Wonder Woman (2017)

I thought it was pretty good. It is overrated though, in the sense, that everyone is saying how it's one of the very best superhero movies of all time, or a masterpiece. Where as I think it's a good solid superhero movie, and entertaining, but not as far masterpiece. I would put around #10, if I made a top 10 superhero movie list perhaps.

SPOILERS

One major complaint I have about it, is that I feel that the twist in the end, was not as well done. Mainly they make it so that Danny Huston was not Ares, and it was Trevor's superior.

But I felt it would have been a much better twist if the Dr. Poison character (Elaina Anaya), was Ares. You just wouldn't have seen it coming so much, and I think it would have felt like a much more natural twist, as it makes sense for Ares to disguise himself as a woman, if the Amazons would be looking for him.

It also makes more sense for Ares to making weapons of mass destruction if he wants to take over the world.

I also feel that by keeping the villain as a surprise, that they didn't have enough time to develop him as a result, which makes for a less stronger villain, in favor of a surprise twist as a result.

But that is not too big of a complaint, just something I thought would be really cool if it were to happen.

I feel that maybe the fish out of water humor gags also is done for too long maybe, to the point where it gets kind of gimmicky. But that's also not a huge complaint, as the movie also has a lot of pros too it. What do you think?

I went to the theater to see this one, and i enjoyed it. It may not be remarkable, but i think it has nice pacing and action.

Btw, Wonder Woman is my favorite superhero.

So I loved the CHARACTER of Wonder Woman. She was simply awesome. As a middle age male I want to grow up to be just like her one day. Say what you want about Gal Gadots acting but she hit a home run here. She embodied Wonder Woman in a way I havent seen an actor do for a superhero since Christopher Reeve played Superman. She really did well. But the most you can say about the movie was that it didnt suck. And thank god for that! DC and Patty Jenkins had an ENORMOUS amount of pressure on them to make this one work for a number of reasons and I think they pulled it off. It was very entertaining and well paced. There were some scenes that were just spectacular and unlike you I couldnt get enough of the whole Stranger-In-A-Strange-Land/fish out of water thing. I could have watched two hours of just that. And I loved the humor they had in the film. It felt genuine and real unlike the one liner smart ass humor often used in the Marvel films. And speaking of Marvel films they didnt try to be dark just for the sake of being dark THANK GOD. Its ok to have a superhero movie where the superhero is straight forward and righteous and not plagued by neurosis and self doubt and the film itself is not some dark gothic navel gazing depressor filmed in a permanent dusk. Thank god for light and REAL humor in a superhero movie!

But there were plot holes, the whole villain thing was lame and the ending was a ridiculous train wreck of poorly done CGI. It looked like a bad Power Rangers episode, not something befitting the great entertainment vehicle we had been watching for the past two hours.

The villain twist was absurd. David Thewlis had no place playing Ares for christs sake. The concept of this stuffy looking middle age English man being the Adonis like Greek god of war was just laughable. I dont care how "logical" of a disguise it is. And that they had to resort to trying to compete with Marvel by having an over the top CGI driven mega battle at the end was disappointing. The fact that it was done so badly.was just embarrassing. And more importantly the ending of the movie contradicts EVERYTHING that the movie had been building up to all along. It undermines its own message. It doesnt make any sense. Is man responsible for evil happening in the world or is it Ares? Why have Steve Trevor give a big speech about how man has issues but is worth fighting for and then turn around and have the fighting stop as soon as she kills Ares? Were they trying to have their cake and eat it too but hinting that its BOTH Ares AND man? Come on. Poorly done.

But I still found the movie very entertaining despite the ending and I genuinely enjoyed it and Im looking forward to the sequel (and to how they explain World War II). Congrats to Patty and gold stars to both Gadot and Chris Pine for fantastic performances.

__________________
Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies...

Well to say Gal Gadot is the best since Christopher Reeve may be a bit of a stretch for me, since I think that Christian Bale and Robert Downey Jr. both did really good jobs as superheroes. But she is very good and just as good as them in it.

And I don't think that the movie was trying to have it's cake and eat it too, on the whole man thing. Wonder Woman's views were just changed, I felt, that's all.

It was fine, and a lot better than I'd have expected a Wonder Woman film to be (since I think the backstory makes it pretty tricky to make a film about the character that feels remotely serious). But it was a lot worse than I expected given all the great things I'd heard, too. Maybe ? Possibly .


I also couldn't be less interested in watching CGI debris and cement hurled around. The individual moments of the confrontations in a lot of these Snyder/DC films are starting to feel interchangeable.

Overrated.

Gal Gadot's hotness is not though.

__________________
You talkin' to me?

I reckon Dr. Poison works better as her own character with her own set of motivations and character flaws. She also serves as a foil to Diana in that they are both women trying to forge their paths in a predominantly male world, though Poison chooses to work within the war machine while Diana would ultimately rather defy such a system (plus her facial disfigurement and her feelings about it - as emphasised in her interaction with Steve Trevor in the gala scene - imply a cause for her genocidal motivations that suggests revenge on a world that has shunned her and how that destructive urge is encouraged by men like Ludendorff). This particular conflict is concluded when Diana opts to spare Poison at the end since she understands that Poison, for all her villainous actions, is ultimately a victim of not just Ares' manipulations but also whatever broken system and people have caused Poison to go down this particular path. Plus, Ares is clearly goading Diana into killing Poison in revenge for Steve so it is the logical narrative conclusion that Diana resists Ares' attempts to manipulate her. This all makes enough narrative and thematic sense, whereas having Poison be Ares all along seems like it would make much less sense in those regards.

Conversely, I'm not bothered by the reveal that Ares was David Thewlis all along. I'm used to works like Good Omens or American Gods that centre on how old gods adapt to the ever-changing world and it makes enough sense that the god of war would not be playing the bloodthirsty general on the front line but instead the milquetoast politician who claims to want peace from the safety of the war room. It reminds me of the scene in Time After Time where Jack the Ripper, one of the most notorious serial killers in history, shows H.G. Wells how violent the world is in the 1970s and refers to himself as an "amateur" killer in comparison to the authority figures who start international conflicts that result in catastrophic death tolls.

__________________
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

Okay thanks, but the movie hardly takes anytime to explore Dr. Poison's motivations so to say that's why she is doing what she is doing, kind of might be reaching, or guess work without really knowing, for sure, unless I missed it?

Plus Diana only talked to Poison for like two minutes, so there is no way she could have read into all that about her. I thought she just spared her cause she didn't want to kill a helpless person, but to read all that, into a woman she hardly knows at all, just comes off as a reach, unless I missed it.

And even though it makes sense that Ares might be a politician behind the scenes, I feel that Poison was just the better villain to explore on that angle. But do you really think that the filmmakers were trying to make Poison out to be a struggling woman in a man's world to build on a personal connection with Diana?

Yeah, a lack of direct exposition can be intriguingly restrained or it can be frustratingly vague - in this case, the difference may well vary from person to person. This was just what I pieced together given the few concrete bits of information about Poison and also how she plays into familiar narrative archetypes like the vengeful disfigured villain or the exceptional woman. It may be conjecture on my part, but I only came up with it based on what the movie itself contained - putting the pieces together yourself can be more rewarding than simply receiving all the necessary information in one big exposition dump (as is the case with the Ares reveal).

Regarding Diana's interaction (or lack thereof) with Poison, I reckon it's also a matter of the distance between the legend and the reality. Diana's been hearing about Poison for the entire movie and how she's a formidable evil genius who's been working side-by-side with someone who may well be the God of War himself, but once they finally come face-to-face at the end Diana can clearly recognise that Poison is no real match for her and has ultimately been Ares' unwitting lackey instead of his equal. The "helpless person" aspect should be enough to stop her, but it's also about Diana not giving in to vengeance (especially since Poison is indirectly responsible for Steve's death), so it's also supposed to reflect her own growth over the course of the narrative. Again, I'm just putting these pieces together myself.

As for whether or not it would have been better for Poison to be Ares, well, I made my case so you can make yours right back. I can see why it makes sense in theory, but it'd be a serious reach to make it work.

But is she as good as Linda Carter...

In starting I expected it to be Captain America. But it was way better than the flick.

Well after watching it again for a second time, I think my problem with the two villains (Ares and Ludendorff), is that they come off as too black and white, and they are too much of mustache twirlers... even Ares more so, when he shouts out lines like "I WILL DESTROY YOU!!!!!".

So I felt that Poison deserved to be Ares, cause I felt that she was the least mustache twirly and had the most depth too her.

This was pretty mediocre I thought. I realize they had to make it. But I have to wonder how good it could have been if Joss Whedon were directing. I think the writing would have been better. Some of the writing in this one is just mind numbing-ly bad. I am looking forward to the Justice League tho as it appears to have pretty good writing... at least from what I can tell from the trailers. As I said, I get they had to make this film, but it could have been a lot better. Its pretty much a for me. I mean, they didn't even use her story. Again, another superhero movie where they change the origin of the hero and for what? Time constraints? This pig is almost 2 and a half hours long... When are these people gonna get that the reason we like these things is because of their original stories.

__________________
We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

I don't know the original story, so I was judging the movie in assumption that it was a good adaptation, but that's a good point, if they didn't.

I see the name Joss Whedon and I just think of when his Wonder Woman script got leaked after this movie came out and people tore it apart. The idea of this movie somehow being better in his hands is...questionable, to say the least.

I do wonder how much you can blame this movie for having to work around the back-story details that got revealed in Batman v Superman (such as Diana going into hiding for a hundred years), but otherwise I'm not following your complaints about "story". You can't bring the concept of "original stories" into it when you're talking about a comic book movie that also apparently diverges from its source material, plus that's clearly not a problem for general audiences considering the mostly positive reception it's gotten. Hell, I have next to no familiarity with the character and her origins but I still liked this well enough. If a film's good enough, it won't matter how original or unoriginal it is.

Questionable has all five vowels in it.

I believe this is the film we got because they wouldn't let Joss do the kind of flick he wanted. I don't know it for a fact. I just believe its true. Maybe some version of a "script" was leaked but unless Joss himself says its his, I doubt its real. Not that it really matters. Scripts can change. All I'm saying is, its a little less than mediocre. If they just cut half an hour off this thing it would be closer to a for me.

Iro, you're better at really breaking down films than I. Don't you think it could have been a good deal shorter? At the very least they could have dumped half the slo-mo stuff. That probably would have trimmed 10 minutes right off the top. CGI is one thing. But slo-mo CGI? It all still looks too cartoon-ey to me.

Also: Do check out her story. There's actually a reason she's called Wonder Woman. She's a pretty bad b*tch.

According to wikipedia at least, I cannot find anything mentioning Joss Whedon in terms of involvement. He doesn't seem to have any credits on earlier screenplays either.

I read that Warner Bros. was looking for female directors only it seems, to direct the movie. But why female directors only? I mean shouldn't they go based on which director they can get that is the best, and not limit it to one gender. It seems a bit sexist that way. It's kind of like how when Malcolm X (1992) was in development, all the non-African American directors got turned down, cause Warner Bros. wanted an African-American director only, which comes off as kind of discriminatory, instead of going for the best director who is interested, period.

Yeah, it was about ten years ago, maybe more. 2005 I think. That's why I think this "story" about a leaked script is BS cause he's said himself he only had an outline written up. I'm not sure how much he'd actually gotten done, but I doubt whatever that blogger posted was really his writing.

i have to say i enjoyed the film up until the final third and the finale, other than that i like how the plot worked.

its okay i give it 5/10