Director: Patty Jenkins
Cast: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal
Have I Seen it Before: How would one?
Did I Like It: No review of the film would be complete without spending a moment on its distribution. For a major release, the idea of going simultaneously on streaming and in theaters is certainly unusual. The reasons are well-founded, as are the objections of the movie theater industry.
That all being said, it’s a different animal to watch a movie like this from the couch. In a theater, all that exists is you and the movie, and maybe some popcorn*. You don’t even talk to the people you came with, unless you’re some kind of sociopath. At home, I’m tempted to work on some writing, or thumb through a book or play a game of chess on the phone. At one point I grabbed an orange, peeled it, and then spent several minutes of the runtime debating whether I should get up to throw away the peel.
It’s a different thing. I sure would like it if people got serious about the everything of the current era and the vaccines keep (or truly start) a comin’ so that I might sit in a movie theater once again before I die.
It seems like a lot of my review descend into a similar rant these days. Anyway.
I came to the film a full week after its premiere, and had to work extra hard to not let the somewhat negative word-of-mouth clutter or prejudice my thoughts.
And I think I mostly succeeded.
I hesitate to make some kind of prediction with my first review of 2021, but I think that despite the grumbling, this one will age better than the average superhero film.
Yes, it doesn’t really feel like a superhero film for much of its runtime. If you cut out all of the scenes were Diana (Gadot) is in full Wonder Woman regalia doing Wonder Woman things, you’d still have a movie that feels about twenty minutes too long. I can see where people feel like they might have been sold a false bill of goods, especially in a year when the last new superhero film we had was Birds of Prey (2020) back in February.
Other parts of it feel like a less-frantic remix of some of the same themes examined in Batman Returns (1992), which would automatically elevate the film’s standing in my view.
And where that previous film was a fun-house mirror reflection of that earlier film, this film is so quintessentially of its time that it will be hard to completely dismiss in the years to come. The promises of shallow wish-fulfillment by Maxwell Lord (Pascal) will immediately sound familiar, and after all of the time we’ve had, the way Diana unravels those plans feel more satisfying than they have any right to. In a few years, the film may feel quaint, but I’m really looking forward to that.
* Please, don’t at me with Raisinets. I’m aware of them, and they are not a proper movie snack. I will not be taking questions at this time.