A Passionate Appreciation Of Wonder Woman
Let me preface the following by stipulating that I know that we have a surfeit of comic book/superhero movies, and that I have come to think of this facile cash-grabfest as geek porn. Having said that, I want to say that Wonder Woman is the BEST superhero movie that I have seen since Superman 2, long before this dearth of heart and imagination hit the movie industry. In fact, I submit to you that Wonder Woman is the direct descendant of Superman 2.
I have seen a few really good superhero movies since Superman 2. I refer to Spider-man and Spider-man 2, X-Men: First Class, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Logan. I enjoyed, but did not take seriously, Deadpool. I mean, c'mon. The others are masturbatory crap.
Wonder Woman is different. First, the hero "reveal" is, in my opinion, up there with the first time that Christopher Reeve peeled open his shirt to show the red S beneath as he raced to save Lois Lane. That is EXTREMELY hard to do! How do you equal, let alone surpass, Clark Kent jumping into a phone booth (what?) and peeling open his Kal-El baby blanket? Sam Rami paid homage to that immortal moment in Spider-man. Wonder Woman ups the ante by placing Diana's "reveal" in No-Man's Land, World War I, as miserable a time and place as any in our history, and makes my spirit, at least, soar. Unlike the reveals in Superman and Spider-man (and I mean NO disrespect to either of these films, both of which are in my library), Diana inspires others to follow her lead! In short, her spirit IS her power, because it inspires, encourages and empowers others to join with her.
Diana believes in people. As General Zod said of Kal-El, "He cares about them, these humans? . . . Then that is his weakness!" Wonder Woman takes that premise to a new and more complex level. Diana DOES care about them/us--even though she finally realizes that they/WE are flawed! She has true mercy in her heart: she spares Dr. Maru, the architect of death incarnate, because Diana realizes that Maru was a pawn of Aries. (Side note: as a man born under the sign Aries, I am sick of movies like this and The Clash of the Titans constantly referring to Aries as the God of War. I admit that is how the Greeks perceived Aries, and the Romans, Mars; but, in astrology, Aries is either the Ram of War OR the Lamb of God. One decides for oneself.) Diana's heart showed her where the true evil, the true threat, lay, and she crushed Aries instead of Maru.
I've been looking forward to seeing this movie ever since seeing Gadot be easily the best thing in Batman v Superman. I honestly believe that she is the most dynamic superhero whom I have ever seen. Chris Reeve was a better actor, but he had better scripts. Please let David Mammet write the next Wonder Woman script, and we shall see. I am all too aware that some troglodytes on this site have complained that Gadot is not physically bulked enough, or ripped enough, or shredded enough, for this role. My diplomatic reply is: Hey, never-been-in-a-gym, no-knowledge-of-how-to-fight mental midgets, she is INTENSE enough for the role. She is the daughter of Zeus and Hippolyta; hence, her strength is in her spirit and in her MAGIC.
Is this Gone With The Wind? No. Is this a great movie qua movie? No. Is this a standout film in a cinematic category that is THIS CLOSE to being adolescent porn? It is. It is good beyond hope. (I freely admit that I stole that last sentence from a book criticism that was published in The New York Review of Books, years ago. The subject of the article was the combined volumes of The Lord Of The Rings. So, yeah, in terms of comic book/superhero movies, that's how good that I think that Wonder Woman is.)