Movie ignores canon and sadly historically revises WW *contains spoilers*

Rating: 4/10 (25 June 2017)

With Marvel cleaning DC's clock with their films, this was DC's huge chance to make up some ground. With the exception of picking Gal Gadot, DC failed horribly.
The 2 biggest points in favor of WW: picking Gadot and changing her uniform to the original red, yellow and blue instead of the awful, drab brown originally seen. I'm not aware of other actresses that could have resembled Lynda Carter's WW enough to be close. Probably her strongest scene was when she crossed no man's land, with troops following and backing her up, as this would be the spirit of WW, as well as when she eliminates Veld's sniper and pretty much liberates it single-handedly--which highlighted WW's athleticism.
Biggest mistake: ditching canon. Like most DC comics, WW began during WW 2 and even Carter's WW starts there. Arbitrarily going to WW 1 leaves avid WW fans like me scratching their heads. The only things remotely canon are Themyscira's depiction and how some Amazons trained, and Trevor crashing off its coast. Second mistake was casting Pine as Trevor: he failed horribly to depict Kirk in Abram's reboot of Trek and played this bumbling, arrogant and flippant fool; he botches Trevor similarly (he has also failed to be in a single truly high-grossing hit movie where he's first-billed, especially in Abram's Trek compared to modern-adjusted earnings from the originals). In the 70s WW and the comics, Trevor was relatively decisive, sometimes a bit impulsive, but never bumbling and searching for words--the movie even failed to have him call WW his trademark "angel." He also worked American intelligence--never British--and never went to London, only the U.S. Excepting Etta Candy's general appearance, she was also not British and yet where was her trademark ice-cream eating? This was pushed onto WW, which while a cute gesture, was misplaced. While I suppose the writers wanted "dirty London" as an about-face to Paradise Island's beauty, you should NEVER pick a random element when there's so much canonical info available. Regarding WW showing Amazons training, the sickening change is twofold: mom forbidding Diana to train and how it depicts the training. In the comics, Hippolyta never forbad Diana to train--only to compete in who would become WW. She always trained hard and wanted to be the best; she then competed in the WW tourney masked and won; this displeased Hippolyta but b/c of the rules, accepted Diana as WW willingly--and blessed her. Also, her "godly" origin was never revealed until MUCH later in comic run, when she was invited to become a goddess on Mount Olympus--which is another thing this movie arbitrarily destroys somehow to set up a godkiller sword and Ares' demise? The entire WW mythos lives only because the Greek gods still exist to sometimes aid WW or cause her grief. Additionally, while Antiope exists in WW, Philippa and Artemis (especially in the modern runs) were major players on Themyscira; Philippa would have directed Diana's training and Artemis would have supported this, especially since Artemis was the deadliest known Amazonian bowman. However, neither of these support WW and the movie mentions them only in passing. As a consequence of not showing the canonical WW tournament, Diana never receives her golden belt, which gave her such awesome strength (see 70s Carter's WW run). Furthermore, only Hippolyta carried a sword and shield as regular parts of her WW run--not Diana! What about Hippolyta? While Nielsen is HUGE eye candy, she is not raven-haired like the queen should be; moreover, Hippolyta is always decisive and firm, sometimes a tad hot-headed-- but always fair ultimately. Nielsen seems tentative, doubtful and sadly bumbles through her role much like Pine.
In general, other things that do not compute would be Trevor's "selection" of a supporting cast, which feels too eerily similar to two films: The League of Extraordinary Gentleman and the first Captain America. Oddly enough however, none of them prove exceptionally helpful nor valuable, which kind of wastes their potential supposed contribution (even the mobster additions to Schwarzenegger's "Eraser" proved comical yet far more helpful)-- especially with the likes of veteran Saïd Taghmaoui (Hidalgo, GI Joe)--who could have shown his acting chops as both a great horseman and fighter; yet, we only partly see these skills used. Even using Ares seems to harken to the 2009 DC animated Wonder Woman version where Ares escapes Paradise Island and infects man's world with rage, hate and paranoia (remind you of anything?). At least there, Trevor (Nathan Fillion, who would have done well as Trevor in this) proves a capable fighter, shows off his true piloting chops, and even Diana uses her Invisible Plane which was totally absent in this on screen version. Sadly, the 2009 animated version shames this theatrical one by its writing, casting, acting and far better use of canon (Diana even follows Steve to his world and Trevor gives her far better explanations for cultural norms and expected behaviors, something largely ignored by this film.
Verdict--4 stars: 2 stars off for poor casting; -2 stars for disregarding canon/rank and cheap/random historical revisionism; -2 for poor writing that wasted what was hyped to be DC's major chance to show up Marvel by producing a compelling, canonical version of events, using moderately successful actors to help carry the movie...but it strikes out totally there too. Skip the theater and wait for it on Netflix or Redbox.