Wasn't as expected

Rating: 5/10 (24 June 2017)

I had higher expectations for this movie coming into the theater. With all the hype surrounding a big budget film that cast Gal Gadot as the main character, who just happens to be a woman, and the advertising that was poured into portraying Wonder Woman as the positive antithesis to the vulgarity that is "man" (and elevated female prowess by association), it didn't stand up to many of the movies in the superhero genre (such as Civil War, Iron Man 3, etc.). While the film at its moments with flashes of brightness and endearment, the best part of the movie involved the natural chemistry between WW and Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), but the rest of the movie was left for interpretation as to whether it was great (WW lovers camp), mediocre, or really bad. I fall in the middle for the following reasons:
1. Gal Gadot is beautiful, but her acting performance was OK. It was not a break-out role for her by any stretch of the imagination. Much of the dialogue in a number of scenes involved screaming back at Steve and that's hardly acting. She is easy on the eyes to look at, to hear (when not screaming), to like, and I wanted so much to be absorbed by her portrayal of a superhuman with a fine balance of perfections and flaws, but in the end, she reduced to just another pretty face. 2. The CGI and action scenes were so-so. They weren't the best nor were they the worst. Perhaps what made some it fatiguing at times was the frequent use of slow-motion jump twists that the Amazonians and WW herself do. Granted, I'd rather see those moves than the more laughable Scarlett Johansson jump on the shoulder-squeeze the neck with thighs move in the IM and CA movies. Simply put, they could have hired a better fight choreographer for the actresses, as many sequences were simply not believable or too cheesy to digest. 3. Wonder Woman was too powerful. She could have simply taken care of ending the war by herself, crushing all the evil males, while Steve and his male recruits (Chief et al.) were not nearly as relevant to any degree - maybe for the sake of comic relief and emotional empathy. 4. The main villain, Ares (David Thewlis), immediately gave me flashbacks of Harry Potter. There was a scene where I just thought, "No way Remus!" The scene to me was more comical than it was believable.
There was one person in the theater, a woman, who clapped incessantly throughout the movie, especially when WW raised her shield to fight off a bunch of baddies on the front line to the amazement and disbelief of Steve and fellows. While I understand this was somewhat about girl-power, it did get artificial and annoying. Perhaps Gal Gadot can win me over in the sequel :-)