Wonder Woman - 2017

[Dave (imported)]

I watched Wonder Woman last night. It was much better than I anticipated. (I'm suffering superhero-movie-cliche overload.)

I liked Wonder Woman. It's different.

First, it's not the typical superhero movie.

Second, it is set in WW1 and that includes trench warfare and poison gas attacks.

BATMAN V SUPERMAN (in all its messy and disjointed story) introduced Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) to the world. However, that was set in modern times and entirely about Superman and Batman and setting up the next movie in their superhero universe. That's too many things to do in a movie.

WONDER WOMAN doesn't do that. In fact, Wonder woman isn't the typical origin movie. Diana Prince isn't "finding her way in a new world" like Superman (Kal EL versus Zod philosophically playing out) or "removing the criminal elements from society" like Batman existential angst, or like THOR, completely lost in a new world. Diana Prince is grounded in her beliefs and firm in what she believes. There isn't a shred of doubt in her mind about what the world should be and how people would be treated. The real world of WW1, however, intrudes.

Diana Prince is special, is powerful, is begat from the gods of ancient Greece. She has a purpose, she has convictions, and no one will stand in her way.

AT the end of some movies, I feel entertained. At the end of some movies, I feel uplifted. At the end of some movies, I feel disappointed or disgusted or cheated. WONDER WOMAN left me feeling good, warm thoughts. In the middle of AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, Ultron says "Everyone creates the thing they dread. Men of peace create engines of war, invaders create avengers..." and takes a breath and makes that line a joke. BUT Diana Prince, WONDER WOMAN, never entertains those doubts or dark thoughts. She is good and she knows how people should behave and be treated. This is her story of how she came to the world during one of its blackest periods in all history.

Watch and enjoy.

[Arab Nights (imported)]

I went in expecting one thing from Wonder Woman and came out having enjoyed it.

[Paolo]

Let me guess - you went in expecting what every boy from age 8 or so on up expected every Wednesday night, when the Lynda Carter series was on TV?

[Dave (imported)]

Let me guess - you went in expecting what every boy from age 8 or so on up expected every Wednesday night, when the Lynda Carter series was on TV?

Kerry Callen calls it juggle physics -- http://uproxx.com/hitfix/why-does-wonde ... ulnerable/

(I think that cartoon is hysterically funny)

That wasn't my expectation of Wonder Woman (the movie). There was an uproar before the movie about two things: 1) Wonder Woman's costume (the Lynda Carter WW exposed too much thigh and emphasized her tits) was discussed hotly and longly and quite spectacularly ahead of making the movie. and 2) WW1 and WW2 superhero movies all seemed to have the same vicious, nasty Nazis and crazy mad scientist who not only is defeated but ends up figuratively and symbolically beneath the heel of the superhero champion of democracy and right while waving the flag.

Neither of those cliches made it into the movie.

Instead, the entire story is set inside WW1 and the horror of the "War to End All Wars," is exposed not as raging mental-case German psychopaths (he easy plot) but the horror of "no man's land" and mustard gas. Much of WW1 was fought by snipers and men in muddy trenches doing nothing but being miserable and shooting at other men in muddy trenches. WW1 was also fought on the backs of starvation and displace peoples. War always takes its toll on the poor and on the civilians.

That's not the makings of a modern superhero movie with magic stones and energy weapons and alien technologies.

This reboot of WONDER WOMAN is Diana, Princess of Themyscira, daughter of the Queen of the Amazons, sculpted from clay by her mother Queen Hippolyte and given life by Aphrodite,and destined to be a Godkiller if the defeated Ares (god of war) ever returns to poison mankind with his beliefs. Diana is a true believer in the good of mankind and a true believer as to what the world should be.