[yasr_overall_rating]
Before she was Wonder Woman she was Diana, Princess of the Amazons, trained warrior. When a pilot crashes and tells of conflict in the outside world, she leaves home to fight a war to end all wars, discovering her full powers and true destiny.
Most of today’s generation probably aren’t familiar with the 1970s TV show “Wonder Woman,” which starred Lynda Carter in the titular role. It was cheesy but it was also a lot of fun. What director Patty Jenkins successfully takes from that series and adds to her updated incarnation of the Amazonian demigoddess and warrior princess, is an overall sense of delight. The cheese factor is gone but taking its place are breathtaking visuals, heart-pounding action, and enough character development to make most other comic book adaptations green with envy. Jenkins, whose only other directorial feature, aside from some TV work, is the 2003 drama “Monster,” about female serial killer Aileen Wuornos, and which gave Charlize Theron her much-deserved Oscar, proves that she has the prerequisite proficiency and expertise to put all of her fellow male comic book directors to shame. She has created a movie filled with awe, genuine sentiment, and one hell of a kick-ass heroine. Gal Gadot perfectly embodies the fierceness of the Amazonian princess but at the same time, once she leaves the safety and sanctuary of her homeland of Themyscira, and experiences the horrors of World War I, through her heartfelt naiveté, she feels that she is the only person who can stop the war and bring peace back to the nations. And we believe it too.
Growing up on an island inhabited solely by women warriors, Diana has only ever known peace. The island is shielded by an invisible barrier which protects it from the outside world, and which has sheltered it for centuries from prying eyes. Diana’s mother, Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen), believes that life will always be peaceful, but her sister Antiope (Robin Wright), her army’s general, believes otherwise. She feels that it is only a matter of time before Ares, the Greek god of war and son of Zeus, who tore mankind apart after his father’s creation, will one day return to cause hell on earth. One afternoon, Diana is taking in the beautiful scenery of the island’s majestic ocean when she notices a strange object which flies through the island’s invisible barrier and crashes into the water. She dives into the ocean and rescues Captain Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), the pilot of the downed plane. She helps nurse him back to health and when her mother hears about Trevor’s existence, she demands to know where he is from. He informs them that there is a war raging in the world and Diana, believing it to be the work of Ares, demands to accompany him back so she can kill Ares and bring peace to the world. Her mother forbids it but Diana goes against her wishes anyway and joins Steve as he makes his way back to London.
Before crashing into the island’s waters, Steve, a U.S. spy deep undercover, managed to steal the personal diary of a Dr. Maru (Elena Anaya), also known as Doctor Poison, and an ally of the Germans. She was on the verge of creating a gas so lethal, it could kill hundreds of thousands of soldiers but also innocent people too. When Steve presents the diary to his commanding officer in London, he is told to stand down, that the British and the Germans are about to sign an armistice that will end the war but Steve insists that if the Germans release the gas, which he feels they will, millions could die, tipping the scales in their direction. With his superiors unwilling to upset the political climate, Steve and Diana decide to travel to the front lines themselves to stop Maru and Erich Ludendorff (Danny Huston), a general in the German army who wants to release the gas. Steve recruits some old pals of his, Sameer (Saïd Taghmaoui), Charlie (Ewen Bremner), and The Chief (Eugene Brave Rock), a native American-Indian. Once they reach the front lines, however, Diana gets a glimpse, firsthand, of the horrors of war and just how cruel mankind really can be but this only fuels her dogged determination and anger to find those responsible and make them pay. In order to reach the military installation where Ludendorff and Doctor Poison have their toxic gas stored, Steve, Diana, and their group of ragtag soldiers, must first navigate their way through No Man’s Land, and survive, if there is any chance of them fulfilling their mission.
“Wonder Woman” encompasses a myriad of emotions; love, hate, curiosity, happiness, and sadness, among many others, but the prevailing theme throughout, is love. With Diana starting out as very innocent and curious, she quickly comprehends how the real world works but aside from the fighting and the killing, her answer to everything, is love. And when you actually stop to think about it, she’s absolutely right. If we all loved each other, there would be no fighting, no bloodshed, no loss of human life yet at times, when she wholeheartedly proclaims that love is the answer, even in the midst of gunfire and ricocheting bullets, you almost feel sorry for her, because after all, we know better, right? You find yourself wanting to pat her on the head, as if she were a child with no real understanding of the world and softly exclaim, “There, there.” Gal Gadot successfully infuses her character’s initial worldly unfamiliarity with her eventual perseverance and incorruptibility, with great aplomb. She has the look, the characterization, the personification of Wonder Woman, down pat. Just like seeing Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones for the very first time, or Al Pacino as Michael Corleone, some actors are just born to play the part, and as far as Gal Gadot is concerned, she IS Wonder Woman. Chris Pine plays the love interest and interjects some much-welcome humor but make no mistake, this movie belongs to Gal Gadot. Well, what are you waiting for?
In theaters Friday, June 2nd
