
The film? The film is… whatever. But Gal Gadot!
Time to be serious. There’s nothing wrong with Wonder Woman
being beautiful. But what else is she? Please
– watch Wonder Woman (as sociological
research, if you like) and tell us something about its titular character. Tell
us anything! Ok, we’ll tell you: Wonder Woman is… confused. By the end of the
film, she is less confused. That is about as much character development as
you’ll get.
It’s not Gadot’s fault. In other films she’s capable of
making passably funny lines funnier with a perfectly raised eyebrow. In Wonder Woman she has no funny lines, but
Gadot raises her eyebrow anyway, as if still expecting her part to have been
written with more wit. But Wonder Woman is not Wonder Woman’s subject. She is its object.
Princess Diana (as WW is known) has grown up on the mystical
island of Themyscira in the matriarchal – indeed, exclusively female – society
of the Amazons, a race of perpetually armour-clad superhumans created by the
Greek gods. Diana dreams of becoming a warrior trained by her aunt General
Antiope, but her mother (Queen Hippolyta) is too protective. There are
intimations that Diana’s destiny involves great things, however, and events are
set in motion when a suave first world war spy (Chris Pine) crashes his plane on to
Themysciran shores.
Pine’s Steve Trevor is being pursued by a large contingent
of the Imperial Army, and a German-Amazon clash on the beach is a wake-up call
to Diana, who realises that the world beyond her island is in peril. She accompanies
Trevor to London and then to the front lines, determined to do away with Ares,
God of War, whom she imagines is the one responsible for the global conflict.
The action sequences are muddy, flat and without tension or
consequence; cinematographically, Wonder
Woman is the ugliest film that money can buy. There’s also some murkiness
about who the enemy actually is: they look and sound like traditional movie
Nazis, experimenting on captives and shooting their subordinates for minor
transgressions and being generally intent on some kind of mad domination. The
troubling implication is that conscripts of 1918 are on a par with the SS, and
that all Germans are deserving of violent punishment.
The less special effects-heavy scenes are better. They chart
Diana’s fish-out-of-water progress through a sexist world not ready for her
stridency and power, and there are some genuinely funny moments. Unfortunately,
these are all courtesy of Pine, who has a nice line in muttered incredulity,
and his character’s secretary (Shawn of
the Dead’s Lucy Davis). You wait for WW to pour her vital scorn on the
hypocritical patriarchy, but she’s only allowed to be perplexed.
Instead, much is made of how beautiful she is (and she is! So beautiful! Have you heard?), and how
innocent she is of this beauty, as well as innocent of mankind’s fatal flaws. Being
divested of innocence isn’t a bad character arc, even when it’s done as
clumsily as it is here, but it’s hard to imagine any male superhero undergoing
a similar one, and it’s even harder imagining one who ultimately learns that ‘love’
is the real power to be coveted.
But Gal Gadot! Boy, is she something. Just look at her!
What | Wonder Woman film review |
Where | Various Locations | MAP |
Nearest tube | Leicester Square (underground) |
When |
01 Jun 17 – 01 Aug 17, Times vary |
Price | £determined by cinema |
Website | Click here for more details |