Not a big superhero fan gives a big thumbs up

Rating: 8/10 (6 June 2017)

"I am both frightened and aroused," says Sameer after Wonder Woman tosses a gun-wielding bully across the floor of the pub where she has been introduced to Sameer and other allies by her main ally, Steve Trevor.
I am not a big fan of super-hero movies, but this one has remarkable acting, writing, direction as well as impressive sets and costumes. (It is set during World War I.)
The opening scenes are richly imaginative as they take place on the mystical island where the Amazons live and where Diana (Wonder Woman) has been raised. The world of young Diana is sun-drenched and Greek-ified and establishes the mythological universe that informs Wonder Woman and all that she does for the rest of the movie.
After Steve Trevor is chased into the island's airspace and has to be rescued from his Imperial German pursuers by Diana and all of the Amazons, more and more of the world of (circa) 1918 is evoked. Diana goes with him back to Europe and becomes Wonder Woman as she battles the German Army and a fancifully villainous version of General Erich Ludendorff, one of the chief leaders of Germany during the war. (Though he would go on - historically speaking - to be largely responsible for introducing a nobody named Adolf Hitler to many of the influential people who helped the future dictator in his rise to power.)
There are formulaic action scenes that get Wonder Woman and her band of allies into and out of all kinds of predictable trouble. These are well-done dramatically with the help of bold special effects.
Most of all, the casting is terrific with the breath-taking Gal Gadot, as the title character, holding up the movie in all of her many scenes.
There is good chemistry between her and co-star Chris Pine as Steve Trevor. Their band of allies are entertainingly quirky if often ineffectual.
The most grievous fault is that the villains are too numerous and their villainy too spread out among them, and the Big Bad is only introduced at the very end. Almost anticlimactically.
The battle tactics of the Amazons are inexplicably poor. I am reminded of the titular protagonists in "13 Assassins" (2010) who shoot arrows from the roof at their enemies below until they voluntarily stop and jump down into their enemies' midst because their samurai pride won't allow them to take advantage of anything better than ten to one odds. In "Wonder Woman", no explanation is given for the Amazons giving up their similar but greater high-ground advantage over the Germans in the first battle sequence of the movie.
I found most of the humor organic, not strained, and the preachiness that some talk about was really kept to a minimum. (Native American grievances are alluded to and Wonder Woman recognizes that the Germans did not start the war alone. As presented, though, these things are acknowledged even by many conservative historians.)
When Trevor's secretary describes her obedience in her duties, Wonder Woman says, "Where I come from that is called slavery". But this is funny, and, otherwise, Wonder Woman takes the advice of her allies in fitting into a "patriarchal" society.
A big, fun, escapist movie with some vivid touches of realism for atmosphere. I particularly liked the scene where Wonder Woman, the super-hero and goddess, rises above the historically accurate portrayal of the stalemate along the Western Front to march across No-Man's Land. (Though maybe there were too many trees and not enough barbed wire. The trees were dead and short but should have been non-existent due to frequent barrages.) She single-handedly defeats the German defenders, inspiring not only her band of allies but most of a British regiment to follow her. (If such a miraculous, un-ordered and unplanned attack had the faintest chance of working, it would have been because the higher-ups did not spoil it with a preliminary artillery barrage, which always tended to warn the enemy you were coming and tore up No Man's Land in ways that made it more, not less, impassable).