Wonder Woman is a sincere film. Its heart is in the right place. It's thematically bang on. It's important. I'm very glad it exists. I'm glad it's being universally praised. It has some fantastic costume work in it and some strong production design. It is, indeed, better than recent previous attempts at bringing DC characters to the big screen (but then the bar has been set pretty low). I see little girls dressing as the protagonist and it makes my heart sing. I see comic book stores hosting Wonder Woman Day, I see the world falling in love with a character that I've always adored. These are all wonderful things.
I was very excited for this flick. When the reviews were coming in strong, I let my hopes get high. I admit that I actively ignored my Rotten Tomatoes rule of thumb (any movie with more than 90% RT rating has a huge probability of sucking).
But the film is, subjectively, pretty bad.
It is overwrought. It is written as if by algorithm, meaning that it is simply an amalgamation of standard scenes you've seen before in other movies, just reskinned for this world and this character, everyone acts out every scene in extremely predictable ways. Its third act fight scene is extremely problematic and boring. It is inconsistent, Wonder Woman's presence and powers fluctuate so wildly that she can fight and kill a god, but not a handful of German's with WW I era rifles on a beach?
The CGI is criminally bad, the physics in the special effects shots are so off that it seems like I'm watching a last gen video game.
Its dialogue has exactly three modes: exposition, clumsy attempts at humor, and stating out loud the thematic intent of the scene.
Its fight scenes are more often excuses to pose the character than acts of complex, readable staging, particularly the awful final fight. The use of slow motion in the fight scenes is so reliable and consistent that it seems like a parody of Zach Snyder's already completely unengaged video game fight choreography.
The villains mean nothing. They are uninspired, dreary, and underutilized. Apart from seeing the very well visualized Themyscira, and the handful of times we get to see Wonder Woman in action, there is very little fun to be had in this movie. There is almost nothing that feels inventive and most of the film is colored in that same drab, dreary way that all of the recent DC films are colored.
The movie is looooong, with a running time that used to be reserved for movies like The Piano, The Godfather, and Apocalypse Now, films with sprawling cinematic, thematic, and emotive ambitions that this does not even begin to have.
Lastly, I can't tell if Gadot is incapable of acting or if the script gave her so little of substance to work with that she did an amazing job just keeping it all together.
I have to ask why? Why does the DC universe so actively avoid fun, immersive, well crafted, and inventive storytelling? Why do they double down on this faux-epic, dismal pap? Why are they so afraid of color? Of bold comic-book like choices?
Personally, I wish I had watched a little bit of Wonder Woman on cable and then turned it off like I have every other recent DC movie, but maybe voting with my dollar at least helped change the backward ass notion that women can't open big budget movies.
Oh, well. As I said, the most important thing is that this movie exists, that people like it and that the character is back in the spotlight. That's all that matters. My opinion certainly doesn't. This wasn't a soulless or intellectually bankrupt film like the other DC movies have been, it was just bad, but maybe bad is good enough.
I was very excited for this flick. When the reviews were coming in strong, I let my hopes get high. I admit that I actively ignored my Rotten Tomatoes rule of thumb (any movie with more than 90% RT rating has a huge probability of sucking).
But the film is, subjectively, pretty bad.
It is overwrought. It is written as if by algorithm, meaning that it is simply an amalgamation of standard scenes you've seen before in other movies, just reskinned for this world and this character, everyone acts out every scene in extremely predictable ways. Its third act fight scene is extremely problematic and boring. It is inconsistent, Wonder Woman's presence and powers fluctuate so wildly that she can fight and kill a god, but not a handful of German's with WW I era rifles on a beach?
The CGI is criminally bad, the physics in the special effects shots are so off that it seems like I'm watching a last gen video game.
Its dialogue has exactly three modes: exposition, clumsy attempts at humor, and stating out loud the thematic intent of the scene.
Its fight scenes are more often excuses to pose the character than acts of complex, readable staging, particularly the awful final fight. The use of slow motion in the fight scenes is so reliable and consistent that it seems like a parody of Zach Snyder's already completely unengaged video game fight choreography.
The villains mean nothing. They are uninspired, dreary, and underutilized. Apart from seeing the very well visualized Themyscira, and the handful of times we get to see Wonder Woman in action, there is very little fun to be had in this movie. There is almost nothing that feels inventive and most of the film is colored in that same drab, dreary way that all of the recent DC films are colored.
The movie is looooong, with a running time that used to be reserved for movies like The Piano, The Godfather, and Apocalypse Now, films with sprawling cinematic, thematic, and emotive ambitions that this does not even begin to have.
Lastly, I can't tell if Gadot is incapable of acting or if the script gave her so little of substance to work with that she did an amazing job just keeping it all together.
I have to ask why? Why does the DC universe so actively avoid fun, immersive, well crafted, and inventive storytelling? Why do they double down on this faux-epic, dismal pap? Why are they so afraid of color? Of bold comic-book like choices?
Personally, I wish I had watched a little bit of Wonder Woman on cable and then turned it off like I have every other recent DC movie, but maybe voting with my dollar at least helped change the backward ass notion that women can't open big budget movies.
Oh, well. As I said, the most important thing is that this movie exists, that people like it and that the character is back in the spotlight. That's all that matters. My opinion certainly doesn't. This wasn't a soulless or intellectually bankrupt film like the other DC movies have been, it was just bad, but maybe bad is good enough.