Simply brilliant and amazing!

Rating: 9/10 (10 July 2017)

So here we are in 2017! Audience and critics alike still criticizing DC for not being able to make a solid movie in the right tone, without studio interventions etc. Well, they can all watch this fantastic movie called Wonder Woman (2017) and finally bring back their hopes in the DC Movie Universe or DC Cinematic Universe :)
Wonder Woman is a marvelous movie, that has finally revived the DCCU, and made it for a fun, "multiple-times watchable" movie experience. (I'm not including Christopher Nolan's the Dark Knight trilogy, as that's just on a whole different level above all this!). Gal Gadot proved all her naysayers wrong, and was absolutely amazing in this movie (I mean her acting and her role, obviously :P).
Jokes apart, this was a well-directed, beautifully shot, properly edited movie. The drastic effects of war, the spirit of women empowerment, the visual effects, story, the colors (Yes this movie has some colorful imagery for different scenes, her lasso, her powers etc) and the fight sequences were downright splendid.
The movie starts with Diana receiving the photo of her posing with Steve and others, which Bruce Wayne found out in Batman vs Superman, and she goes on to narrate her origin story. We go to Themyscira, a home to the Amazon race of warrior women created by the gods of Mount Olympus to protect humankind against the corruption of Ares, the God of war. We meet her mother Hippolyta, who feels she does not require any training as Ares is dead, and her aunt Antiope, who secretly trains her to become a skilled warrior.
We get proper introductions of who she was, what was the urge in her to become a skilled warrior, how she is THE one and only Wonder Woman, why she feels the need to go help Steve and the others in the World War after he crashes onto her island and tells them about what is going on in the real world outside, and why she is such a badass!
The movie takes it's own time in the first half to get to this though. After a pretty good battle sequence at Themyscira, the movie slows down a little in the middle to build character/relationship between our protagonists Steve and Diana. They travel to London to return a book containing important information obtained by Steve to defeat the Germans, led by General Ludendorff and Dr. Maru (Dr. Poison). During their visit to London, the movie provides for some good comic relief when Diana tries to adjust to the general mannerisms in the society, and thankfully the jokes do land! Phew!
And then the awesome stuff starts! Some of the best moments of Wonder Woman are the fight scenes. The one at the Western front in Belgium, where she pretty much kicks everyone's ass and saves the villagers was arguably the best scene in the movie. What inspired her to finally reveal herself to the world and become Wonder Woman, was shown brilliantly in this fight scene, where she gets up from the trenches, bravely stands out and starts defending the bullets with her shield! Wow! No point in me describing it here. You must see for it yourself! The one in the end with Ares was good too. I'm no CGI expert, but I definitely believe they did the CGI heavy action better here than in Doomsday in Batman vs Superman. Both these and other action scenes were jaw-droppingly amazing! What you saw in the trailers is nothing. When you see all those fight sequences in the theatres with Hans Zimmer's instrumental in the background, it sure is guaranteed to get your feet kicking with joy and excitement!
The one small problem I had with this movie was some of the villains. This seems to be a recurring problem across many comic book movies these past few years, be it Marvel or DC, and God knows who can make this right (Thanos, you better be good). In this movie, Ares was a pretty good villain, and was an equal match for our Diana. Sadly, not much could be done with him, as revealing that Sir Patrick was Ares could have ruined the twist. Ludendorff was okayish. He inhaled some gas and was somewhat powerful, but was nothing in front of Diana. The worst was Dr. Poison. Not much character development was given to her at all, and she was at best a disposable villain. Sigh!
I usually don't like romantic or rom-com stuff in movies. Don't know why though. In this movie however, I bought into the relationship between Steve and Diana. During the 1st half when they both were "romancing?" I was like "Urgh!", but it had a good payoff in the end with Steve sacrificing his life by flying the plane full of bombs in the air due to his love for Diana (Unfortunately though, I'd already seen a similar ending in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D so the effect wasn't that much). That being mentioned, Chris Pine did a good job portraying his character. Thankfully, this movie was also not all about "Women are good, Men are bad!". Steve and his other mates also had something to do! Not bad, movie. Not bad.
Overall, this is a fantastic movie that needs to be watched multiple times. It has seriously brought back hopes in me regarding the DCCU, and now I so can't wait for Justice League! My rating - 9/10!
If you liked this review, check out my blog for more reviews on English movies and TV, and Tamil movies here-
https://sudarshanmovieandtvreviews.blogspot.in/ Thanks for reading. :)