Wonder Woman Movie Review

Article by Gabe Zia

Lazy Film Critic Movie Reviews

Wonder Woman

I have to say, when it was announced all those years ago that relatively unknown Fast & Furious actress Gal Gadot would be taking on the iconic role of Wonder Woman in the DCEU, I was skeptical to say the least. We hadn't seen much of her as an actress and all of what we had seen was in a Fast & Furious movie so it seemed like a bit of a risky movie. However, unlike a lot of other risky decisions this franchise has made, every decision made that went into making Wonder Woman has wonderfully paid off in what is without a doubt the best DCEU movie, and in my opinion the best DC movie since Batman Begins.

First off, Gal Gadot absolutely owns this role. Like Henry Cavill as Superman or Ben Affleck as Batman, they're both fine but at the end of the day neither of them are really owning the roles and I could see just about anyone play them to the same degree. And while I could say Gal Gadot isn't my only and first choice for the role, she has a command of the character and the emotions and a demanding screen presence that no character in the DCEU so-far has had, and I was really impressed with her performance here. 

However, the DCEU has usually been pretty solid in the area of performances but where their films have always faltered has been in tone. Either a film had two jarringly different tones at two ends of the movie that jarringly collided with each other, or you have Suicide Squad, a film with a tone so dramatically all over the place it's hard to pinpoint what the movie is trying to be at all. Aside from that the rest of the DCEU films had issues with editing and some CGI issues and while they're still sort of present in this movie, there's a lot of signs of improvement in those areas, and this films perfect balance of tone more than makes up for any minor stupid gripes that I can't be bothered to let sour my enjoyment of the movie. This movie strikes a balance between fun and lighthearted but also reasonably mature that even Marvel for all its merits has only struck a few times.

Something I like about this movie a lot is that it does something the DCEU has really never done before, which is know when to slow things down. Part of the issue with films like Man of Steel, BvS, and Suicide Squad is that they're constantly moving, Man of Steel moves at such a rapid rate it's hard to get attached to any of the characters, BvS moves scene to scene so quickly it's hard to follow the plot, and Suicide Squad throws so much at the screen it's hard to discern when a scene has ended and a new one has begun. However, Wonder Woman does the same thing great action movies like Mad Max or even classics like Die Hard know to do, which is every once in a while let the characters take a breath. Allow for characterization in a setting that isn't high stakes, and just let characters be characters. It's the little things like having a scene where Chris Pines character teaches Wonder Woman how to dance that make a movie pop out and feel alive, and it's nice to see that this movie knows that because it really adds to what makes this one great.

Final Rating
As a movie, Wonder Woman more than does its job. It has great action, it has great characters, it has a compelling story, it's fun without being goofy, it's reasonably dark and mature without being grim or edgy, it hits all the right notes and it's by far the best thing the DCEU has put out yet. I'm giving this movie a very high recommendation, if you haven't seen it by now definitely go check it out.