My nephew turns to me and says, 'You told me we were going to watch Transformers 5!' I said don't worry we will watch that next ( truth is - I will not watch transformers until bay moves on and gives the franchise a fresh new outlook!)
I took my two nephews and my niece, because I thought its time they saw a woman as a hero for once, every other superhero has been a man, and in addition I thought my niece who's 5 years old will like seeing the story of a girl being badass, but I was wrong, more on that later.
I came to the Wonder Woman party late but it appears that a bunch of other people did too, the theatre was 75 percent full, which is unbelievable seen as the film has been out for quite a bit of time. I decided that I had, had enough of superhero films, they all end with a big battle and the hero wins and because of that I didn't know anything about Wonder Woman, except that it had good reviews.
Chris Pine was the heart of this movie and when his arc completes itself, it is heartbreaking, but as my other nephew said, ' why did he not just fly the plane somewhere and destroy the bombs?' 'I don't know, ' I replied. Gal, was great not just in the action sequences, but in the talky parts, she shone in the comedic parts of the film. The story can be split into three strands,
- Wonder Woman learning about herself and the outside world.
- The gas bombs that can destroy the world.
- Wonder woman destroying Aries, the god of war.
Story is simple, they go to the government and tell them they got to destroy the gas bombs, the government says no, so they go by themselves and save a bunch of people across no mans land, then they go to a gala, then they go to where the bombs are and wonder woman beats up up the fake aries and the real aries. The End.
Though the story flowed and was peppered with a variety of characters, moments and emotional beats - the film lacked a plot that was riveting. The Plot had to be connected to Wonder Woman in some respect, have a shadowy figure give instructions to the bad guy about capturing Wonder Woman, and then revealing the shadowy figure as Aries at the end would have had a bigger impact for example. Or perhaps the gas bombs that they were creating needed some element of Wonder Woman and that is why they were so adamant in catching her - these things would have made a more interesting plot.
My niece said to me, 'theres too much talking,' she also said, 'I thought this was Wonder Woman,' I don't know what she meant, and she moved seats three times causing the people sitting behind her to move three times, because she would obstrct their view of the screen because she was busy dancing. She also kept saying, 'When is it going to finish?'
Wonder Woman had some great action sequences, but I don't know what her powers are, does she bleed? Is she able to fly? What was interesting is that it delved into how Aries works, providing enough information to people to do Evil things, he does not do them himself, he gives them a chance to do it by themselves. The Devil whispers to us all and some of us listen, we have freewill to do good or bad, but some us are more easily swayed than others. Also, the story of Gods connects to Luthers ramblings in Batman V Superman, '..God versus Man!'
This is the most coherent film out of the DCEU and creates an air of optimism going into the future.