Just what was needed in a sea of politically correct SFX garbage.

Rating: 8/10 (4 June 2017)

Edit - something I missed during my initial review - What really struck me about the film was the really blatant feminism of this whole thing. For I think the first time in film really, you have a male lead playing the feminine role, and the female lead playing a man's role! Chris Pine can pull that off well - he's kind of a small man, very polite, sort of a damsel in distress at times. And you have Gal Gadot who has a deep, agressive voice at times, pushing on without cease til the end. Chris Pine is kind of the T-1000 character - he is an allied spy and he uses this ability several times to infiltrate, and is kind of the conscience of the film.
This movie is, in short, astounding! Chris Pine is a great actor to bring into this part, although I thought that at times he seemed a bit preachy and couldn't let go of his Captain Kirk persona. The setting is World War I, but at times it seemed like an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, where the humans help the aliens navigate the culture of the day. In short: it gets old, but fortunately it didn't go too far. As an admirer of history, there were nuggets of the prevailing culture of the day that even the hero, Diana, the wonder woman, found hard to grasp. Gal Gadot's beauty carried the movie away, her every pose in the movie was beautiful. There is no such thing as a bad scene with her in it!
There are lots of references to ancient Hellenic (Greek mythology) which I found endearing. The action scenes were pretty solid, although I thought there could have been more.
The movie is not silly like some action movies like Independence Day 1 & 2 which is a good thing.
The themes were not political in nature which is another plus. The theme seems to be: man himself is a beast who brings evil upon himself. The entire film flows very well together. I think the reason this film is popular is because it is something fresh and new and different.
Gal Gadot's performance was good. However, I found that the character was a little wet-behind-the-ears. Maybe this was intentional, as she was supposed to portray a naive young woman, but I felt that in several scenes, she should have scratched her head and asked more questions and been a little more reflective and less hormonal. You get the impression that the writers / directors were missing several character development points and plot points I thought went unanswered.
I wish to compare her performance to Milla Jovovich in 5th Element. At the end of that movie, MJ shows a little bit of vulnerability in her character. I wonder if Gal Gadot is capable of the same range as an actress as MJ, but this may be scriptural problem.