This was very much my reaction to the movie, and it’s still how I feel about it.
I also think that a lot of the things that I really liked were handled sometimes so subtly as to be missed. Her attitude and her treatment of other people make everyone around her a little better. She says, “Who will sing for us?” with no trace of irony; and while Charlie doesn’t once again become the amazing shot his reputation suggests he once was, he does begin to contribute more to the group, acting as a scout with his scope (in a fight they all could have avoided by simply taking their pay and going home). The movie doesn’t hammer such things at the audience, but they are there demonstrating her compassion, integrity, and charity. I was glad the writer and director went this route, but it requires the audience to pay attention a lot more than most summer superhero blockbusters do.
Oh, I liked this part a lot too! Maybe I’m reading into it, but I thought she wasn’t making a joke at all. Like, to her, she sincerely thought his singing was an important contribution to the group. Because I could imagine that to the Amazon fighting outfits, a warrior-skald or something like that would be essential. How could a unit function without a bard to raise morale and keep people united?
She came across as a truly personal and caring leader in the show, in a way that no Batman or Superman movie has before. My memory only serves us Captain America as the other analogue I recall in recent superhero movies.
In contrast, in other movies there is some pitch about “freedom” or the “world” and magically the least performing member gets over his “problem”. If the hero gets concerned about someone in his team, it’s usually in the context of saving his life from imminent danger.
I felt touched because in this scene, she emphasises his contribution on a totally different level, perhaps making him recognise his worth in something he never even thought about. She values everyone differently, not just on their combat ability.
I saw this and was kinda bored, but I liked a lot of it - love Gal in the role, like a lot of the narrative decisions including the setting, generally found the action scenes at least decent (and the trench scene and beginning of the island fight better than that) but often less memorable. The superfluous side characters were tiresome and the entire narrative seemed like more of a rough draft that needed a few more polishing edits to be up to the standard of some of the better Marvel movies (and, conversely, a lot of those films feel like they’re too much the product of solid decisions of committees that round off the rough edges but also any creative vision of individual artists).
Actually think I like BvS and definitely Man of Steel better. Even though there is nothing in this movie as bad as some of the nonsense in BvS, there are also none of the peaks of that move (such as the first 30 min, or the Batman warehouse scene, or any of Wonder Woman’s scenes in that movie). I’m definitely the kind of viewer that gets more satisfaction from flawed movies that have a few great scenes than flawed movies that have shallower scars but fewer memorable moments. That’s one of the reasons I actually like the first couple Star Wars prequels more than Revenge of the Sith or Force Awakens despite there being some godawful crap in those prequels and more muted nonsense in the the latter movies and more consistent quality.
Gal Godot was amazing and did a great job with the role. But I couldn’t help but feel a little bit like I was watching 5th Element Again. Some of her facial expressions really reminded me of Leelo.
I didn’t like any of the other actors. The Dr wasn’t bad, but it just felt campy. As others have noticed, the default German Bad Guy is “Hey look, Nazis!” I did not like the posse. One guy felt like he was channelling Sammy Davis Junior, the Scottish guy was unnecessary and I thought they lost a potentially crucial moment by having Chief (oh, that name) explain his people are homeless because of the Americans just didn’t go anywhere, Daniel Huston I kept seeing The Axeman from America Horror Story.
I had figured out the reveal early on. The final boss fight was boring. The 3rd act made me think I was watching one of my video games.
Ah, I wonder if they can hold that date. VIII was scheduled for May 26 of this year and got pushed to Dec. 15., or right at two years after VII.
If they couldn’t do VIII in 18-19 months, I’m skeptical that they can pull that off for IX, especially with the plan at least somewhat shaken up by Fisher’s death.
Finally saw this and I have to agree with @Desslock in that I was bored.
The relationship between Diana and Steve is almost cut-and-pasted from a bad romcom.
The movie is telling me that war is terrible, but in a super hero movie that craves conflict, that message cannot be convincing.
The ethos of Ares, that there are no good guys fighting bad guys, only bad guys fighting bad guys, it could have gone a lot deeper. But it is as if the movie can’t trust the audience enough to show that intelligently, so it ended up shoveling it to down our throat with boring expositions, in between boring fights. Why Diana ended up defending humanity is almost deus ex machina: because of love??? How corny and superficial is that?
Exactly as corny and superficial as pretty much the entire run of every Wonder Woman comic printed ever :) I thought it was perfect for a WW origin movie, exactly what the character is about.
It was a perfectly fine, entertaining movie. It only really fell flat right at the end boss battle. But it was overhyped. It wasn’t a revelation, a great superhero movie like The Dark Knight,Logan, or Iron Man 1.
It got a lot of attention due to its female protagonist, and if that leads to more superhero movies with female leads I’m all for it. I just hope they’re better than this one.
I think I read a trade paperback of WW when I was young, about Artemis and her rivalry with Diana. It is nothing like that.
I’d say it is even worse than Ant-man, because of the incoherence (Hello Suicide Squad! And BvS! You have company!) There is this sophisticated and at times cynical Diana in BvS (basically the only good thing about BvS IMO is the introduction of WW and Gal Gadot). And then you have this child-like Diana here. Stop Ares, stop the war! No one is that naive, right???
A lot of time passed between Wonder Woman and BvS. In that time she matured and became more familiar with the ways of the world. She was sheltered in WW.
As Kerzain noted, that’s not surprising. By the end of WW, she had been out in the wider world less than a month, probably. Comparing that to the same character 100 years later and having a problem with her earlier self being more naive doesn’t make any sense.
Bizarre complaint.
And yes, love being the key was too Japanese anime for me, too.
My point is, it made the movie uninteresting. It would be interesting to see her naivity challenged, and see her character evolve in order for her to come to her conclusion that humanity is worth saving. Naturally, like Leeloo Dallas Multipass in the 5th element. Instead, she just sort of suddenly says yes human love is worth saving and then go on to beat the loving crap out of Ares.
I read this part of your quote as complaining about here naivette being unbelievable. Yet, she was literally raised on an island, told that she was made from clay, and that her entire culture/race was put on Earth by Zeus to stop Ares. “Stop Ares, stop war!” sounds completely reasonable for someone like that.
Your point on the turn-around, after that belief was disproven, is more reasonable. In my view, if they didn’t try to cram it down with the “love” dialog, I think it would have been fine—Trevors’s sacrifice is what restores her belief that the world of man is worth saving. Labeling it the power of love is what made it go all Macross.
