All-New Movie Jibber-Jabber: Wonder Woman

Evan: This week, fellow Yapper Aly Caviness (who is also my wife) and I are going to dive into a spoiler-filled discussion of DC Entertainment's new film, "Wonder Woman." You can read Aly's fantastic review here. For once she and I walked out of a movie in almost complete agreement, so today we're going to dive into a discussion of what we did and did not like in the movie. We'll be talking heavy spoilers, so please see the movie before you start.

**Spoilers Follow**

Aly: All right, I'm going to start with the biggest thorn in my side. Then maybe we can get on with the good stuff. In my review, I talked a lot about Diana and how she's practically perfect in every way. That's true, but I left out a spoilery exception — the fact that movie Diana now has the same origin as New 52 Diana in the comics... which so many people disliked that they're changing her origin once again in DC Rebirth. Instead of being fashioned from clay by a mother who desperately wanted a child and brought to life by the gods who pitied her, Diana in the movie is the daughter of Zeus and a demigod, a secret her mother keeps from her all her life.

I hated this origin in the comics, and I hate it in the movie. While it suits the cinematic universe marginally better, it's just so ... mundane. Everybody and their brother was a son or daughter of Zeus in Greek mythology; not only does this origin rob Diana of her autonomy and history as a feminist icon, but it also robs her of what makes her special as a heroine. And worse, the movie tries to have its cake and eat it too by making this a huge revelation in the third act and then treats it like it's no big deal!

Evan: I agree. I thought that "reveal" was the weakest moment in the film. By the time we learn Diana's altered backstory (although it's not exactly subtly hinted at earlier on), we've grown attached to her and her "from clay" origin. Her relationships with Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) and Antiope (Robin Wright) introduce us to her as a member of the Amazons and as a person. She has no relationship with Zeus, and the fact that, in this particular telling of the Greek gods' story, all the other gods are dead doesn't exactly make her inclusion in their pantheon particularly meaningful. The only other surviving god is Ares (David Thewlis), and ... well, he doesn't add that much to Wonder Woman's story besides being a big CGI monster she can punch.

Aly: Yeah, they made some rookie mistakes with the villain. Ares is even less interesting than the Marvel Cinematic Universe's worst villain (Malekith from "Thor: The Dark World," hands down), and the two secondary villains — General Ludendorff (Danny Huston) and Doctor Poison (Elena Anaya) — have some fun scenes where they're kind of cute and campy in an evil way, but ultimately they're just puppets and red herrings. It's so strange to me that so many superhero movies still fail to create villains who really mean something.

Oh, and not to mention that killing off all the gods in this movie pretty seriously limits a potential "Wonder Woman" sequel. If Diana's foes aren't gods themselves, then they're usually tied to the gods somehow. I don't really think throwing her mythology out makes her more relatable.

Evan: All told there's very little wonder at the end of the movie, outside of Diana's joyful perspective and the film's levity (which is not insignificant). But the world depicted by the other DC movies is so grim and utterly devoid of imagination (and this film being in a naturally grim World War I setting) that I don't see where a potential sequel is going to go. I don't doubt they can do it, I just don't quite know where it goes from here. I wish she had her own universe to play with, and that's kind of the heart of my problem with her origin in this movie: The reduction of Diana's origin to simply being the secret "God Killer" given to the Amazons by Zeus dilutes her character in the same way as Superman snapping Zod's neck or Batman blowing away criminals with a machine gun. Not quite so seriously; we still end the movie with a joyous, heroic, driven hero unlike any other in the DC Cinematic Universe. But it feels like a hobbling.

Aly: Exactly. My biggest problem with the DC movies is that they treat death so cavalierly, especially when it's the heroes doing the killing. Diana killing German soldiers during World War I is just as likely as Captain America doing the same during World War II, but the way she does it after Steve Trevor sacrifices himself is so very, very mishandled. I don't believe for a second that a Diana consumed by grief would take that hurt out on other people, even her enemies, especially when they are not the ones responsible for his death. I get that the filmmakers wanted to show Diana fully unleashing her powers, but it's anything but triumphant. It's just ugly. On the flip side, this is the first time I've ever loved Chris Pine in a movie, and that's coming from a person who kind of shamelessly loves "This Means War" (2012). (Side note: I seem to love a lot of shitty movies from 2012.)

Evan: I don't like Chris Pine's face, but I've actually really enjoyed him in many of his recent roles ("Hell or High Water" being a standout). He was great here — a fun, distinct character who didn't try to usurp Diana as the focus of the movie. I'm less concerned with Wonder Woman killing than you are, at least in this way, but I think the entire ending of the movie is mishandled. It feels like an early 2000s superhero movie, beholden to traditional action tropes rather than built from the ground up to serve the actual story and character. Oddly enough, 'Wonder Woman" made me appreciate "Doctor Strange," "Ant Man" and "Logan" even more. I hope we can get a Wonder Woman movie someday that really tells a story. As far as an introduction, though, this is a good start.

Aly: Pine's Steve certainly didn't try to usurp Diana as the focus on the movie, but I think screenwriter Allan Heinberg sure did. The more I think about it, that's something that bothers me more than I thought — that Steve's story and sacrifice overshadows Diana's character arc at the end. It makes sense to make Steve a casualty of the war, but I'm not sure it was handled the right way ... which kind of goes back to my problems with the whole third act. Everything just feels so sloppy and unearned in that final fight, and this Steve's sacrifice only feels like a carbon copy of Steve Rogers' very poignant one at the end of "Captain America: The First Avenger." As far as Steve's character goes, however, I couldn't be happier with him. I like that he only tries to hold Diana back until he realizes that a) she's way more capable than him in a fight and b) nothing can hold her back. Then he does all he can to support her, even when he feels out of his depth. I really loved his and Diana's moments together. Their journey was definitely the highlight of the movie for me.

Evan: I agree that the final act, and Steve getting the big moment, felt really ... off. I think there's a sweetness to their interactions earlier in the movie.On paper, Steve making a sacrifice that shows Diana that humans are as capable of self-sacrificing love as they are of war (just as Antiope was during the beach battle earlier on) really works, but the way it's edited doesn't. So we've really picked apart the final act. Do you have any other spoiler thoughts you want to discuss, good or bad?

Aly: Well, I don't want this conversation to be entirely negative. Although it sounds like I didn't like this movie, that's not really the case! But I do just want to say briefly that I wish there had been one villain instead of three, and I wish that one villain had been Doctor Poison. Wonder Woman has always had an great roster of female villains (Circe! Medusa! Cheetah! Veronica Cale! Silver Swan!), and while I did enjoy how gleefully campy the Doctor was, I wish she'd had a bigger role in the end. Another thing I really liked is that Diana's "Howling Commandos" — Samir (Saïd Taghmaoui), Charlie (Ewen Bremner) and Chief (Eugene Brave Rock) — all felt like real characters with real history, and the same can't really be said for the actual Howling Commandos in "Captain America." Besides Dum-Dum Dugan, can you even recall any of their names? But, like you mentioned after we saw the movie, I wish that there had been another woman in Steve's little band — maybe a Belgian spy, someone working for Doctor Poison? In a superhero movie replete with textured female characters, that could've been the icing on the cake. As it is, though, I appreciate the care that went into creating Diana's squad, and the diversity! Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure this is one of the most diverse superhero movies yet. Beyond the squad, so many of the Amazons and British soldiers are people of color, and the Amazons are subtly coded as queer (and Diana might even be, too). That's always wonderful to see.

Evan: I think diversity was a clear strong point of the film, and I don't think Diana being queer was subtle. I think the greatest thing the film does is truly capture the character of Wonder Woman in all her facets, including that. That said, it would have been interesting to see her have relationships on Themyscira, but maybe that could be in flashbacks later on? I agree about her Howling Commandos. "Wonder Woman" did a good job capturing war as something awful that drags in people who don't belong in it and ruins lives beyond reckoning. It did a much better job than the first Cap film in that regard, as well. Ditto on Poison; I do appreciate that, at the very least, she was the ultimate face of humanity's dark aspects when Diana makes her decision to spare humankind. It would have been great if she had been more prominent, but the silliness of her and Ludendorff was also good.

Aly: All in all, there's a lot of good in this movie. Right now, it's just the bad stuff that's sticking with me. I liked "Rogue One" a lot better after seeing it a second time, when I could let myself overlook some of the things I disliked initially, and I think the same will probably be true with "Wonder Woman." I mean, I almost cried last night just thinking about that first shot of Themyscira, with a young Diana running through the streets surrounded by women who loved and cherished her. That's a scene you get in a lot of Wonder Woman comics, but to actually see it on the big screen evokes a completely different feeling. Because this movie gave me that scene and the one of Diana rising from the trenches in full Wonder Woman regalia, I think eventually I'll be able to forgive it its flaws. But it always hurts a little more when something is so close to perfect as opposed to outright bad. A few changes could have made "Wonder Woman" the best superhero movie yet; as it is, it evens out at good. Just good. I'm expecting much more from the inevitable sequel.