Woman Of Wonder!

My beautiful daughters treated me to a great flick for my birthday, we all three went to see Wonder Woman. It was awesome. DC's movies have come under fire for not measuring up to those from Marvel and frankly I find my excitement level for these is much higher at this point. To see the icons of comics get a big screen treatment which keeps the verve of the original source material is more than this longtime comic book reader could ever imagine possible. More after a few spoilers.

BEGINNING OF SPOILERS.

The story begins in the now and we see that enigmatic photograph from the early Superman Vs. Batman movie and that moves Diana Prince to remember her own beginnings. The story takes us to Paradise Island (called that by Steve Trevor at one point) and we see a young Diana growing up unaware of her true nature but eager to fight. We see Steve Trevor, an American born spy for the British in World War I crash through the screen which hides the island and is swiftly followed by boat loads of Germans. After a ferocious battle Diana goes with Trevor to fight against Aries who Diana is certain is at the root of the war which corrupts the whole world. She quickly comes into contact with the world of the early twentieth century and fits in rather well all things considered. Eventually she and Trevor and a squad of rough and tough commandos go to the trenches and confront the horrors of war directly and finally we see Wonder Woman in all her glory. This is followed by more tragedy and more death and eventually a confrontation with Aries which ends in further tragedy.

END OF SPOILERS.

The story is a rockem' sockem' action piece with lots of characters mingling in and out of the story. I used my daughters a a bell weather of whether the story was confusing and they both seemed to understand it well enough, though small details did slip by. In fact knowledge of Wonder Woman lore might actually lead a viewer astray as it did me when I made some unfounded assumptions about certain characters.

The battle in the trenches is the action highlight of the movie, and among the finest action sequences ever in a superhero movie. The brutality is evident and the visceral nature of the fight is palpable. Later fights, like many in these kinds of flicks, were so large as to lose of some that immediacy. This same thing worked in the first Captain America movie and it is repeated here with great success.

Gal Gadot is magnificent as Wonder Woman and utterly convincing. My daughters were both utterly entranced by her performance as was I.  Chris Pine's Steve Trevor was excellent as well and he does a fantastic job in this movie in what has always been a thankless role. Plenty of good actors do creditable jobs.

This was a movie which I looked forward to a great deal and it was a movie which lived up to that anticipation. A bit long in the end, but all of these DC efforts tend to do that. Other than that, it's a great flick and a worthy birthday treat with two of the greatest women of wonder in my life, my beautiful daughters.

Highly recommended.

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