Why Wonder Woman May Not Be Enough

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*This post may contain spoilers to Wonder Woman. If you have yet to see Wonder Woman watch the movie and this article will make a lot more sense. Or not, I tend to ramble.

 

This June, DC released the long anticipated Wonder Woman movie. Since its release I’ve heard nothing but raving reviews about how it is the best movie since The Avengers. I figured I’d throw my not so popular opinion into the mix. Now bear with me, I have quite a few things to say in regards to why I’m not happy with this movie, so before you come with pitchforks and torches let me make my point.

Let’s start at the beginning with possibly the most frustrating thing about this movie. In the beginning we were introduced to an adorable young Diana, played by Lilly Aspell.

Per the usual with most super hero movies, the scenes that shows the hero as a child are possibly the most important ones to the movie. The scenes leading up to Diana being a fully developed warrior are no different. SO WHY IN GOD’S NAME ARE THEY SO SHORT. We are provided two scenes before the male love interest Steve Trevor, played by Chris Pine is thrown in. It is an insult the Wonder Woman’s character to give her two stinking scene before throwing the male protagonist in the mix.

To put it into perspective, In Captain America:The First Avenger  it is 4-5 scenes before the love interest, Peggy Carter, was introduced. It is another 2-3 scenes before Peggy Carter is actually introduced as a love interest.

Now let’s be fair, maybe DC introduces love interests really fast. Let’s look at Superman: Man of Steel. Oh wait, IT IS 10-12 SCENES BEFORE THEY INTRODUCE HIS LOVE INTEREST LOIS LANE.

Essentially, here’s what DC did. They told us a female hero wouldn’t be interesting enough without a male love interest.Of all my complaints about this movie let me just say the only thing I won’t complain about is Wonder Woman herself. Diana made this movie enjoyable, she was their saving grace. And anyway, it’s not like DC has been known for sexism ever before…

Besides only giving Wonder Woman two solo scenes, this movie played on so many tropes. Now inherently every super hero movie will have tropes, it’s the nature of the super hero genre. Quite frankly I find having a few tropes in a movie to be comforting and familiar, like seeing an old friend again. So keeping this in mind I’m only going to talk about the trope that bothered me most about the movie. Why didn’t Hippolyta tell Diana she was the weapon to save the world?

Now understandably, you can’t tell a child that they are a weapon of mass destruction. But she chooses not to tell a fully grown Diana who is leaving and may never come back that the sword she carries is not the god slayer. Hippolyta’s logic was that Diana would figure it out along the way. Let’s try applying that logic to real life. Hippolyta’s logic would be like if I was thrown into a Major League Baseball game with a bat that is supposedly magic but my mom just really picked it up from Academy Sports and Outdoors. Can we see how much of a plot hole this is?

Now that I’ve griped about this movie, let me talk about what I liked. This movie made the interesting decision of setting itself in WWI. A decision even the director was a tad nervous about. I think it really worked well and was an original choice. The movie was seeped in WWI history which I feel is a piece of history main stream movies neglect. The historical setting of the movie brought new emotions that I truly did enjoy.

Honestly, the main thing I enjoyed about this movie was Diana herself. They did an excellent job of taking a classic comic book character and translating it to an on screen movie character. Gal Gadot was a exquisite casting choice and I will never complain about her character. She was the justice warrior I think everyone hoped for. For this reason and this reason alone I will call Wonder Woman a good movie. In no way was it a great movie because of all it’s other flaws but because of Diana herself it was a good movie.

A little disclaimer guys, if my opinion was different from yours then it doesn’t mean either of us are wrong, just different. I think overall Wonder Woman was a good movie, and I hope it inspires women everywhere. When I see little girls inspired to go fight evil because of movies like this my heart soars. I hope with the next female super hero movie DC will learn from it’s mistakes and make a better movie. And as always,

Have a geek filled day!

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