Wonder Woman: Multiple Thumbs Up [Note: A Few Tiny Spoilers]

Yes, we went to see Wonder Woman last night, and had a spanking good time.

Don’t get me wrong: I could see spots here and there that I felt could have been done differently, and better.  But man, it was just a lot of fun!

I’m not going to spill a whole pile of spoilers, but I need a little something on which to base my explanation of the features of the movie.

Firstly, the star of the movie is Gal Gadot, who has already played Wonder Woman in an earlier movie, Batman vs. Superman, or something like that.  The interesting point is that she has a slight Israeli accent, but she exaggerated it a little for the role, and all the actresses who played Amazons (a legendary —or mythical— tribe of women) adopted a slightly exotic accent, which made beautiful sense, because the one thing we could say with confidence is that Wonder Woman would not have an accent from the American Midwest!

Gal Gadot, secondly, is a beautiful woman, neither annoyingly slim nor dreadfully muscle-bound.  She did not look like a body-builder, nor an athlete (which would probably have been fine), but rather like a dancer.  She was supposed to look like a typical woman, who was of course a trained fighter, without any obvious physical peculiarities.  She had medium-short hair, the bright eyes you find in someone who is confident and aware and curious about the world around her.  But you discover very soon that she is not a genius.

Mini Spoiler No. 1:  The Amazons live in an island (or cluster of islands; traditionally Atlantis, but I think they changed its name for the movie) which is magically hidden away from the rest of the world.  After Zeus, father of the Gods, created the world, and mankind, and his fellow-gods, in the course of time, apparently, mankind and the other gods unleashed destruction on the Earth, the chief agent of which was War, the god of which was Ares (which they pronounce “Aries” in the movie).  Ares was unstoppable, and, says the narrator, things got so bad that Zeus had to create a tribe of women with special powers, to guard against the eventuality that Ares would arrange for the destruction of Mankind through cataclysmic wars.  (Of course, just as the Amazons were hidden from the rest of the world, the World was hidden from them, so it was unclear how they would find out what that bastard Ares was up to.  But they do . . .)

Mini Spoiler No. 2:  The story is set in the last weeks of World War I, which was called “The War to End All Wars” at that time.  A plane crashes into the water just offshore from where the Amazons lived, and our girl Diana is, as always, prowling around, exploring in the night, and sees the crash, and that there is a person entangled in the wreckage.  Unable to get free, the occupant and the remnants of the plane sink into the water, and Diana  fearlessly dives in to rescue the pilot.

Mini Spoiler No. 3:  Against the wishes of the Queen of the Amazons (Hippolyta), Diana’s mother, Diana sets out to escort the rescued airman to his people.  She is clothed in typical Amazonian gear, basically boiled leather armor (or perhaps some magical armor), the golden lasso, a magical sword, called the God-Slayer, and a headband, which Hippolyta gives Diana at the last minute.  On this journey, the airman explains to Diana what is going on: some bad guys are unleashing death and destruction on vast numbers of innocent people.
Wide-eyed Diana gasps, and says that this has to be the work of Ares.  “You must take me to him,” she says seriously, and declares that she will fix matters right up.

This is the charm of this movie.  There is a minor clash of cultures: the bronze age environment that still pervades the island of the Amazons, versus the machine-gun, airship culture of World War I.  Rather than the tribal wars that ravaged the world of the ancient Greeks, ostensibly orchestrated by Ares, there is modern warfare with huge collateral damage and civilian casualties, with groups of nations arrayed together against other groups, with fighting forces on each side numbering a thousand times the entire population of the Greek world.

Diana blinks, but she clings to the belief that the principle is the same.  People would not fight if Ares would not incite them to violence.  Ares is still orchestrating the war.  If Diana destroys Ares, the war will fizzle out.

Straightening this out is the sub-plot of the movie, or perhaps the main plot.  The airman brings Diana to London, which is the center of civilization as far as he is concerned, and Diana must deal with the cultural dislocation head on.  It begins with having to equip Diana with late Victorian clothing that is appropriate for a woman of her rank and habits, a way of covering up the enormous long-sword that she tends to constantly brandish, and the magical gauntlets that go up her forearm.  (The movie manages this with style, though the calf-length dress skirt is very innovative for the times, outside a playing field.)

It is fascinating to watch Diana’s expression closely as the Origins of the Amazons is drilled into her.  She looks frankly a little skeptical, I think, and even a little amused.  But when she sees the horrors of the front line first hand, her dismay is absolutely unfeigned.  That alone, I believe, qualifies the acting in this movie as either brilliant acting, or the directing as brilliant directing.  Diana is not a fool.  But the audience is always a couple of steps ahead of her, as it should always be in good drama.

The airman, Steve Trevor, puts together a team of specialists to get them to the front, where Steve wants to destroy an armaments factory, and, of course, Diana wants to confront Ares, whom she is confident about finding where the fighting is thickest.  While they lie and cheat their way to no-man’s land, the men browbeat her into doing it their way, but once they get close enough, Diana is not having any more of these namby-pamby war conventions.  She wants to get in there and have a confrontation with the real problem boys.

Ultimately she must conclude that war is a human thing.  The tales of the Greek Gods are ponderous attempts to anthropomorphize human tendencies, strengths and failings, and Diana must confront the fact that even if she destroys the embodiment-of-war-of-the-moment, war continues.  Steve tries to explain that fighting for peace is a lifetime commitment, but he does not have the time.

However, even when she is kicking serious butt, Diana is all fluid grace, even if it is very determined fluid grace.  Perhaps real wars cannot be fought like that, but man, if we had a choice, and if the cameras are on, that would certainly be the way I would like to kick butt.  Whoo!

If there is going to be a sequel, sell me a ticket.

Arch
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