Wonder Woman (2017)

Directed by: Patty Jenkins
Starring: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Buttercup from Princess Bride, Danny Huston

This film was a genuine, unqualified success and it’s frikkin’ amazing that it’s as good as it is. Wonder Woman is a two-hour-and-twenty-minute historical superhero action film with the character work of a Nolan film, the action of a high-budget Xena episode, and the creativity of a pure auteur. It’s not perfect; the third act rightfully draws some pacing complaints, and it lacks the complexity of a truly epic film, but ninety out of a hundred ain’t bad, and certainly goes far when the challenges of production were so enormous.

                         

A premise for the uninitiated - Princess Diana is a simple Amazon warrior on a hidden island, but when a World War I soldier (Chris Pine) crash-lands there, she learns of the greater conflict in the world beyond, and resolves to fight it, and seek out the dark god Ares himself.

This film was great. It had good action, good scripting, good character work, good settings. In the comics, WW usually gets written pretty badly compared to the epics Supes and Batman get. It’s not ‘cause she’s terrible; it’s just that most writers don’t know how to make her compelling. But this film did it, in no small part to casting the perfect actress, and giving her the kind of warmth and disarming quality that has never been seen before. 

I also wanna take a second and talk about Chris Pine’s performance, ‘cause they did the PERFECT job with him; too much in any direction would have made him a cartoon character, but the film struck this perfect balance where he feels like a classic American square-jaw, without sacrificing any of the empathy and statesmanship he’s meant to give the story. He brings this humanity and immersion that's just *Italian pasta chef kiss*.

I could talk about this film forever in terms of its writing ability, but I don’t have the space here, so I’ll just say, it’s good. It’s worth seeing. It’s a medium PG-13 with not too many swear words and a little bit of blood, and it’s got a really cute message about optimism and stuff. Recommend. You can rent it for four dollars on any streaming service. Go see it.