Title: Wonder Woman
Released: 9th October 2017
Starring: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright, Danny Huston, Lucy Davis
Director: Patty Jenkins
Screenplay: Geoff Johns, Allan Heinberg
Gal Gadot is Diana, princes of the Amazons and whilst she would later be known as Wonder Woman here we see her origin story. Raised on the remote island Themyscira - a world of leather-clad, elite warrior women that is shielded from the outside world Diana has always wanted to be a warrior.
She gets her chance when the mystical shield that shrouds Themyscira is broken by pilot and ace spy Steve Trevor - who being chased by German forces and crashes into the sea. Diana and her tribe defend Steve and fight off the attackers. This is Diana’s first encounter with the outside world, and men. She joins Steve and travels back to London to help track down the Ares (David Thewlis) ancient god of War who she believes is responsible for the world being at war.
Steve tells Diana that he was undercover with the Germans as a double agent trying to find out what their latest weapons are - including a new poison gas produced by Dr. Poison (Elena Anaya) that gives the sadistic general Ludendorff, played by Danny Huston, temporary super strength.
Patty Jenkins directs with style and panache and the cinematography is impressive. The storyline is less gripping and at times the movie drags especially around the middle, but as all superhero movies tend to be overly long that’s no real surprise.
It’s good to see a superhero movie with a woman in the lead role, this clearly is Gadot’s movie - she is unquestionably the star and rightfully so - and whilst support from Chris Pine is enjoyable and Danny Huston and David Thewlis play very believable, evil villains, sadly this is not a film that pushes the boundaries for women in film - as it is still mostly populated by men. The opening scenes on Themyscira are focused on female characters but there are only small roles for Robin Wright and Connie Nielsen and later Lucy Davis ‘does her thing’ in another forgettable comic role. This is a film centred around a female character that would still probably fail the Bechdel test.
Overall Wonder Woman is an enjoyable superhero movie and we should be grateful that it is as good as it is, because there have been some less than exciting superhero films of late, especially from DC. This is DC’s best superhero movie to date.
