I saw the Wonder Woman movie last night with some friends.
It's a well-made movie. The excellent directing, acting, design, and cinematography more than compensated for what was a relatively mediocre screenplay, which is a bit of an unusual situation. I liked it and they did a good job with some situations, for example when Diana confronts the British generals.
It's the first-ever live-action movie with a 100+ million dollar budget directed by a woman. Out if the 300+ previous ones, this is the first time that Hollywood thought a woman might be competent enough to do the job. It therefore helps that Patty Jenkins, a very talented and skilled director, was the person in charge, as she's setting the standard. There are a lot of scenes in there that would have been completely insufferable had they been handled by a lesser director. The whole second act in London was completely sublime, in spite of being corny material. For example there's an absolutely hilarious ice cream scene, it should be irritatingly cheesy, but the directing and the acting make it work. I loved the ice cream scene.
There's also feminist methodology in the movie which I'll describe as competent. It's been stated many times by many people that in these kinds of movies, female characters are objectified, and male characters are idealized. Visualize the difference between a "boob and butt shot" and a "power shot". In more recent years, we've also seen male characters be objectified as well, for example Chris Hemsworth. I've been wondering what an idealized cinematography of female characters would look like, and the movie answers that very quickly. It's seamless. As far as I can tell, Diana is fully idealized. Moreover, she never falls prey to the Madonna/wh*** dichotomy.
The movie did not do what I was afraid it would do. WW is about Diana going up against Ares (the god of war) in a World War 1 backdrop. I was afraid that the movie would reveal that Ares is orchestrating world war I, that would be spectacularly dumb and on par with what we see in a lot of these movies. All smart viewers know that world war I is the product of evil intrinsic to man, and we shouldn't hide that from kids. That's not what happens in the movie. The evil of man in the movie is very much ... the evil of man. The god of war just hangs around to revel in the fun of it. He's not orchestrating world war I, he's enjoying the show. There's a great scene where Diana realizes that people are killing each other independently of the god of war, and she's horrified. She wanted to excuse the war as being due to magical manipulation, but that's not it, evil is within the nature of man.
It was also good to watch as a DC comics fan. I really enjoyed Man of Steel, but Batman v Superman is legitimately one of the dumbest pieces of sh*t that I have ever seen. It left a bad taste in my mouth, and the first few minutes of Wonder Woman was a palette cleanser, with the rest of the movie being enjoyable on its own. I literately thought to myself, about two minutes in, "oh, right, this is what a good DC comics movie feels like".
Wonder Woman is a good traditional hero's epic, very much influenced by Richard Donner's Superman.
Grade: B+
