“The DCEU has failed. There is no doubt about it now. Wonder Woman will fail. JUSTICE LEAGUE will fail. Warner Brothers will fail. If something this promising can crash this hard even while containing a truly well studied performance by Leto, two cool cameos for the fans, and a glimmer of hope then it’s all going to fail. RIP the DCEU.” That is what I wrote back in August after viewing David Ayer’s Suicide Squad, an inept disaster of a movie that brought my confidence in the already defunct DCEU to the ground. I put these comments at the beginning of the review to show the depths of my disparity toward the DCEU as a whole, and to contrast this with the fact that despite my predictions, that disparity has all but disappeared into thin air. Wonder Woman is a myth making near masterwork of superhero cinema, using the framework that is already so familiar to guide us the audience through a beautiful and empowering ride. Where the last three films got bogged down in their own failed abilities at philosophical gravitas or well Suicide Squad couldn’t even muster the ability to make its plot or characters make any type of sense much less be thrilling, Wonder Woman has actual pacing and characters and action and charm and happiness and best of all it is just fun to watch. For all the different analysis techniques that I could attempt to layer into this review (which we’ll get to), Wonder Woman just being a close to perfect superhero movie is enough. It’s enough to make me sit back and get disappointed in Justice League. For those who don’t want spoilers, stop now. Enjoy it DC fans, all your obnoxious bellyaching finally resulted in something good. Wonder Woman, is to the DCEU what Captain America: The First Avenger was to the Marvel Universe, a simple moment where the franchise drops all of the modern day stuff and throws itself a good old party in a time period that every kid in my generation wants to see a superhero in. Better yet, the fact is, in the context of both those Universes, the purpose of these films seems to be the creation of a baseline for the heroism of the following films. There’s an endearing quality to the time periods of both WWI and WWII that can act as idealistic frames for the heroism of later films. In the DCEU, the person who’s supposed to do that is Superman, but that just wasn’t the case here. Thankfully, Wonder Woman takes that spot, leading our titular heroine into the trenches of WWI, attempting to stop an evil general, an evil chemist, and the literal GOD OF WAR from burning the whole Earth. We get to see wonderful images of Wonder Woman’s home, Themyscira, London during the first World War, and the Front itself. While that sounds like a lot of places to go, Wonder Woman never feels badly paced or overstuffed the way that predecessors of the DCEU were. It’s a brisk film, that presents us with what are surprisingly nuanced action adventure sequences and even more nuanced relationship building. The film does falter by trying to throw in all of its pretentiousness (and there is a bit of that in there) at the ending of the movie but that doesn’t stick around long and does serve to set up some stakes for the heroine’s following realization. In a positive philosophical light, there’s also the fact that Patty Jenkins and her team have put together a very feminist film. It falters at times (as one might expect from a studio produced $149 million tentpole), but it still makes sure to take plenty of jabs at the conservative structures of the world around WWI, even going into outright explaining the ridiculousness of the patriarchy. Gal Gadot and Chris Pine shine in these scenes, both crafting comic timing that is helped by the banter being more than just banter. That’s some philosophy that the writers can handle and thank god the writer of this film didn’t go droning on about man’s relationship with God again. Patty Jenkins and her team have also crafted a fist pumping action picture. Wonder Woman as a movie and as a character kicks ass. Jenkins and her team employ some restraint to the bombastic stop and start action that has categorized the works of Zack Snyder (deepest condolences, what has happened is something nobody should have to experience). That restraint keeps the great action moments great. Gal Gadot as the titular character provides plenty of graceful physicality and Chris Pine is supernaturally compelling. Action charged up by both the heroic ideal of the first World War and optimistic and powerful sexuality of its characters makes Wonder Woman an action film for our age and for all ages. The DCEU hasn’t failed...completely. There is no doubt about it. Wonder Woman hasn’t failed. Justice League may not fail. Warner Brother may not fail. If something embodied by some of the worst action movies ever made can bounce back with this much confidence, then it might just succeed. The DCEU is not dead yet. I give Wonder Woman a 9 out of 10.
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |