The DC cinematic universe has been saved and is back on track....... at last!!!

Rating: 8/10 (2 June 2017)

I personally thought Man of Steel was a great film, however audiences and critics were divided. Batman v Superman I thought was good but had some major falls with story and structure, the critics and fans again were divided on the film. Suicide squad also had similar problems to BVS and once again divided fans and critics. Up until this point the DC cinematic/extended universe had not had a film that majority of critics and/or fans liked. Wonder Woman, the latest instalment in the franchise however I think has cracked the code............at last!!!!!
After being burned like many fans after the, lets say rocky, 2016 Warner Bros and DC had with BVS and Suicide Squad, expectations for Wonder Woman weren't exactly high. This however may have been an advantage for the film, even saying that this film has managed to carefully balance the dark and comedic, just about.
Patty Jenkins has delivered big time on this film with a story and character that has multiple layers, on multiple backdrops. This film exceeded my personal expectations by far, the action in this film is probably better than BVS and Suicide squad put together. A surprising and fantastic use of slow motion that really caught be of guard and is perfectly used, works very well in the heavy CGI scenes. Jenkins achieves an extremely hard thing and that is to balance all the brutal and large scale action with some brilliant personally character scenes, achieved in part by her very unique camera work throughout the film. Great work!
Now when Gal Gadot was cast a Wonder Woman, years ago, I was on of those people on the bandwagon saying that she was not good enough for the role. Up until that point her acting career had not being ideal and she was lacking experience, I personally believed that a more experience and well known actress should have been chosen for the role. How wrong am I now, Gal Gadot has completely changed my mind and is brilliant in a role that requires a lot from the actor. She is brilliantly funny, charming, naive when needed but then can change into this army killing machine at the flick of a switch, Gadot adapted very well. The rest of the cast is also at the top there game Chris Pine yet again improving every film he appears in, as well as Robin Wright, Danny Huston, Connie Nielsen and David Thewlis all giving good performances.
As sort of mentioned already the action and CGI in this film is brilliant, uses the ground work action from the previous films in the DC universe and puts it on steroids. Even though at times it is a bit of a CGI mash up, how else were they going to do it, so I can empathise which the creators in that respect. Fantastic production design and cinematography complement each other so well in this film, every frame is either beautifully colourful or dark and disgusting, at the perfect times.
Now the negatives of the film and yes there are some this film is very far from being perfect but its a vast improvement from the other DCEU films. One thing that DC has to its advantage over its rivals...."Marvel"...cough......is their villains are much more menacing, complex and interesting. However this film takes the "Marvel" approach and makes the villain completely underused which is very disappointing to see especially as the villain in the film is Ares the god of war. Instead of the god of war they should have called him the side kick of war, extremely disappointing, especially considering his fight with Diana goes on for a tiny portion of time. The next negative of the film is humour in the film to an extent, now I know I said this is a positive of the film, I also believe it is a negative as well. Some of the humour and jokes in the film payed off and some of them didn't, that is fine. However its the underlining feeling that these humorous scenes or instances were very forced , a bit like Marvel dare I say it. Which unfortunately is the way that DC are now having to go after BVS, which I personally had nothing wrong with the darkness and lack of humour in the film.
All in all this film personally is the second best in the franchise just behind Man of steel for me, however can understand why this could be the best for some people. This film has far less problems than any of the others in the DCEU, Wonder Woman is 8 out of 10 or 80% and is a really enjoyable great watch, with great action, very good character development , brilliant directing. Makes me very interested in Justice League later in the year and a possible Wonder Woman sequel. It is well worth your time!