The early Wonder Woman review comments had a lot of praise for DC’s latest big screen effort and while it’s true that Gal Gadot (Justice League) and Chris Pine (Star Trek Beyond) are the shining stars of the picture, the critics plastered on a little too much gloss over the cracks. Yes, there were brief mentions of holes and imperfections, but the reality is that they’re much more significant than they’d led us to believe.
It’s possible that it’s just the end result when film review critics get to see an early screening of a film as big as Wonder Woman, but it built expectations a little too high for the film to live up to. It’s still got a lot of positives with some great action, good comedy and decent character development for Diana. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of elements that reduce the quality, leaving the biggest missed opportunity we’ve seen on the big screen in a long time.
The setup makes for a solid back story, with Diana growing up in isolation on Themyscira, the Amazonian island hideaway, and reluctantly being trained to be the fiercest warrior they’ve ever had. The development of the mother daughter relationship between Diana and Queen Hippolyta is very touching, building in an emotional connection to Wonder Woman right from the beginning.
The problems come with timing, pace, dialogue, some poor support characters and questionable convenience designed to progress the story. The introduction of Chris Pine as Allied spy Steve Trevor is the first jar as it happens a little too close to another significant point in the story, which could have been handled better with a few additional dialogue scenes to build anticipation.
However, the biggest kick comes when they leave the island to join the war effort. One minute they’re asleep out at sea sailing away from Themyscira and the next they wake up on the Thames. It just makes a bit of a mockery of the rest of the film when belief needs to be suspended in this way. Just because it’s a superhero film that doesn’t mean that all rationality and chronology should be thrown overboard.
It’s the little things that can be the difference between a good film and a great film, and too many of them just don’t work all that well in Wonder Woman. For example, it attempts to tackle a big question like how does Diana speak English, but fails to deliver a solid and credible response. Instead, what we get is some waffle about Amazons being able to speak 100s of languages, without reference to the way languages evolve over time during their isolation. For us it’s better not to deal with an issue like this unless you can do it justice, which it really doesn’t.
The London segment is a lot of fun, but even here there are sequences that don’t sit well. Things happen with a little too much convenience, and the pace zooms through all too quickly. It would have been more convincing with a little more time and thought to build up to the key moments that shape the rest of the story.
Wonder Woman (2017) trailer:
The burgeoning romance between Steve and Diana is skillfully delivered and really draws you into their relationship, which is one of the most successful aspects of the film. Both Gal Gadot and Chris Pine are as close to perfect in the roles as it gets and they work really well together on screen with strong chemistry and a genuine charm.
Gal adds in some incredible action sequences, excellent poise and the kind of old fashioned goodness that helped to make Christopher Reeves such a great choice as Superman back in the 80s. We’re already looking forward to seeing her in Justice League, no matter how it turns out as a whole. Our review scores for Wonder Woman may well be tainted by the less impressive elements of the film, but Gal herself gets an easy 5/5 in the leading role.
In all fairness, Chris Pine isn’t too far behind either, bringing in his own dashing heroic attitude, tempered by the kind of well-traveled realism that you’d expect from an intelligence officer during the First World War.
The two main roles are supported well by the comic delivery of Lucy Davis (The Office, Shaun Of The Dead), who plays Trevor’s hilarious secretary Etta, and the slightly unscrupulous Sameer, played by Saïd Taghmaoui (American Hustle). Eugene Brave Rock also puts in a decent shift as Chief, Trevor’s fixer at the front. The Amazons are all pretty faultless too with both Connie Nielsen (Justice League) and Robin Wright (Blade Runner 2049) delivering a lot of strength and power as Queen Hippolyta and her sister General Antiope. They both act as great role models and influences on Diana, linking a strong maternal bond to the woman she becomes.
The support cast breaks down with Ewan Bremner (T2 – Trainspotting) who plays exuberant Scottish sniper, Charlie, who’s just too much of a caricature to be anothing other than dire. The same could be said for the weakest of the baddies in the film, Doctor Maru, aka Dr. Poisen, played by Elena Anaya, who just seems a little too flimsy and predictable to impress.
Luckily, David Thewlis (Legend) and Danny Huston (Hitchcock) are on hand as antagonists, Ares and General Erich Ludendorff. While Ludendorff is a little one dimension as he sets out to do everything he can to secure victory for Germany, Ares is far more complex and Thewlis’ acting skills are integral to this working as well as it does on the big screen.
While both the visuals, cinematography and action scenes are stunning for the most part, there are the odd one or too slip-ups and wrong decisions that pull them back a little. Whether it’s the Dark Side lightening of Ares or the amount of make-up Gal Gadot wears in the latter stages of the film, they add to the list of little things that stop us giving the same kind of rave review that giddy early screening critics have put out.
Overall, we enjoyed watching Wonder Women, but see it as a missed opportunity for perfection from director Patty Jenkins (Monster). When it comes to the central characters, the core story and the main baddies it really does come very close. However, duff supporting characters, little details in the plot, the timing and build-up to key events let it down.
Wonder Woman review: 3.5/5
