Wonder Woman Is the Real Deal

I wanted to highly encourage people to see Wonder Woman. It's always rewarding to see movie trailers for a highly anticipated film, and it turns out to be everything you wanted, and more. I was highly encouraged months ago, when the last trailer for the film was released, and when I was able to see the final product, it was emotionally rewarding in so many ways. This is one of those movies. It has action, humor, plot, hope, and most of all, heart.

The film takes the basic template established by Richard Donner with the first Superman movie (director Patty Jenkins has mentioned in interviews watching the film, to help prepare for this type of genre), by showing the origin of how Wonder Woman starts out from the island of Themyscira, into the world of men mindlessly killing each other in WWI, under the subtle urges planted into their collective subconscious by Ares, the God of War. Along the way, she meets up with Steve Trevor, an undercover pilot spy from America, who is trying to do the right thing by avoiding doing nothing at all.

Gal Gadot slays it in the title role, and her smile alone, slays me, regardless of whether or not she is smiling while kicking ass, or offering words of encouragement. She is the embodiment of what Wonder Woman represents. Chris Pine does excellent work as Steve Trevor, reacting genuinely to the situations heaped upon him, and making the audience feel they are right there with him. The supporting cast is solid, with Connie Nielsen playing Wonder Woman's mother, Queen Hippolyta, Robin Wright as General Antiope, and David Thewlis as Sir Patrick Morgan. The members of Steve Trevor's ragtag team of bandits are well-cast, and offer good helpings of humor and gravity to the terrors of war.

I also find it great that this is the first major blockbuster to be directed by a female, with a budget over 100 million. A step in the right direction--not to mention grossly overdue--in the cinematic world. If the Michael Bays of Hollywood are allowed to keep churning out dull, droning piles of dog crap that almost cost 300 million to make, and still have a hall pass to continue this asinine process, then a female director like Patty Jenkins is most welcome to help balance the scales of inequality and show that big blockbusters can contain an actual story that resonates with audiences, while utilizing special effects that don't pummel the audience into zombie-like submission.

This movie has positive messages for everyone, and for all the naysayers that were saying that there wasn't an audience for this type of film, I hope they enjoy eating crow for a good, long time. There is an audience for this type of film, with the box office receipts and critics' praise backing it up. Hopefully, this bodes well for Marvel's upcoming Captain Marvel, considering how surprisingly slow and reluctant they were to make a female solo superhero film, given all the success they have had for almost a decade, and the chances they have taken. Guardians of the Galaxy is the biggest example of this, as it offered something refreshingly different from the increasingly crowded superhero film genre. Wonder Woman manages to pull off a similar feat, departing from the many male superheroes that have come before, while exorcising the ghosts of poorly constructed films like Elektra and Catwoman, which helped perpetuate the urban myth that solo female superhero films were incapable of being successful. To paraphrase Jim Gordon from The Dark Knight: Wonder Woman isn't the hero we deserve, but the one we need right now.