She's still a wonder...

Rating: 9/10 (15 June 2017)

I've never been the biggest fan of the Wonder Woman character, but I did enjoy a few episodes from the 1970's television series. Lynda Carter really left some big shoes to fill for her eventual successor, enter the recently released Wonder Woman film starring Gal Gadot and Chris Pine.
Gal plays a naive, yet strong and caring, Princess Diana of Themyscira effectively well, and Chris Pine's enactment of Steve Trevor undeniably adds on to some pleasingly convincing performances from the rest of the supporting cast in this picture.
Wonder Woman is a film that finds an effective balance between a darker and lighter tone, as we see Diana's ongoing growth throughout the course of the story. Some of Diana's fish-out-of-water moments even made me laugh a little. When Diana was having trouble adjusting to wearing such "proper" attire, I couldn't help but giggle at the awkwardness of her slight, yet still noticeable discomfort with the situation. With Diana, we have an individual who was born and raised on an island where there are no men. She clearly knows what a man is when she sees one, but she has never really interacted with one before. So, when Steve Trevor comes into the picture, Diana doesn't quite know what to make of him. I appreciated and felt completely convinced by the motivation and pure curiosity that drove Diana to leave her home and go with Steve to fight a war that her fellow Amazons considered a problem for man to solve on their own.
The interactions between Diana and Steve were the most touching to me, as I watched the strong connection between these two characters grow into an even stronger romance. This made it a bit harder to watch Steve sacrifice himself in the end. Although, his sacrifice was understandable, since it proved to be maybe the one thing that shaped Diana into becoming the hero that we all know she is in the present day.
As for the villains, Ares proved to be deceptively cunning, while Ludendorff and Doctor Poison proved to be clever, albeit unwitting pawns in Ares' attempt to prove that the human-race didn't deserve to exist. Yes, there was one point when Ludendorff and Doctor Poison got a little cheesy in a very 60's villain kind of way, but I was okay with that, since it was only for a very short moment. Besides, Ares' calculated planning and precision more than made up for whatever minor shortcomings any of the villains had in this film.
The fight scenes in this film, were as epic as I would have hoped, never losing my attention, even for a second as the movie progressed. I felt enough of an adrenaline rush from the action scenes alone for this movie's 2-hour and 21-minute run-time to feel more like a quick 90-minute action/adventure flick.
I also appreciated the Richard Donner's Superman moments in this film, as well, from Diana wearing glasses to the reversed bullet-blocking alley scene. It was real nice to see a strong female character portrayed as the hero, while the male lead was still seen as someone who could still carry handle himself well enough in a fight.
For its unrelenting ability to maintain a steadfast story and continuously developing lead characters, I give Wonder Woman a score of 9 out of 10. Despite it's very minor shortcomings, this movie did enough to keep me from wanting to take even one bathroom break, and for me, that's really saying something.