If Only This Was the First DCEU Film

Rating: 8/10 (8 June 2017)

A WWI battlefield, shrouded in gun smoke and war remains, is flanked by trenches of soldiers who've accepted their fate of spending the rest of their short lives in this hell. On one end, a powerful but naïve woman slowly emerges, armed with a shield, a sword and a bundle of conviction to put an end to all of it. In this one sure-to-be iconic moment, the world is (re-)introduced to its new favorite superhero. Wonder Woman, an unabashed woman-empowerment film, uses its pre-established muscle for good: to give us a blockbuster full of true excitement, true humor and true heart. Being a wartime-superhero film, we expect a certain quality of action, and this delivers; the beach attack on the island full of Amazon women is a slow-motion blast of flying and fighting. But what really soars is the script, filled with dialogue that surprisingly pops ("We can't fix the war, but we can try to get to the men who can." "I AM the men who can!"). Elements of fish-out-of-water, believable romance and confident humor are more than consistent enough to the small moments of predictability, corn and bad visual effects. I can't help but imagine: what if this was our introduction to the Justice League universe? Instead of the faux-complexity of the Superman entries or the offensive simplicity of Suicide Squad, we'd be setting the tone for the franchise with a film about the effects of violence, the insanity of war and whether humans are inherently good or evil. Either way, it's so great to report that DC has more than righted their course and made a genre film for the ages.