Wonder Woman (2017)

Movies centered on female superheroes have been done before, but they've tended to be mediocre at best, like Supergirl or Elektra. Wonder Woman on the other hand is solid, well written, acted and directed, on par with the other generously budgeted superhero flicks of our time. This telling of the Wonder Woman origin story backdates its central events from the second world war to the first, one reason for this is to better set it apart from Captain America, but I think the altered setting genuinely helps the picture, a superhero literally fighting in the trenches is something new. While I enjoyed it, 3/4ths of this movie was pretty much what I had expected it would be, though the ending impressed. In fact if I had to impart to the movie a single message, that message would be something along the lines of 'humanity is complicated'. Gal Gadot does a great job of making the character of Wonder Woman her own, distinct from Lynda Carter's iconic 1970's rendering. The arc of Diana's journey from relative naiveté to a somewhat nuanced understanding of the world works well. I also really appreciated that Chris Pine's Steve Trevor character wasn't a cynical braggart but a legit good guy who really believed in the cause he was fighting for. The feminist message of the film was not overplayed or bludgeoning like some might have feared, but subtlety dealt and rather rightly treated as a given. Though not my favorite, Wonder Woman is probably the most fully realized DC film yet. ***1/2