hippolyta. That day, while Diana desperately searches for approval from her mother, Antiope goes all-out in her training and unleashes Diana's full potential. Antiope is wounded when she attacks Diana and Diana deflects with her bracelets. The shockwave caused by the attack leaves Antiope shaken and represents the first time Diana actually hurts her mentor. That plot conceit leaves Diana feeling isolated and concerned, which is how she is standing by herself on a cliff when Steve Trevor's plane goes down and pierces the veil around Themyscira. I kept waiting for there to be a causal link between the two events; like the shockwave actually hit Trevor's plane and knocked it out of the sky. No such luck for those who like sensible storytelling. Instead, out of all of the days of Diana's life, the day she finally defeats Antiope in public combat happens to be right after Steve Trevor robs Dr. Maru's lab and is persued by Germans into Themyscira's bubble. Really?!

The problem with Wonder Woman is that the "Really?!" moments stack up ridiculously quickly. The Germans invade the beach of Themyscira and are not nearly shocked enough at seeing both an island suddenly and bright sunlight when they were lost in fog seconds before. But then, the Germans start shooting at the Amazons and in making a PG-13 film, Patty Jenkins makes Wonder Woman ridiculous. The first Amazon casualty is a warrior, wearing leather armor, who is shot fairly squarely in the stomach. In addition to being bloodless, it is absurd that a World War I German rifle would penetrate the leather armor and layer of muscles and leave the warrior instantly dead.

Patty Jenkins seems particularly afraid to dwell on big moments in Wonder Woman. Regardless of the practicality of the Germans actually managing to take out the highly-organized, prepared and competent Amazons, Jenkins completely guts the aftermath of the attack by pushing the plot forward with Diana defending Steve Trevor and the introduction of the Lasso Of Hestia (the magical lasso that forces those ensnared in it to tell the complete truth). Here is a society of immortals who has not had a military conflict for thousands of years and now there are multiple deaths, including one of the most beloved Amazons. And the women of Themyscira are not particularly shaken, they leap right into learning about the war that Trevor has accidentally made them aware of.

Right before Wonder Woman enters its most charming phase, it introduces its most problematic aspect: its villain. The primary villain in the cinematic Wonder Woman is Ares, God Of War. Ares is a frequent adversary in Wonder Woman comics and some of the best stories involve Ares and Diana interacting. But in Wonder Woman, Ares is particularly troubling as an enemy. Wonder Woman is set during the last days of World War I and Diana's belief is that Ares, God Of War, is directly responsible for the German's military initiative. Her theory is that if she can kill Ares, whom she believes has manifested in German military leader Ludendorff, who is directly overseeing Dr. Maru's work, the war will end. Using Ares sets up Diana to either haplessly follow a ridiculous lead to a poor conclusion or creates a storytelling problem that will make Ares an asinine villain. Wonder Woman creates a head-slapping moment when the film's writers manage to do both. In considering the film, the second problematic aspect of Ares being used as the villain in Wonder Woman shines more brightly. As a conflict looms between Diana and Ares, viewers are forced to wrestle with a key problem of history; if Ares is the architect of World War I, how the hell can there be a World War II in the DC Comics Cinematic Universe?! The books manage to avoid conundrums like this - both by being set in modern times and - by having Wonder Woman resolve conflicts with Ares by conversations, not outright physical conflicts. Wonder Woman, alas, is nowhere near as sensible.

Despite all this, I did not hate Wonder Woman. The set-ups and suspensions of disbelief made a mockery of much of the character and setting of Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman, in this incarnation, is just another generic action hero in yet another "kill the villain" style super hero flick. But Chris Pine, despite not seeing the penis joke through by actually saying the word before getting corrected, is actually wonderful as Steve Trevor. Trevor is funny and Pine plays of Gal Gadot expertly. Some of the best moments in Wonder Woman are the fish-out-of-water moments when Steve Trevor tries to explain the world of man to Diana. Trevor trying to explain marriage (huge missed opportunity for Diana to either reference the lesbian marriages on Themyscira or differentiate how the women of Paradise Island can have love and fidelity without The State or Church codifying them), sleeping together, time and his adequacy as a man are very funny. In fact, Chris Pine does not seem like he is playing Steve Trevor as Captain Kirk . . . until the damn motorcycle comes out!

Lucy Davis is hilarious as Etta, though she is underused. Said Taghmaoui is good as Sameer and Ewen Bremner offers one of the most diverse performances of the film as the shell-shocked Charlie. Charlie affords Diana a great opportunity to showcase compassion for a man and Gal Gadot plays that relationship in a decent fashion. I was skeptical about Connie Nielsen playing Hippolyta (Lynda Carter seemed like the obvious choice for casting for Hippolyta), but Nielsen does fine in the role. Danny Huston and David Thewlis don't show viewers anything new in Wonder Woman (they aren't bad, but they have such long, distinctive careers, it is unsurprising they have both played characters much like the ones they play in Wonder Woman before).

Gal Gadot is fine in Wonder Woman, though much of the material she is given is not particularly cerebral or does not require Gadot for the big Diana moments. Chief among the problematic aspects of Diana is the forced romantic subplot between Diana and Steve Trevor. Diana knows Steve Trevor for, perhaps, a few weeks in Wonder Woman. (Without spoiling) At the climax of the film, Diana comes to believe that the way to save humanity is love and she conjures mental images of Trevor. Diana does not think about Hippolyta, Antiope, or Themyscira, which she wants to keep safe from the hatred of Ares . . . Wonder Woman turns to the most banal and forced concept of romantic love for the character epiphany. This is not the fault of Gadot. Gadot gets through all of the big physical moments and Wonder Woman affords her one or two chances for marginally decent philosophical speeches, but almost all of the big moments of philosophy are ended by Steve Trevor pulling Diana out of a room or Diana's high-minded dialogue ending in a fight. Gadot does fine with the material she is given.

As I drove the ninety miles home from the theater, I kept trying to figure out if I actually liked Wonder Woman or not. Early on in the film, I kept thinking of lines I enjoyed and I truly was impressed by Robin Wright and I was thinking 7/10. But then I just kept rolling my eyes and as I drove home, I most easily recalled the problems with the film (didn't we just see Wonder Woman in a climactic battle at night in the last film, seriously, they couldn't pull it off as a daytime battle this time?!). When I returned home and started describing Wonder Woman, my wife managed to phrase perfectly what I had not managed to articulate: Wonder Woman is entirely average. I was hoping for greatness, I was dreading, but prepared for, awful, but Wonder Woman is neither. The plot has massive problems and the adversary is dead-wrong for the film, the direction and editing fails to linger and capture scope, but the battles are solid, most of the performances are wonderful for the material given and when the writers tried to have fun, it shows with some clever and funny lines, so the movie just averages out.

For other movies currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
Alien: Covenant
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2
Colossal

5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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