This week we saw Wonder Woman, a female-led comic book film which we had a lot of people sharing their love for.
Now I am of an age where I think of Wonder Woman as Lynda Carter from the TV series but giving Gal Gadot’s performance was pretty much the best thing about Batman V Superman so I wanted to give this film a go myself.
We went into the film in all honesty with low expectations. The DC Comics films have not really wowed us of late, Suicide Squad being the latest, which we put in part down to our comic book film fatigue, but in all honesty it was also because other previous female led Comic Book films had been a waste of potential, Halle Berry’s Catwoman and Elektra, which like Wonder Woman, we went in with high hopes as like Gal’s first outing, Jennifer Garner’s performance was the best think about the Ben Affleck Daredevil film!
This Wonder Woman film starts with a brief origins story, where we meet a young princess called Diana on a hidden island of warrior women in the Amazon. We see Diana grow and see how desperate she is to become one of these powerful ladies.
Her mother Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) forbids it, but Diana goes behind her back and trains with her aunt Antiope (Robin Wright) and we see in a montage grow and become the Wonder Woman we know. The reason these women train so hard is they believe that Ares, the God of War will return and they have a sword known as the Godkiller which they can use to defend themselves.
Everything changes when an American plane pilot, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) is shot down and he is promptly followed by his German attackers, as we learn that World War I is at its height.
The Warriors quickly find themselves under attack by the Germans but swiftly deal with them. Diana, however, defends Steve after he helps defend her.
Diana believes the war has been created by Ares and agrees to return to London with Steve to help put a stop to it.
It is here that the film hits a high as we see Diana in a mini fish out of water film, as she has to deal with woman’s fashions and revolving doors, humour is also provided by Etta (Lucy Davis) as Steve’s secretary.
We then see Diana have to deal with sexism due to the time, with her having to be removed from the political discussions about where to go with the war next. It is decided they will do nothing to not threaten any ongoing peace decisions. They obviously ignore this and Steve and Diana form a team to challenge them, and our surprised to receive support from Sir Patrick (David Thewlis).
During this time we have learned that the German General Ludendorff (Danny Huston) has been working with Doctor Poison (Elena Anaya) a chemist who has made a deadly form of mustard gas, that will kill all who come near it, giving them a chance to win the war.
Now with an assembled team of Sameer (Said Taghmaoui); Charlie (Ewen Bremner) and the Chief (Eugene Brave Rock) and we see them join the trenches to fight the Germans, help save a village imprisoned and go under cover to face the German General.
These sequences are great, which keeps the film goes at a rapid pace until Wonder Woman finally learns that she and not the sword is the Godkiller weapon as she faces the big villain at the end of the film. Here is then turns into the usual over the top huge CGI visual frenzy that we have come to expect from these films and it is all pretty dull, which is a shame.
Overall, Director Patty Jenkins and writer Allan Heinberg have delivered a great entertaining film and like last years Ghostbusters shows that Woman can indeed headline a great blockbuster action movie.
You can view the trailer at the film’s website here:
Buy the film from Amazon here:
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