A woeful, overly labourious attempt to balance the gender gap with the superheroes

Rating: 2/10 (22 June 2017)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Diana (Gal Gadot) was raised on a distant planet of only women, where her mother wanted to protect her from the physical demands of fighting like all the other women there. But one day she starts to rebel and unleashes some hidden powers she was unaware of, meaning the rite of passage has come, so her mother tells her the story of a spiteful son of a God and his attempt to destroy the Earth. Then, Air Force pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crash lands into their home, confusing the order of things. He reveals he has a book that contains plans by evil German commandant Ludendorff (Danny Huston) to unleash a deadly nerve gas on England. And so Diana and Steve must head to London to thwart his diabolical plan.
The superhero franchise, on both sides of the DC/Marvel divide, must really be doing the rounds, as now we have Wonder Woman, who was a character in the recent disastrous Batman Vs. Superman movie, in her own more than feature length film. And after this, there is of course the Justice League film, where all the main players are having a big jamboree together. Whether this was the inspiration behind this films existence or pressure from the feminist movement to get some good ol' equality up there on the big screen is unclear, but either way the debut feature length directorial effort of Patty Jenkins is a long, joyless effort that wastes a golden chance to level the playing field for female superheroes.
Like Batman, even more so, in fact, Wonder Woman has been taken from a pretty camp, light hearted source, and been transformed into something far moodier and deep on the big screen, where undemanding fun has been substituted for wondrous spectacle. But for all the awe inspiring effects and breath taking action sequences, it can't make up for a total sense of humour failure in the script, as well as any care-worthy characters or snappy dialogue, as well as a totally sloppy, incoherent plot that really fails to suck you in for the length it does. She may be beautiful and glamorous to look at, but Gadot isn't the greatest actress, to say the least, and co star Pine is equally vapid and bland. Even a support cast including David Thewlis, Ewen Bremner and Lucy Davis can't help. Performances wise, the best thing is Huston as the villain, who really fits the skin of his character, but can't make the whole thing taste any better.
It would have been great to see a good Wonder Woman, but sadly this is just Blunder Woman! *