Wonder Woman first aired on May first 2017. Director Patty Jenkins was refused to work on this project for ten years but she finally made it through as the first female director on a superhero movie. She proved everyone that a woman can direct an amazing movie about a woman hero. The casting consists of Miss Universe 2004 Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Chris Pine as Steve Trevor, Connie Nielsen as Hipollyta, Elena Anaya as Dr. Maru and David Thewlis as Ares.
Growing up I use to go outside and talk with my friends about the superheroes we used to see on TV.
“Have you seen the new Justice League episode?”
“Yeah I really love Batman, he’s so cool!”
“I wish I had superpowers like Superman!”
And I wished I was a warrior woman with super strength, because I was in love with Diana and her armor and armlets. She was strong, she was bright and her backstory was perfect! A lot of strong beautiful women fighting with weapons and horses in a war. I remember going to school and drawing characters like that, with weapons and showing the drawings off to the boys who were all going wow, and that’s so cool.
Ten years later the whole craze about superhero movies started. And they made a Wonder Woman movie. Yeah, yeah they did. So I grabbed my boyfriend and took him to the movies to watch it. The cinema was half full with women and some men who were in the same position as my boyfriend.
The movie begun with the story of the amazons, how they fought Ares and Zeus awarded them with a baby for their loses. That baby then grows into a warrior stuck on an island without something to do with her abilities. That, until a pretty boy falls from the sky into the ocean. A really random way to meet an actual man. The story is pretty loyal to the one in the animated movie up until this point. A main difference would be the fact that in the older version of Justice League, Diana was Ares’ daughter while in the live action she is born from a sand golem which the Gods brought to life. The movie also loses the slight misogyny Steve had towards Diana. In the animated version there is a scene where he takes her to a bar and tries to get her drunk in order to bed her. The flirting is still present however in a more charming way. You actually cheer for them to end up together.
Diana is presented in the movie as a multi faceted woman with a strong will and strong morals. She rebels. She believes in her team and encourages her team mates, but she also knows when to take charge of the situation. She is no one’s side kick. Steve may be the team leader, but he follows behind her on the battlefield as she alone fights off the enemy weaponry. Her breasts are smaller than the cartoon version and her thighs giggle as she does super hero landings. Even as she goes through British biases from the 1940s, she still keeps her head high and tells her thoughts as they are. She also shows a kind of innocence from growing up on an enclosed island.
The movie shows a lot of representation both between the amazons and Diana’s team of spies. The amazons are women of different sizes, types and skin colors. The team of spies consists of men that have already seen war and one of them even shows vulnerability, to which Diana answers with kindness. There is also a disfigured woman villain supposed to be a genius in chemistry who creates a gas that makes people kill each other.
Talking about the villains, this is what actually disappointed me about this movie. The nazi general and evil scientist lady were decent villains one would expect in a hero movie, but Ares was terrible. He looked nothing like his cartoon counterpart. Instead of a war god with a lot of muscles and a terrifying face that seduced one of the amazons and turned her against her sisters, we got Remus Lupin from Harry Potter that looks like a chill uncle. The man is an amazing actor but he’s not someone you can imagine as a threatening god.
All in all, Patty Jenkins made a wonderful (pun intended), action packed film about a female super hero to steal the hearts of little girls around the world.
