An Overrated yet Pretty Decent Ride

Rating: 6/10 (4 June 2017)

First things first, and not to be shallow... although both male and female will readily admit that Gal Gadot is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful women ever filmed...
Which makes perfect sense in the WONDER WOMAN origin story because — she's no ordinary dame. Even living on an island with a race of Amazon beauties, who spend their long days practice-fighting in a slow-motion MATRIX style fashion, she stands out and alone — the only vixen with powers far beyond her kind. Superpowers, indeed...
Gadot's Diana is a lot like.... get ready for this utterly random comparison... Arnold Schwarzenegger in TWINS: Brought up on an island paradise as an impeccable human being, and then some, it takes a mortal... in this case, World War I American Spy/Flying Ace Chris Pine as Steve Trevor... to teach her about humanity and its multitude of flaws...
The action scenes, continuing the MATRIX style slow-mo... bullets moving like flying snails along with people being rammed at high speed, and then pummeling fifty yards backward... are perpetually in-check with an anti-war message that quite simply — gets in the way: Of not only thrills but the story-line...
Instead of fully developing the characters around Diana as she follows Steve onto the Front Lines, where she thinks the God of War exists in this "War to End All Wars" while meeting three of his forgettable buddies, there's a barrage of lectures spouting from our title heroine — not the typical Hollywood-preachy but more like an unscathed child to an experienced father. Her naiveté obviously masks what the writers are trying to say about mankind (there's even a hackneyed, forced reminder of how bad the Native Americans had it), while Chris Pine, despite looking good for the part and great as Captain Kirk in the new STAR TREK franchise, isn't witty or caustic enough to make for a stunned semi-straight-man for this surreal woman's bizarre reality...
For instance: On a boat, after leaving her island (near where Steve had crash- landed with Germans on his tail), Diana tells him she's not only fatherless, but was made of clay by her mother. Setting up for the type of stunned disbelief that could be downright hilarious, he hardly seems to care much at all. Not that every superhero movie-character should have a Robert Downey Jr. rapid-fire wit...
But since this WONDER WOMAN is so outrageously gorgeous and mysterious, wielding powers straight from the gods, a more humorous and realistic sense of comparably inferior Reaction is very much needed. Then again, the two do click, visually. And the flaws are partially made up for by an adventure that takes the viewer into several locations where, to quote the old pulp radio shows, Danger lurks around every corner...
How Diana takes on the human menace i.e. German troops makes for a genuinely entertaining roller-coaster. Too bad the people around this stunning goddess can't equal her powers with the kind of earthy charisma that makes her battles worth fighting. And like the first CAPTAIN America, having a superhero movie take place in the historic past makes for villains that feel tacked-on, unrealistic and, for the most part, unnecessary. In either World War I or II, while up against the massive German army, a primary Antagonist adds up to a sprinkler in the ocean. Sure, they're needed to move the story, and this is a comic book tale. But in WONDER WOMAN, the enemies are a mere afterthought. But hey, on the lighter side, this time the folks at DC lessened their narcissistic whining and brooding, going all out to please the audience: most of whom will ignore any faults and simply enjoy the ride. And with the price of admission so high, why the hell not? (CultFilmFreaks.com)