The DC Movie Universe course-corrects with "Wonder Woman"

There are large segments of the movie-going public who are hyper-excited about a superhero movie being centered on a female character, and that one has actually been directed by a female, and how this is oh-so long overdue and oh-so important in the annals of human history… blah, blah, blah...   All of that may or may not be true, but I don’t really give a fig about any of it.  Male, female, dog, cat, horse… who/whatever makes up a movie is irrelevant to me, as long as it’s good, and this one definitely is.  Wonder Woman is an excellent example of the “superhero” film genre, and I will explain why this is so, if you are kind enough to read on.

The story borrows aspects of Wonder Woman’s rich comic history while relying heavy on modern interpretations such as the character’s much-ballyhooed reboot by writer/artist George Perez in the 1980s.  After a short prelude, we’re introduced to a young Diana and her home of Themyscira.  In an island paradise inhabited only by the Amazons, Diana is raised by her mother Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) and trained by the Amazon General Antiope (Robin Wright, in a great performance considering her limited screen time).  Although it lacks a Loki, I felt we learned far more about Themyscira than we did about Asgard in the first Thor film, and the setting is put to good use to explore who Diana is and where she comes from before sending her out into the world.

Years later, with Diana grown into adulthood (now played by Gal Gadot) and starting to fully come into her powers, the Amazons’ solitude is intruded upon by an American spy named Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) and pursuing German soldiers who accidentally come across the island hidden from the world by the gods.  Believing the god of war Ares to be behind this “war to end all wars,” Diana chooses to leave her home and journey into man’s world to put an end to the villain’s schemes by re-assuming the Amazons true purpose in helping man reach his full potential and strive above the pettiness and violence caused by Ares’ influence.  Whew!  Simple, right…?

Credit goes to director Patty Jenkins and screenwriter Allan Heinberg for taking the best aspects of Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor and merging them into a film that might just be a tad better than either of those two.  Jenkins creates a lush, visual representation of a place steeped in Greek mythology, and balances that with History Channel-realistic depictions of the horror of the First World War, tossing some nice fish-out-of-water humor along the way.

What Wonder Woman gets so very right is its choice of stars and, for the first time in this DC Movie Universe since Man of Steel, a willingness to give the central character a bit of heart.  While fan reaction to the casting of Gadot was mixed, the choice has turned out to be a savvy one.  No, she’s not going to challenge Meryl Streep anytime soon, but she does what is asked of her in this role very, very well.  There is a moment in which Diana, lost in the midst of a war she doesn’t really understand, but knowing that the fighting is harming innocents all around, races across no man’s land and, with the help of a ragtag group, turns the tide of the stalemate.  It’s here, in Diana’s humanity, and in her need to put herself between others and danger, that the film so successfully sells us on the character, and I found Gadot’s eyes and her body language essential in doing so.

Pine and Gadot’s chemistry is wonderful, as each of them have moments of strength, wit and vulnerability with the other, without ever having one character dominate the relationship.  The interplay between all the characters is so entertaining that you shouldn’t find yourself waiting for the next mandatory action set-piece.  Even Trevor’s band of mercenary misfits, while obviously the sort of characters who merely serve as some screenplay motivation-providers, are played by actors (Saïd Taghmaoui, Eugene Brave Rock, and Ewen Bremner) who each manage to imbue their characters with enough to make us actually like them a bit.

I also found the choice to put the character in World War I to be brilliant, in that it distances this story from the other DC movies, allowing it to be told totally on its own, without any reference to the rest of DC’s “cinematic universe.”  That being said, I do find it a bit curious that this character has now been in one-and-a-third movies and the phrase “Wonder Woman” has yet to be uttered by anyone.  I wonder if the upcoming Justice League film will finally allow someone to speak that name.

While acclaim for Wonder Woman seems to be widespread, there are some poor, jaded souls out there who believe it necessary to find fault with the movie’s final act including a major action set-piece battle, full of explosions and destruction on a grand scale.  To complain seeing characters bash Hell out of each other amidst pyrotechnics and massive-scale property damage in a superhero movie is akin to complaining that all love stories inevitably result in two people kissing.  Dogs bark, cats meow and superheroes have landscape-destroying fights - it’s what they do, people.

Wonder Woman is a visually-lush, entertaining summer movie that is loads of fun. It injects a breath of fresh(er) air into the DC cinematic universe and provides some promise for the upcoming movies DC/Warner Bros. has in store. If you are growing tired of seeing costumed characters destroying each other and landscapes, however, then take heart, because Woody Allen is still making movies you might like.

"Batman V Superman: Dawn (and morning, and midday, and afternoon) of Justice"

In my nearly half-century of life, I have spent more than my share of time and money on comic books.  There are Marvel Comics fanboys and there are DC Comics fanboys.  I have no loyalties - I am a comics slut and give my love freely to ‘em all, and then some!  This admission means, of course, that I am instantly and unashamedly incapable of giving an objective review of the first movie depiction of DC Comics’ “Holy Trinity” of superheroes, namely Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman.  Like many geeks, I have been longing for such a movie the majority of my life, so it would take a pretty atrocious film of these characters meeting and doing battle to earn a horrible review from me.  Is this an atrocious film?  Absolutely, positively not.  So, is it a fantastic film?  Absolutely, positively not.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, a mouthful of a title if ever there was one, is directed by Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen), who also directed this film’s predecessor, Man of Steel. The movie opens with that film’s climax, but showing us the mass carnage of Superman’s (Henry Cavill, back again) battle over Metropolis from ground level this time.  The seemingly World War III-ish destruction from that film is not glossed over, and serves as the impetus for this one.  Bruce Wayne’s (Ben Affleck) financial empire has holdings in Metropolis, and he is there that day, seeing his property and, more importantly, his employees, being crushed by the aliens engaged in a death-match all over the city.  Who’s to blame for all this?  Sure, Superman saved the world, but a world now with a few hundred thousand fewer people alive.  Congressional hearings are held, CNN spends large chunks of airtime debating the issue, and lots of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump voter-types go wacko in voicing and showing their opposing fervor on the subject of this “alien” who may be our salvation or our doom. That thought drives both Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) to decide we’d be better off without him, and each begin making moves to act on that belief. Let the battle begin!

This movie is breakneck-paced from the opening titles to the closing credits. With a two-and-a-half hour running time, and so much material to cover, Snyder gives us a visual orgy of explosions and costumes and vehicles and heat-ray-emitting monsters that would make Michael Bay blush.  We bounce around disjointed events from around the globe, and the movie hopes we can keep up and string them all together in our minds to see the overall picture. We’re beaten over the head with Hans Zimmer’s score (credited along with something/someone called “Junkie XL,” whatever that is), and see enough CNN on-air personalities that we’re absolutely certain that Warner Bros. owns them, too.

On the other hand, the pace also prevented Snyder from wasting time retelling us things we of which probably didn’t need reminding. Wayne is driven to almost-psychosis over the mayhem and destruction he witnessed, and the movie conveys just enough to convince me of that and moves on.  As he did with Superman’s origin in Man of Steel, Snyder does not bog us down in the minutia of Batman’s beginnings, as he’s confident in our knowledge of the broader strokes of how Batman came to be.  Sure, he gives us two minutes of Bruce Wayne voicing over a dream/remembrance of his parents’ deaths early on, but that’s it, and it’s enough.

But is the movie good or bad? Well, The Good - the majority of the cast’s headliners do excellent work.  Henry Cavill has Superman down-pat now, and while his performance in Man of Steel was probably more personal and touching, that movie was meant to be more emotional than this one (an actor’s gotta do what he’s given to do, right?).  Affleck is fantastic as Bruce Wayne AND as Batman, instantly shaming all those haters who went wild upon his casting announcement two years ago.  Oh, he may get some ribbing for adopting the Christian Bale gravel-voice while wearing the cowl, but that’s actually explained as a plot point and shouldn’t be held against him.  As stated, Wonder Woman makes her debut, played by Israeli actress Gal Gadot, and if you don’t applaud when she appears in costume for the first time, then I don’t want to talk to you.  She doesn’t have much opportunity to take over any scenes, and given Godot’s previous work, that may be a good thing (I guess we’ll find out if she can REALLY act in next year’s Wonder Woman solo flick), but she sure as Hell LOOKS the part, and that’s enough for me so far.

Now The Bad - Chris Terrio and David Goyer’s screenplay doesn’t do Lois Lane (Amy Adams, also back for more) any favors, and Jesse Eisenberg was a horrible Lex Luthor.  Lois, while portrayed to be more independent and less bumbling that almost all previous incarnations of the character, is still basically a catalyst for rescue situations, and disappointing, given Adams’ talent.  The Luthor character is the movie’s biggest and most glaring disappointment, though, being played as something akin to Eisenberg’s portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, but with Parkinson’s or something.  Every time he was on screen was like nails on a chalkboard to me, and while one is supposed to be somewhat turned off by a movie’s villain, Eisenberg’s performance turned me off in the wrong way.

The overabundance of characters and plot points, of course, serve as seeds that will someday bear fruit as spinoff films and a Justice League movie. Yes, the two minutes or so that teases the soon-to-be-members of the Justice League feels shoehorned into the narrative (and may literally have been, as rumors have it that the sequence was filmed many, many months after principal photography wrapped), but I understand the purpose the sequence serves, and it didn’t take me out of the movie.  A less geeky viewer may find his or her experience somewhat different.

The movie is far from perfect, but it’s far from a failure, too. I can understand how a more casual moviegoer would find the movie’s pace almost too frenetic to allow him to keep up with all these characters and their possible motives.  I can tell you with all-but-certainty that the half-hour of excised footage that Snyder and Warner Bros. have promised us for the three-hour R-rated Blu-ray release of the film is sorely missed.  Batman v Superman doesn’t make any pretense about being “Hamlet,” however - it’s a superhero movie.  It’s a flick about dudes (and dude-ettes) in brightly-colored spandex blowing stuff up and bashing the crap out of each other, and setting the table for more such movies to come. If that’s your cup of tea, as it is mine, then you may enjoy it as much as I did.