I'm an anti-feminist and I liked Wonder Woman. Here's why.

Rating: 10/10 (5 June 2017)

I've been anticipating this movie since before I knew it was going to get made, long before Gal Gadot premiered her vision of the character in "Batman V Superman: Dawn of Stop Letting Zack Snyder Ruin Superman". I wanted Wonder Woman come to life on screen, not to inspire a generation of young women or somesuch, but because I like Wondy in comic books, and hoped to see her done justice.
Knowing how much social expectation was going to be attached to this film, I went in with my guard up, hoping that I was going to get my entertainment dollar's worth. And I have to say I did. While not the best superhero movie we've had, this work is very enjoyable. (I figured some 10% would be pandering to feminists, but the only "SJW moment" that I had while watching, besides Etta Candy, was a single exchange with a Muslim who speaks of wishing to be an actor, "but I'm the wrong color; we all have our battles".) The opening sequence is about what you'd expect, necessary humdrum exposition but hardly boring. In only slightly too long, we watch a little girl turn into a teenager and then Gal Gadot, who plays Wondy every bit as well as we pretty much knew she would, after her excellent appearance in BVS:DOJ. The film's inciting incident is more than a little contrived, but gets us out of this necessarily dull opening without too much trouble.
The first big battle scene showcases what is probably my biggest criticism about this mostly-good film - way, way too much slow-mo in the action sequences. Doing it this way gives us a good look at the stunts, but really breaks your suspension of belief during what should be a lightning-fast, pulse-pounding melee. This problem recurs again in the mid-movie battle scene, where Wondy takes out an entire village full of soldiers pretty much by herself; here it's more understandable that they'd want to slow down the action so that we can tell just what she's doing, but in this first fight, we're not even watching the main character for the most part, so it's all the more jarring. The battle's still cool, but feels artificial and unconvincing, on top of the other problems this early scene had.
Doctor Poison, IMO, steals the show despite how small her part is. I found her portrayal the single most interesting thing about the whole movie; she's extremely different from the usual comic-book bad guy, and rightly makes absolutely no attempt to fight Wondy, who would flatten her in an instant. Instead, we mostly only see her in the lab with her boss, and once exchanging dialogue with Chris Pine while he's undercover for some reason (this scene's existence doesn't really make sense in the plot, but it's still enjoyable, apart from the fact that Diana is clearly walking around with a sword on her back and nobody notices). Poison's makes a good illustration of the archetypal "evil scientist", but plays this role in a very understated way, rather than as some cackling maniac. Like Gadot herself in "BVS", Poison's role here is small, but extremely memorable.
The first great scene in the film comes when Diana breaks into the Amazons' treasure vault; we get a look at how insanely strong she is, when she smashes hand-holds into stone with her fingers! Once decked out in patriotic armor, she collects Chris Pine and the two of them head off. They chat on their boat about what Wondy does and does not know about men; though Pine's awkwardness isn't entirely convincing, the exchange does bring up some obvious questions (thankfully she handles the subject with tasteful aplomb, showing no defensiveness whatsoever).
Pine's behavior continues to be charmingly nonsensical; Diana wants to barge toward the action, but he manages to convince her to go along with his agenda of getting her a lower profile. We meet Etta Candy, this film's nod to the feminist audience; the plump suffragette takes an instant shine to Diana, but can't resist a couple of verbal swipes at someone more "privileged". Etta and Poison are the only actual women in the film (the Amazons, created separately by Zeus, are explicitly not human). But Etta's on screen time was brief enough not to bother me.
Diana refuses to be led around by Steve anymore; she single-handedly breaks a stalemate in the trenches by charging into fire. This scene retroactivates a plot hole in BVS (as if that film needed more problems), but is the most thrilling we've seen so far, even with too much slowmo. I do think that it would have been improved by having her suffer at least one minor setback during the sequence, maybe getting one bullet through the leg which slows her down a little. As is, she does suffer from just a little Boring Invincible Hero. Later there's some shaky dialogue between Diana and Chris Pine, which fails to sound profound; she later calls back two of these lines as if they had actually been cool.
Having seen most superhero movies, I'd rank "Wonder Woman" slightly behind the best, such as "Doctor Strange" and the original "Iron Man", probably about on par with "The Avengers" and better than "Thor". Far and away the best DC movie since "Batman Begins" or maybe "The Dark Knight". I'll be looking forward to seeing them bring her back.
We all know trailers are often false advertising, or (like BVS:DOJ) they show everything good in the entire movie. "Wonder Woman" avoids both of these traps; if you've seen the trailer, you know what you'll be getting in the movie, but there will still be surprises.
The 3D conversion of this movie is competent and not too distracting, but hardly the best I've ever seen in a theater. But a trailer for "Thor: Ragnarok" made SUPERB use of 3D, on par with "Avatar" and "Pacific Rim".