Wonder Woman (2017) - SPOILER-FREE Review
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Directed by: Patty Jenkins
Written by: Allan Heinberg
Starring: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright, David Thewlis, Danny Huston, Elena Anaya, Ewen Bremner, Saïd Taghmaoui
Runtime: 141 min
Synopsis: Gal Gadot portrays Diana, an Amazon princess that lives peacefully on an island of only women warriors until Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), a man (!), crashes his plane into the water nearby. After saving him, she learns that the world is going through war and she decides to help him in order to fulfill the destiny of her people and restore peace all around the planet, while also discovering who she really is.
DC isn't going through a good time: Marvel keeps having huge success with most of both movies and TV shows from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) while the DCEU keeps giving the fans great disappointments since Man of Steel (including the latter) ... Well, Wonder Woman proves the hype was deserved and it's by far the best DC movie since 2012's The Dark Knight Rises!
Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot. Remember these names because it's due to them that we finally have a phenomenal superhero movie with a strong female lead character. Gal Gadot is one of the best casting choices ever, she's one of those few people that make me feel like I can't watch any other actress portray the role of Wonder Woman. She elevated the movie in a way that I never thought an actor/actress could do, so it's easy to say that she's definitely the best achievement of the film.
Chris Pine also gives a great performance and the amazing chemistry between him and Gadot makes me care a lot for the characters that are extremely well-developed in an excellent slow-paced first half of the movie, which is an unusual feature having in mind previous comic-to-movie adaptations.
It proved very effective because of all that time spent with the main characters, learning about them and what they believe in, it all makes me really care about them so, when the battle arrives and they're in danger, it all feels way more emotional. This is what DC kept failing at: giving us characters under-developed, with no motivations whatsoever, put them in the middle of a fight and expect the fans to appreciate the excessive CGI and explosions.
Patty Jenkins is a great director and this movie proves it: amazing COLORFUL visuals, the stories feel heartfelt and honest, the comedy is surprisingly great and the dialogue scenes, especially between Diana and Steve, are compelling and super captivating. The soundtrack is epic during the action scenes which are itself the definition of epicness. The first time that Wonder Woman goes into the battlefield (the one shown on the trailer) gave me chills all over my body, it's just E-P-I-C! Even if CGI is present in almost every single one of the action sequences, it's mostly well-used and it reached the awesomeness levels that I expected.
The plot is simple, but efficient (even if implausible) and it still has a small not-that-obvious twist in the third act that's actually kind of cool. As for flaws, there's one that is common to every single comic-book movie ever: the villain. Once again, this character is weak (it's actually more than just one character), with no motivations besides "destruction, yeah, war, yeah, let's kill everyone, yeah" and all of the clichés are put together into one big disappointment.
The final battle is CGI-heavy and there were some brief moments where it almost looked like a video game, but due to the fact that I cared so much about the characters, this becomes just a minor issue that I didn't even get bothered with during the action. The slow-motion looked cool, but it got overused by the end of the movie. Finally, I think that the movie is a tiny bit too long, but I guess every superhero movie nowadays needs to have at least a 2-hour runtime or it's not worth it for the studios, apparently.
Final Thoughts
So, Wonder Woman is, in fact, the savior that the DCEU needed and it not only proved the hype and huge anticipation something worth going through this last few months, but it surpassed everything I expected this movie to be. Thank you Patty Jenkins for the brilliant direction (visuals, character-development, action scenes, soundtrack, just everything), thank you Gal Gadot for your incredibly honest performance and thank you Chris Pine for being a perfect companion for the emotional journey you all took me through, even if with some flaws here and there (please, improve your villains DC and Marvel).
