Wonder Woman was one of the few movies in DC Extended Universe I was truly looking forward to. The trailer indicated it was going to be better than any previous DC live action film made so far. But like all the others it is plagued by so many issues and flaws it diminishes the viewing pleasure considerably.
First of all the action is top notch. I honestly didn't care that some of the CGI looked horrible in it. The action flowed and was exciting. In that aspect Gal Gadot is very convincing as Wonder Woman. I wished she was also in the non action scenes because then she seems very confused about everything. Granted she is written that way and we can blame Zack Snyder for that. To be fair a case could be made for her. In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice shows the Wonder Woman we know and love. In this prequel we get to see how she becomes that Wonder Woman. Sort of. One of the biggest mistakes this film makes is to rush through the Themyscira and Amazones centred storyline. It is easily one of the most interesting and compelling and yet they found the need to skip all that and focus on World War 1. While I do understand that this was done to connect Wonder Woman to Batman v Superman it's a subject that has been done to death in films and books. At this point you really have to add something truly different or creative to make it interesting. And Patty Jenkins doesn't do a single thing to make it stand out. Other than having Wonder Woman do her thing so spectacularly you begin to wonder (no pun intended) how nobody ever noticed this phenomenon and that the people on this Earth still were surprised by alien Superman.
While there are hints of feminism and other social justice issues it didn't bother me that much. The lack of real depth and characterization however is an issue. Diana Prince is pretty much the same character as she was in the beginning with one small difference. She now knows what her place is in the world and what she needs to do. Problem is that she only realizes this at the very end of the finale and that like Batman v Superman a big chunk of the story could have been skipped on since the motivation given in the finale is all what was needed. This is an issue of epic proportions because Wonder Woman apart from the action sequences has a slow pace and is quite boring where once again you will find yourself struggling to stay interested. Chris Pine as Steve Trevor helps a little and he has good enough chemistry with Gadot but to go where they went romantically? Not in the slightest. But it is something I was able to overlook. My most pressing issues with all of the DC Extende Universe titles so far has been the fact that they are too convoluted, dark, pretentious and long without ever backing that up with good writing and substance. These things detract from the fun factor so much that your viewing pleasure will be heavily tarnished. Why would you do that? I get it they want to distinguish themselves from Marvel. But if that is the case why are they trying so hard to be like Marvel? And why don't they understand why Marvel works and DC fails at every attempt they have made? Perhaps they still think that DC needs to be dark and edgy like the Nolan Batman films. But Christopher Nolan only did it right once with Batman Begins. After that he screwed up big time.
Overall Wonder Woman is just slightly better than previous films in the DC Extended Universe and far too overrated. I had hope that Wonder Woman would wow me and make a believer out of me. But any hope I had for Justice League to turn out well has been crushed.
Also read:
 |
 |
 |
 |
No comments:
Post a Comment