by Chris Feil
The absurdly long wait for Wonder Woman to arrive on the big screen is officially over with the arrival of Patty Jenkins’s stellar adaptation. Gal Gadot may have been the all-too-brief bright spot of last year’s Batman v Superman, but in her own story she emerges as a hero for the ages.
While this is yet another superhero origin story, Wonder Woman’s conviction keeps its more common beats alive. Gadot’s Diana is raised to be a warrior among the Amazons, with a strong sense of true justice, under the watchful eye of her mother Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) and trainer Antiope (Robin Wright). On the otherwordly arrival of earthly spy pilot Steve Trainor (Chris Pine), Diana sets out for a righteous battle with destiny on the World War I front.
Gal Gadot is a captivating screen star, easily embodying both the chill nobility of the Amazons and the bleeding heart of her morality. Her Diana has a subtle longing, and she gives her piousness a complexity that keeps her proclamations from becoming flatly virtuous. And she seriously kicks ass - but with more purpose and humor than her DC bro coworkers.
Wonder Woman has finally been brought to the screen with compassion for the character herself and the audience as well. As superhero films have become more homogenized at best and fascistic at worst, Patty Jenkins has made one where both character and context allow the audience to connect to more than just an entertaining diversion. The film doesn’t forget its braun to favor its brain, but there is certainly something emotionally gained by how it calls up inequality and oppression that makes Diana’s righteousness resonate on a deeper level.
This Wonder Woman stands for love, a moral code that Jenkins ensures is more than basic heroic platitude. Her worldview and acts of courage are equally as heroic under Jenkins’s vision, a hero that actually mends something broken as she takes down evil forces. This depth of feeling, of stakes, makes Wonder Woman a fully formed character that we can believe in - it was the first time a superhero film made me feel like a wide-eyed kid again in many years.
Its contemporaries should take note of how Wonder Woman’s character focus heightens the stakes of the action. Even some early clunky moments of CGI on Themyscira are easily forgiven for how they strangely reflect the sequence’s sunny optimism. While some of its set pieces have the same scattershot, clanging composition (a scene where Diana decimates a room full of Germans looks lifted straight from the climax of Batman v Superman), the action is all the more thrilling because of our sense of Diana’s motivation and consequence. This is never more true than in the soon-to-be much discussed No Man’s Land sequence, one truly rousing moment of thoughtful cinematic heroism.
Like many origin stories, the film doesn’t fully engage with its villain - though luckily with the World War I setting, it’s as if the larger, more general force that Diana is fighting is the real villain here. Danny Huston snarls once again as the evil Ludendorff without much surprise. Elena Anaya’s creepily masked (why do even great directors hide her face all the time?) Doctor Poison has some bitter humanity but not much characterization.
While the ensemble delights in their small bits, especially Wright and Saïd Taghamaoui's charming Sameer, the only one who steals any of Gadot’s spotlight is Chris Pine. As charming as ever, Pine plays love interest Steve Trevor with ease and great humor at the film’s subtextual winks. While it’s clear the actor knows it’s Gadot’s show, he and Jenkins still capture him Steve as emotionally arrested and realized as Diana. Can we start taking him more seriously as a charming screen talent, please?
It’s not just the DC Cinematic Universe that has been revitalized here, but the film should serve as reminder to the genre in general. What makes superhero films register beyond our pre-invested fandom is where Jenkins’s film is strongest: a distinct and complete character combatting global concerns. This isn’t just a blockbuster made within a set (increasingly more lifeless) formula. Wonder Woman is built to inspire awe - and it resoundingly does.
Grade: B+
