WONDER WOMAN review

WONDER WOMAN

starring Gal Gadot, Chris Pine

directed by Patty Jenkins

A review by Helen J. Reynolds

DC Entertainment has got a lot wrong with their superheroes of late. It's not enough to dress a man in a cape and drop in some CGI - superheroes need a decent story, fleshed out characters and maybe scenes where you don't just laugh because it's so damn awkward. 

Thankfully, Wonder Women, the first movie for this female badass, offers a great deal more than only its name to get you in the seats. Gal Gadot plays Diane, the next leader of the Amazons and acts more like a young King Arthur than princess. She's hungry for glory, has a good-heart and is so naïve it becomes a funny quirk of her still evolving character. The other Amazon's indulge her, with House of Cards star Robin Wright fierce as ever, and Connie Nielsen (Gladiator) as the Queen who must protect her daughter from men "who don't deserve her".   

Steve (Chris Pine) is the lucky spy/soldier who finds himself knocked out of WW2 and into paradise, filled with only sun and beautiful women. Being the only man on the island, the first woman he comes across is the Amazon princess, Diane, who leaps from a cliff to save him - perhaps one of the best stories for, how did you guys meet? There are a few jokes around the fact Diane has never seen a man before and Pine plays up the character well for this, quoting himself as "above average".

More serious matters involve a prophecy: that the Amazons are there to end the god of War, Ares, and that among them is a god-killer. Diane, of course, mistakes this as a literal sword and brings it with her to fight in the war taking over Europe.

Tension is balanced well with cuts to the Nazi side, where Captain Ludendorff (Danny Huston) encourages his evil brewer of poisons, Dr Maru (Elena Anaya) on her latest invention - a chemical gas that will eat through flesh...

Meanwhile, Diane is paraded through London by Steve and his hare-brained secretary (Lucy Davis), the latter trying to educate Diane what women roles are, but instead ends up rather preferring the Amazon version! Scenes of Diane in parliament (with antique-looking moustached men shocked to find a woman in their dusty midst) are enjoyable to watch, if frustrating to see those times for what they were. David Thewlis makes his appearance here as Sir Patrick, the only liberal minded politician, who goes on to fund Steve and Diane's plan to destroy the Nazi's poison base.
 
The film is as fast-paced as you'd expect, and though the few twists and turns are predictable they are no less enjoyable for being so. Pine and Gadot are the stars with strong chemistry that doesn’t let you forget this is Wonder Woman's film, not Wonder Woman meets Soldier. He's still allowed to be a hero, but this is ultimately her journey.           

A combination of:
300 (2006)
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE HITMAN'S BODYGUARD review

Image
THE HITMAN'S BODYGUARD starring Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson  directed by Patrick Hughes A review by Helen J. Reynolds The Hitman's Bodyguard is a calculating comedy involving fascist governments, killer romance and cars that smell like arse.  Ryan Reynolds plays Michael, a self-named Triple A protector for the rich cats whose successful career takes a nosedive after a client ends up with his brains splattered over a plane window. That one didn't go quite to plan... Plan B sees him roped into protecting a witness for the trial against dictator Vladislav Dukhovich (the very excellent Gary Oldman). But the witness isn't just any witness, he's Samuel L. Jackson, here playing Darius Kincaid, a renowned assassin doing hard time. There's nothing revolutionary in the plotting of this comedy, but there are some great jokes. The romance between Jackson and Salma Hayek (playing his wife) is easily the best part of the movie. It gives Jackson the h...
Read more

FREE FIRE review

Image
FREE FIRE   starring Sharlto Copley, Brie Larson and Armie Hammer   directed by Ben Wheatley   A review by Helen J. Reynolds Free Fire tries to be a lot of things – from a 70s western, to a mafia stitch up – but namely it tries to be fun. An all-out shoot ‘em up movie that instead of a standard ten or even thirty-minute scene of bullets flying like crazy and everyone dubbed a ‘cocksucker’, it lasts for the entire feature length. Try to imagine if Quentin Tarantino did a theatre play, and in fact this does have elements of Tarantino’s last feature The Hateful Eight , which is set around a dismal bar during a snow blizzard and has a stage-like quality to it. In Free Fire , the setting is similarly grounded, though in an abandoned umbrella factory that leads to some nice irony at the end. However, adding flashbacks and dialogue with meaning (rather than just for the odd laugh) would have helped give interest to the rather long-winded action. All ...
Read more

Christmas Movies

Image
You know you’re getting old when Christmas movies are purely a DVD dive instead of a cinema visit. They just don’t make ’em like they used to ... Here are my top five:  The Muppets Christmas Carol (1992) A classic within a classic. Best to view on Christmas Eve for that moment when Kermit's coming home from work and stops for a skate and a song with the penguins, and you realise it really is ‘just one more sleep til Chrissstmasss’. Also enjoyable is the Santa Cam when we fly across the rooftops in Scroorge’s past. Can there be anything more Christmassy than Victorian chimneys in the snow? Love Actually (2003) Actually my partner’s favourite – it’s filled with enough humour that men need not run to the hills rather than watching this ‘chick flick’. Yes, that warm fuzzy feeling is all around and could be stomach churning for those with a high gag reflex. However, the relationships are centred in truth, often without the ro...
Read more