A win for a franchise that desperately needed it

Rating: 6/10 (3 June 2017)

I went into this movie feeling 2 things, the first being scepticism and the second optimism. Having read some very good reviews and seeing the resounding positive feedback for the film on the likes of Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb I wondered whether this was a film being over- hyped simply because of the female lead or that this was in fact going to be a very good movie, however being a huge comic book film fan I was optimistic that I was going to be wrong. Which I was. to as certain extent.
So let's talk about the positive aspects of this film, the first being the excellent portrayal of Wonder Women by Gal Gadot. After our first glimpse of the Amazonian in the not well received Batman vs Superman it was hard to tell whether Gadot was going to be a good choice for the role, however her performance in this film put all of those doubts to bed. Not only does the actress physically look the part but Gadot also strikes a really good balance between independence and naivety as she comes to terms with her new surroundings of World War I. It's great that not only do we finally have a good female super hero lead film but also a role model for young girls within the ever growing popularity of the comic book film genre.
One of the main issues that this current DCEU has been heavily criticised for is the tone and theme of each movie with both Man of Steel and more so Batman vs Superman being labelled as "too dark". Wonder Women however gets the tone absolutely spot on with the movie managing to do a great job of demonstrating the horrors of World War I and integrating it with humour, heart and conveys important messages quite prevalent in today's society. In addition to this, the cinematography and the way the film is shot is absolutely stunning. I had the opportunity to see the film in IMAX and the shots of Themyscira especially were incredible.
With Man of Steel being heavily criticised for its fight choreography it was important that this was addressed and well executed in Wonder Women and although not perfect, is still very well done in this movie. In a number of scenes we see WW acrobatically taking down soldiers in which the hits feel hard and real and there is a good blend of real movement and CGI. The only issue I had with the fight scenes, which is more of a personal preference, is that there was too much slow motion used. Personally I felt that the scenes where there was only a couple of slow motion shots used, conveyed the speed and strength of WW much better.
The biggest criticism I can give this film is how it ends. Personally I felt that the "Join me or I'll destroy you" mantra of the main villain Aries is extremely overused in this genre already and although it doesn't ruin the film, I was hoping for something a bit more. Especially with the plot twists in this film being fairly obvious. I also found the scene after Aries is defeated incredibly cheesy with German and British soldiers hugging and chatting after spending the last 20 minutes slaughtering each other with gun fire. I obviously understand that the war was happening due to Aries's grip on mankind and that grip had now been released, however I just felt like the scenes of celebration in London would have sufficed and made it slightly more believable.
Danny Huston's portrayal of Lundendorff I also found to be very weak. Although Huston has had success playing villains in other movies before I just couldn't understand why they didn't cast a German actor to play the role as the German accent of Huston in this film was extremely poor. Only a minor negative but one I couldn't get passed.
My final issue with the movie was the run time. Standing at 2 hours 21 minutes the film just felt a little too long and although I was never bored throughout the film I was very much ready for it to end. I felt that there were some aspects of the film that were either not needed or were dragged out, for example I believe we spent too much time with Diana as a child and I also felt that the scenes in present day were not needed. The whole film being a flashback felt a little cheap. Again, all stuff that didn't ruin the movie and is mainly personal preference.
In conclusion, Wonder Women is a very solid movie which the DCEU so desperately needed after such a rocky start. Although there is nothing ground breaking or game changing within this movie it's an excellent introduction and portrayal of the character and I'm very much looking forward to seeing how Wonder Women interacts with the other members of the Justice League in the upcoming movie. In my opinion 8.4 on IMDb is generous and I've decided to give it a very solid 7.