A superhero disappointment

Rating: 6/10 (2 January 2019)

After a Nazi plane crashes near the land of the Amazons and the pilot is saved by a young warrior wannabe, they venture into the middle of the World War in her attempt to kill Ares, the god of war whom she thought was responsible for everything. Young Diana will soon find out that the outer world is much different than hers and as nothing is as simple as they seem, a journey of self-discovery but also self-education will be taken in parallel with the one of mankind's salvation.
We follow the story of Diana since she was a little child as she aspired to fight together with the girls from her land and her evolution to Wonder Woman, although this name isn't used even a single time. The story is unfortunately average or even below average. It manages to tell a pertinent and interesting story but lacks complexity. It's way too linear and predictable for my taste, almost every single problem being solved with the blink of an eye. It lacks drama and emotion and although it has a few moments of romance, they are also unable to do much. What you do get is a lot of spectacular action which is impressive and thrilling but until it also becomes predictable. It is worth mentioning that they've taken a serious approach regarding this movie, or at least this is the impression that the movie tried to leave, but the characters are not quite helping in this direction.
Speaking of characters, they are also not very well thought or might be too well thought, it's quite hard to tell, but what I can tell for sure is that they are not very likeable, credible or even well developed and described. The best one I find it to be Chris Pine's as he manages to be much more credible and less annoying than Gal Gadot's childish and immature one. Another black ball here would be that she insists on keeping it like this way until the end when she suddenly decides to grow up and do something worthy of her status. Not to mention the "squad" that joins them in their quest and they do almost nothing useful along the way. I don't want to bring spoilers here so that's all that I will say.
In terms of visuals everything looks good but nothing spectacular. I liked the way the fighting scenes are filmed and presented, with the surreal angles used, but unfortunately there isn't much to be impressed here. One or two explosions now and then, a slow-motion bullet dodged or blocked and that's about it. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing, especially as it works for the movie in terms of seriousness but I felt that the highly CGI-ed final fight was left there alone, like it didn't belong to the picture.
To sum things up, I have to say that I'm disappointed by this movie, especially as the hype that surrounded it made me have high expectations. Even if it weren't for them, the movie would still have felt average. I like this type of superhero movies but you have to have a good story to make it all work. You also have to create great characters and as I mentioned before, Chris' was the only one worth mentioning, or better said, the only one worth empathizing with. It's a shame that they weren't able to do more with the material that they had. And to make things clear, this review is coming from a superhero movie lover, not a Marvel fan or a DC Comics hater.