This is super extended version of my review about a movie which started on June 1, 2017 in cinemas and so we are talking about
Wonder Woman (2017)
Director:
Patty JenkinsStars:
F-RATED might apply in some of the cinemas, especially in the USA.
Country:
USALanguage:
EnglishRelease Date:
1 June 2017 (Philippines) See more »Also Known As:
Mujer Maravilla
Before she was Wonder Woman, she was Diana, princess of the Amazons,
trained to be an unconquerable warrior. Raised on a sheltered island
paradise, when an American pilot crashes on their shores and tells of a
massive conflict raging in the outside world, Diana leaves her home,
convinced she can stop the threat. Fighting alongside man in a war to
end all wars, Diana will discover her full powers and her true destiny.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Wonder Woman
is how, well, unremarkable it is. After all the stops and starts and
frustrations of trying to get a Wonder Woman movie made a whole, vast
system stymied by the idea of one measly female superhero starring in
her own movie Patty Jenkins‘s film is finally upon us.
And, well, it turns out it’s just another superhero movie. A good
superhero movie, sturdily built and solidly entertaining. But yeah, it’s
yet another origin story for one of the comic-book world’s most iconic
characters, a formula we’ve seen repeated many times over the past 10
years. Wonder Woman is nothing less and, for the most part, little more than that.
Well, Wonder Woman is “more” in that it’s easily the strongest film DC and Warner Bros. have made since they left Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight world behind and reimagined Batman and Superman’s exploits as turgid, fascistic operas of destruction. Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice both directed by Zack Snyder, who gets a story credit on Wonder Woman
and whose visual stamp is all over the movie are deeply imperfect films
that nonetheless have moments of flickering inspiration. They’re big,
overwrought duds, but they’re not outright catastrophes. The most recent DC movie, though, was Suicide Squad, a wretched, hideous, and curiously halfhearted act of aggression that leaves a really nasty stain on the whole series. So, compared to that, Wonder Woman feels like a revelation, a bright and engaging dream delivering us from a nightmare soup of toxic masculinity.
The cruel irony is that what Wonder Woman
really is, is a pretty good Marvel movie. Not to stoke the DC fan
conspiracy theory that critics are paid by Disney to favor Marvel
Studios movies, but the Marvel movies really are just so much better.
(Where’s my suitcase full of money, Disney??) They’re cleverer, nimbler,
more cohesively realized. They balance humor with pathos in buoyant,
rarely strained fashion. They’re well-oiled machines, slick and
confident. Mind you, I would be perfectly happy if Marvel never made
another superhero movie as long as we live. In fact, I’d be thrilled.
But if they simply have to, they’re at least doing a pretty good job of
it.
Wonder Woman falls right in with that company, resembling a cross between the first Thor
movie it establishes a mythic otherworld forged by gods and then tries
to reconcile that place and its cultural mores with our own—and Captain America: The First Avenger,
a wartime origin story that retcons comic-book villainy into history.
Which isn’t a bad combination! Even if a lot of it feels awfully
familiar.
Jenkins, working with a script by Allan Heinberg,
has to set up a lot of backstory for Wonder Woman/Diana Prince, and she
does so with admirable efficiency. We get all the chunky exposition
dispensed with right away, and then we’re off on our adventure. As it
gambols along, Wonder Woman often looks wonderful. The island
paradise where Diana and her Amazon sisterhood live in harmony—though
they are forever training for a battle they know will someday come is a
lovely C.G.I. construction, like Avatar’s Pandora by way of a
more verdant Santorini. The darker war-set scenes have their own kind of
grim beauty, Jenkins merging period detail with contemporary effects
rather seamlessly until the messy finale battle, at least.
Jenkins has cast well. As the titular avengerer, Justice Leaguer Gal Gadot
adds a welcome dose of personality to what is essentially a dull, pious
hero role. She’s sometimes haughty and sometimes goofy, both naif in
the world and wise elder being. Gadot manages to find some humanity in
her savior, quite contrary to Henry Cavill, who has not managed to locate any kind of pulse in his Superman/Clark Kent. Elsewhere, Robin Wright thrills as a fearsome Amazon general I demand a prequel spinoff immediately and the ever-reliable Chris Pine plays Diana’s skeptical human counterpart/love interest with dashing pluck. (Who would have guessed, back in the Just My Luck days, that Chris Pine would become such a dependable charmer?)
As Diana’s adventures take her from her mystical island to nineteen-teens London to the front of World War I, Wonder Woman
oscillates between lively fish-out-of-water comedy which plays well,
but would have fared even better if we hadn’t already seen essentially
the same thing in Thor and somber wrestling over the nature of
man, a heavy debate about whether people are naturally prone to
violence, or if they would be good and loving were it not for outside
meddling forces. (Namely, the bitter war god, Ares.) I’m not quite sure Wonder Woman
finds exactly the right balance between these two sides, the fizzy
light and the distended dark. But the film still manages to be winning
and funny where Snyder’s two films (and Suicide Squad)
certainly never were, and it does prod at some interesting questions and
perhaps answers when it gets serious. (I was even moved to a little
teariness at one part.) So, Jenkins has succeeded where DC had thus far
failed, and in that sense, Wonder Woman should be (and is being) hailed as a triumph.
That said, I wish the film had a stronger sense of individual purpose or invention or something
fresh animating it. There is absolutely no reason in the world that we
should see yet another rote retelling of a superhero’s backstory at this
point. Wonder Woman with all its femaleness already making it
an outlier, unfairly or not had the potential to break that mold and
possibly do something exciting and different. The film most certainly
does not do that it’s as boilerplate as any of the others. But what,
really, was Jenkins to do? Wonder Woman needs to fit into the
larger world that DC and Warner Bros. are, however precariously,
building bit by bit. Thus, Jenkins was bound by a certain code of tone
and tempo and style. I get it, I do. Can I be disappointed that a movie
doesn’t stretch its own boundaries while also completely understanding
why it couldn’t? That’s how I feel about Wonder Woman, which is dutiful and flourishes in its execution of that duty but does nothing daring.
Perhaps
that’s its own kind of revolution, that a woman-led, woman-directed
superhero movie can be just as factory-made as the ones the boys have
been churning out. With Wonder Woman, Jenkins earns her place
among the director class that can be trusted to turn valuable I.P. into
something worthwhile and sustainable. Which is an accomplishment. But Wonder Woman
is not likely to do much in the way of a shakeup beyond shifting the
demographics of the superhero canon ever so slightly toward parity.
I
suppose it is good to know that DC can make a decent movie after all,
though I’m somewhat loath to encourage these people any more than
they’ve already been. In that sense, Wonder Woman is a welcome
stand-alone success that, in the end, contributes to what looks, more
and more with each passing year, like a larger bad. It’s heartening to
watch a female director lead a female superhero successfully into the
fray. But the righteousness of a particular pair of troops doesn’t do
much to make it a good war let alone a great one.
The camera is the movie is outstanding and the transition betweent those time periods which we will experience here are taken in soft and smooth way. The camera is a true art of work and it makes the movie more special, besides that it has great music and great effects. There is also a little bit of love romance, touched hearts are guaranteed.
I have nothing to critize about Wonder Woman, maybe one fact only, and it might be too long, a cut off for 10 minutes would have turned into an epic fantasy adventure.
9/10 for the fantasy genre
9/10 overall
Go, make a run to watch Wonder Woman, right now showing and you won't regret anything.
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