Wonder Woman

The year is 2017, and we finally get our first live action origin story of the most infamous female superhero of all time, Wonder Woman! What a wonderful time for comic book fans to be alive!

Ever wondered how the Amazonians are like in Themyscira? Well, here's your chance to experience it on the big screens. The world building is mostly very well done. Accents, spiral thrones, bedroom settings, valleys, teal blue ocean, multilayered fluorescent water pool, costumes and head bands are rich! Keep your eyes open for the bedtime tale narration, which informs the audiences about this race's history and Ares, the main villain the entire story will be hyping towards from hereon after. The bezel, lenticular storytelling is awesome!

Gal Gadot plays a fantastically subtle Wonder Woman! Solid character sketch is available in this script for the protagonist! Wonder Woman picks up from a small event related in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Through the photo recollection, we are brought into her past from the days of a kid seamlessly by a brilliantly effective dissolve editing technique. Her curiosity and eagerness to participate in fighting arenas are adorable! There seems to be a secret revolving her birth that drives the plot forward. Even she begins to wonder about her powers and place.

The Amazonian women are created by Zeus to bridge greater understanding between all men. Ares believes the opposite, war ensues, and Zeus leaves the God Killer - a sword behind to be withdrawn by Amazonian folks, should Ares sees daylight again. This backstory is short and firm, and when Diana stands by what she believes in, her motivation and dramatic need become clearly simple! When it matches with Steve Trevor's (Chris Pine), all odds click and off she goes on a mission to hunt down Ares, stealing the iconic armor suit, shield, lasso and of course, the God Killer sword! This is the sign of good writing!

As she goes on a voyage with the mortal, she is introduced to the Man's World. Her innocence and understanding about the war are cute! She basically is a kid, who sees the real world for the first time. The way she shows happiness and satisfaction after eating ice-cream is so endearing! Attires purchases and Diana carrying her shield and sword around before passing it to the secretary fall under the same category too. She is horrified by human nature and lost lives. She thought the larger war could be halted by killing 'Ares', but her disappointment to the otherwise is apparently captured!

Even though some of the action scenes, like the gunpoint on street or bar trouble are artificially engendered just so that our hero would have a chance to showcase her brawling skills, all the action sequences are excellently executed! The moment she suits up in the no man's land, walks out to the open and starts blocking bullets with her bracelets and shield, you know shit's about to go down! The slow motion effect and music for this part are orgasmic! Be it the first encounter with Nazi armies in a chamber or the final showdown with Ares (David Thewlis), direction is hard core here!

Initially, the disclosure of Ares may come across unfitting as the twist doesn't mash well with the masquerading character of Sir Patrick Morgan shown earlier in the feature. But, if you step aside and think about it as he describes the ways he has been manipulating men to fight among each other as prescribed in the pilot myth, it will all make sense! The screenwriters have to establish him somewhere inside the story from the start before this huge reveal, or else it would have seemed like it came out of nowhere or too abrupt. Only through this, you'd know that General Erich Ludendorff (Danny Huston) is a valuable red herring and it works so well! Diana taking her steps slowly towards him before the latter evaporates to the other side of the room is startling! As the ultimate truth is finally released to public that Diana Prince is the actual God Killer, again, everything makes sense! How else would you kill a Demi-God? Through another Demi-God, of course!

Wonder Woman's fall to defeat is powerful! As she's wrapped in steel, loses Steve and brainwashed to hate men, her rise to feet is gratifying! While the fast forwarded section of Diana's outrage can be off-putting, the battle of Gods in the backdrop of orange flames and thunder bolts are such a satisfying watch! The part where she couldn't listen to what Steve's saying before being audibly repeated at a point later is just beautiful filmmaking prose! Interactions between Diana and Steve are rewarding to watch! Her naiveness is not a hindrance to her being knowledgeable, as she is aware of the notion of sexual intercourse. Steve explaining to Diana about marriage before sleeping together, followed by her reply of how she was sculpted from clay is hilarious! Snow falls and romance blossoms as their conversations and outlooks on each other get better and better.

Dr. Poison's (Elena Anaya) mask design and face reveal are good. Chris Pine as Steve Trevor is entertaining! The way he struggles to calm Diana down or make her understand earthly terms are nice! His truth spills whenever facing the lasso of truth are funny! Speaking of the lasso, Lasso of Hestia appears great! Rupert Gregson-Williams' background scores are heavy and strong! Steely cold Old London, Diana tucking a sword behind her dress and gas creation thrown inside a room full of officers are cool! Color palette is resplendent! However, it's tacky that the military is able to penetrate the layer that seals Themyscira, and the attack on the locals is uncalled for too. It shouldn't be this easy to breach the highly secluded, hidden dwelling.

We have some factors to be mentioned here, which prevent our Wonder Woman to be completely wondrous. The subpar computer graphics with obvious green screens are shocking! Notice how weak and apparent the VFX looks during the horse-riding and superhero landing sequences! It is as feeble as the new DC Comics logo telecasted at the beginning. But by far, the largest minus in this film would the absence of emotional weight in situations. Robin Wright does not fit the role of Antiope, and her death falls flat. You don't feel anything for it. As the ideas presented regarding death, terrors of war, kindness and cruelty of human beings are general and vague, the emotional heft is missing there as well.

The overall packaging of this motion picture should have been snappier, especially the Second Act. Episodes to construct the story are slow. Duration should have been reduced too. Certain scenes involving Diana's journey of discovery and alliancing are boring to be honest, although she does find her purpose in it by translating ancient languages such as Ottoman and Sumerian or standing unshaken with what she believes in. Side characters in war zones aren't absolutely interesting either.