Just stick to your bloody guns!

Rating: 5/10 (15 June 2017)

Lately, DC have made some critical and commercial blunders which have seen them falling greatly behind the Marvel's juggernaut of dependable high-profit PG-13 films. An ideal response to the success of the competition would be to try and raise the quality of one's own products, but DC seem to think being more like Marvel is the way to go. That didn't do any favors to "Suicide Squad" and it's even worse a course of action for "Wonder Woman". There are too many good things to call "Wonder Woman" a bad film. It's not bad, it's just not as good as it could have been if it was allowed to benefit from DC sticking to their guns and be dark and serious.
Coinciding with the centennial anniversary of the USA entering the World War I, the choice of the setting couldn't be better. There aren't many WWI films out there, and it's a great topic to be explored even if it's just a vehicle for a superhero origin story. To that regard, I found the script remarkably restrained in the usual playing fast and loose with history, and I didn't notice many jarring transgressions other than making a historical German general Ludendorff a comic book villain. The general feeling of depression, futility and hypocrisy of "The War To End All Wars" is there, and that's what counts. Then there is that mesmerising golden-brown cinematography that is by now an established trademark for DC. Nowhere else did it serve a better purpose than in this throwback to the era of early colour photographs, and it helped the film look even more 1910s. The opening scenes, set in the Ancient Greece, quite make up for the current lack of good Greek mythology-themed films out there. Gal Gadot is very comfortable and believable as the titular heroine, with her presence and thick accent working very much in her favour. David Thewlis made wonders beyond what his dialogue would allow and was a pleasure to watch. Some action scenes, especially in the grand finale, do strike an emotional chord and are done rather neatly and cleanly, which is quite a refreshment in the sea of overedited, choppy action of nowadays.
Too bad the shortcomings of "Wonder Woman" stick out just as well as the good parts. There is, firstly, the silly plot. There are pronoun games, heavy handed expositions, twists and revelations which even a mildly keen viewer typically guessed halfway through the film. The motivation of the main character is incoherent, sometimes illogical and it often serves just to make the plot points happen. The vacuum between anything happening is filled with dialogue that ranges from awkward and clumsy to downright stupid. One exchange went like this: "Humanity is good!", "You are lying and I must kill you!", "I believe in love!". One doesn't get to hear that in an A-film often.
The "Marvel" part comes in the shape of the characters that help Diana aka Wonder Woman throughout the film. Chris Pine's rendition of Steve Trevor is over the top awkward. He never connects to Diana properly and the implied love story is unbelievable. Pine does have his moments thanks to his boyish charm, but generally he has been let to do too much. The sidekick characters do even worse. They are too goofy and their dialogue is too frivolous and trying too hard for a comic relief that they just stick out like a sore thumb in the gloomy setting. Also they are not given anything meaningful to do so they more or less just clutter up the screen and the screen time. Greatly lacking is the mise en scène. The backdrop is there and the sets are impeccably designed. But the scenes in London are not populated enough with interesting characters and the film would benefit from more people reacting to the novelty of armor-clad woman in the post-Victorian England. It would also benefit from showing more grit and horrors of the WWI, but I guess in the battle for the PG-13 label sacrifices had to be made.
Much has been made of the fact that one of the most expensive films with a female as the main character has been directed by a female director. It has even been touted as a big deal by recent female presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. Unfortunately, Patty Jenkins did in this production the same thing Mrs. Clinton would have done in the Oval Office - get lost. A Wander Woman, if you will. She lacks pace, focus and determination. Her shots are all over the place, editing is slow and inconsistent and the film overally doesn't get off the ground until it's almost over. She seems to leave the main actors too much on their own, but what's worse, she even lets the extras overact. Someone with a tighter grip over the production was sorely needed here. Jenkins just aimed to please the powers that be. The difference between the good and the bad action scenes in the film prompt me to believe that Zack Snyder took over at least for the final showdown, because that particular scene was almost every bit as good as the finale of "Batman v Superman". If that one was also done by Jenkins after all, power to her.
"Dumb but good-looking" is not the label I like to ascribe to DC films. Not that they've ever been overly smart, but I remember how seeing "Man of Steel" left me with the feeling "man, that's how it should be done" and I wanted more of that. Come to think of it, I can't even say that the new direction is really trying to emulate Marvel. It's just an aimless departure from adult themed stories in the hope of winning that teen buck. And sure enough, the screening I attended was filled with kids. They were laughing in all the wrong places.