Wonder Woman

For years now, I have been way more excited to see the latest DC comic book movies that have been coming out than I have the Marvel offerings simply because of the fact that with Marvel you continually get the same formula over and over again. I mean, I get why they do it, it’s safe and it’s guaranteed to make a billion dollars; but the fact that they already have a strong following should encourage them to take more chances with these classic comics(Logan and Deadpool being the obvious exceptions but they weren’t expecting much from Deadpool anyway). But unfortunately, they simply refuse to do so! It’s sad but the majority of movie goers and film critics out there continue to run out and spends tons of money to see these uninspired pieces of drivel while gushing over the mediocre product they just spent 2 hours of their lives to see. It’s similar to the clowns who go out and buy the latest version of John Madden football every year they release an update. "But this year you get to control what the cheerleaders wear at away games! " Come on man, those video game girls are never going to turn into a real life Jessica Rabbit. So just pop in your Plenty of Fish app, turn the lights down super low when Bettina eventually comes over, and save yourself $65.

Ok, so now that I’ve lost 90% of my target audience, let me just say that the DC movies that have been coming out are complete trash themselves; but I at least give them credit for trying something different. For some reason people didn’t like Batman vs Superman even though Christopher Nolan had his fingertips all over it. You remember him don’t you? He’s the guy that brought you The Dark Knight. Now I get that there’s a lot of CGI at the end B vs S but that film was dark as hell and the actors in it were actually trying; versus that of just being overly embarrassed by the fact they signed on for yet another one of these films (see Robert Downey Jr. in any post Avengers 1 movie). I also recognize the fact that The Green Lantern, Man of Steel, and Suicide Squad were all terrible but at least Squad tried to think outside of the box by giving The Joker a pinky ring and dressed up Common as a real rapper when they tried to make him look like The Game.

So it should come as no surprise that DC Comics were the ones who decided to make the first superhero movie that featured a female lead since Supergirl came out in the late 80’s; and even then they still called her a girl and not a woman. Now cinema has had strong female leads or co-stars in action movies since then, there was Sigourney Weaver in the first Alien movies and of course there was Trinity in The Matrix films but they were both either injected with way too much testosterone to truly be believable or they went to the George Lucas School of Wooden Acting. Well in Wonder Woman, they decide to let Diana experience life through the eyes of an actual woman who has estrogen flowing through her veins but also just happens to have the ability to kick some major ass! Who would’ve ever thought that was even possible?!? Hollywood can be so slow to the game at times.

Now the first act of the film moves rather slowly as they spend the majority of the time explaining the battle between Greek gods Zeus and his evil son Ares. Apparently Ares hated the humans his father created and wanted them all destroyed. So Zeus decided to create a secret weapon that he hid in the land of Amazonia to destroy Ares whenever the time came for us to have defend ourselves against his destructive powers. And this is where we are introduced to Diana and her fellow Amazonian warriors. It is here that we see Diana learn how to fight and utilize her unique skills under the tutelage of some pretty badass women and eventually grow up to become the Wonder Woman we all know and love.

And it isn’t until we see her rescue Captain Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) from a wreckage that she’s finally introduced to the humanity she was built to defend. From that point on, she moves about London as this beautiful and naïve girl who is finally learning about the world and its weird and wicked ways. It’s actually kind of annoying to a point because it feels as though she’s being reduced to the role that every woman is in Hollywood, a damsel in distress that needs the guidance of some man to simply survive.

But once they finally reach the war front and she sees how lost and distant humanity is when it comes to helping one another, that she turns into a Black woman and basically says "Aw hell naw! Y’all can keep going if you want to but I’m about to go kick some ass!" And that’s when the Wonder Woman music kicks in and we get what we all paid to see! I have to be honest that I was a little concerned over how the director of Monster and a few episodes of Entourage, Patty Jenkins, would handle an action film; but I have to say that for the most part I was pleasantly surprised!

When Wonder Woman flew and crashed into a building where a German sniper was wreaking havoc from, I almost stood up in the middle of the theater and cheered! Some of the action in that scene reminded me of The Matrix and when it comes to action these days, that’s not a bad film to mimic. It was at this point that I believe the movie found a healthy balance between making her an awesome superhero and yet somehow keeping her very much a woman who was discovering so many things about her new world. And that’s what made this film so unique. Yes, DC finally caved in a little to sticking to the Marvel formula of making superhero films but they still found a way to make it their own baby. And that’s all I’m asking for, just a little originality.


And it’s because of this originality, that I give Wonder Woman a rating of very FRESH!