Strong performances not quite enough to rescue muddled themes

Rating: 6/10 (21 June 2017)

There is a lot of expectation going into this movie which I think has probably helped it critically. On the one hand, it is the latest instalment in the DCEU franchise, which I think even critics want to eventually give a good score to, if only to provide some balance against the all-conquering critical success of the Marvel universe movies. Then there's the fact that this is the big female-lead movie of the year and critics will go in wanting to like it for this fact alone. With these factors combined, an average movie will probably pass, in the short term at least, for a great one.
And I think that this is what has happened in this case. "Wonder Woman" is far from being a bad movie. A lot of reviewers have focused on the fun feel to the movie as a positive. It's certainly the most cartoon-y superhero movie to come out of the DCEU so far which seems to be a response from Warner Brothers to criticism of the drained palette and humourlessness of "Batman vs. Superman". While it is fun, there are definitely negatives to this style, with considerably less grit in the overly bouncy action scenes. These cannot escape from Zack Snyder's creative influence and suffer as a result.
The core strengths of the movie are the central characters, Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) and Steve Trevor (Chris Pine). The characters are written well, with Wonder Woman's do-gooder resolve offset by her naivety. Gal Gadot gives a great physical and emotional performance, her movements, postures and facial expressions capturing her strength and, well, goodness perfectly. Comparisons to Christopher Reeve as Superman are fitting, and she is every bit as dashing as Reeve was. Pine almost steals the show as the love interest. He has tremendous chemistry with Gadot and his character has enough depth to be interesting in his own right.
I did find the setting of the story in WWI a big distraction and a flawed choice thematically. The character Wonder Woman was created in the 1940s and her origins placed in WWII, where she battles the evil Nazis alongside Allied forces. The writers' choice here to shift this back to WWI could have been justified. For such a staunchly anti-war character, in some ways WWI is a better fit. It serves as a symbol of a mechanised embodiment of war which simply consumed men and resources rather than serving any cause. Had the creators of the movie emphasised the meaninglessness of the conflict, with no clear distinction between good sides and bad sides, it would have been a great setting to test Wonder Woman's moral strength. It also fits with Wonder Woman's key motive during the film - she must destroy Ares, as it is his external agency that she believes has corrupted men and drawn them into the conflict.
Sadly the writers want to have their cake and eat it, so alongside this core theme we get some gleefully evil German villains who would clearly be more at home in a WWII setting. Wonder Woman is always fighting the Germans and never seems to really question whether the Triple Entente are any better. This isn't a hard choice, since it's the Germans here, and not the British, who are out to create super death gas (never mind the fact that both sides used chemical weapons during the actual war). I genuinely don't think that the movie ever really makes up its mind about which of its conflicting ideas is right, a non-trivial problem at the heart of the film.
The motivation for the change of setting appears, to me at least, to have been largely aesthetic and probably driven by a desire for something less familiar than WWII. Director Patty Jenkins showed a shocking ignorance of this problem when she said "World War I is...not something that we really know the history of." This ignorance of the issues raised by this creative decision only increases the validity of these criticisms.
It's a real shame because, action scenes aside, so much of the hard work to make this movie great is in place. The look and mood of the film and the casting choices are all spot on and the story could really have worked with more sensitivity and courage from the writers. As it is, the film must be seen as a decent, but undeniably flawed effort.