WONDER WOMAN *Movie Review*

Over the past several months, I’ve eagerly anticipated “Wonder Woman” while simultaneously biting my nails considering the potential box office results.  A movie like this isn’t just about how much money Warner Bros. and DC Comics will make in a weekend, but about the future opportunities available for female actors and directors.  It sounds like an undue amount of pressure on a single movie–and it is, in ways with which male directors rarely contend.

At this point, the early polls–excuse me, box office–are in and “Wonder Woman” is a bona fide success.  The film’s domestic and international grosses are hovering near $220 million and director Patty Jenkins (Academy Award winner “Monster”) has earned the superlative of best opening domestically for a female director.  Gal Gadot, the Israeli actress/model previously best known in the United States for her roles in two of the “Fast and the Furious” franchise movies is now better known as Diana, princess of the Amazons.

In the midst of the fervor surrounding Jenkins, Gadot and “Wonder Woman” the question becomes is the movie actually good?  In fact, “Wonder Woman” is perhaps the best recent example of why gender doesn’t matter.  This is the quintessential superhero movie complete with ‘fish out of water’ jokes as Diana learns about the world outside her home island.  As with the other superheroes before her who are not of this planet or people, Diana’s charming naïveté is the basis for much of the movie’s humor.  Also like others before her, she gradually learns to harness her power and come into her own as illustrated through epic (and costly) battle sequences.  The challenges these heroes face speak to universal themes which know no gender.  In fact, it’s perhaps the most compelling explanation for their endurance in all artistic mediums.

For more about “Wonder Woman”, including how vertical movement is used as Diana comes into her own as a warrior, take a look below:

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