Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Wonder Woman Review

Okay, holy shit, wow.  Like damn.  I honestly am having some issues coming up with words for this one here, but I'm gonna keep this review short to avoid spoilers and because people really just need to see this movie for themselves, and wasting time reading this isn't going to accomplish that goal.  Long story short though is this movie is amazing.  It's everything I wanted and a whole lot of stuff I didn't even know I wanted too.  There were times when even I was almost brought to tears by how powerful the movie was.  Okay, okay, okay I'm getting ahead of myself.  First things first, the woman of the fucking decade.



Oh you thought I was going to show Wonder Woman?  Sorry I should have made it a bit more clear, but this person right here, Patty Jenkins, gets all the credit for this one.  You see Ms Jenkins here is the director and visionary behind this cinematic masterpiece.  Before this she was still relatively small time having only one other major Hollywood movie under her name, and that being 2003's Monster.  So really no one knew what to expect from her, but holy shit it paid off.  Gal Gadot also deserves a huge shout out here too because she made Diana feel truly larger than life and probably the most heroic super hero we've seen on the big screen so far, and yes I am including all the Marvel and 3rd party superheros too.  See in the movie she makes it clear that she not only stands for protecting the innocent, but also that one should act and fight no matter the situation, because refusal to only allows your enemies and those who would do innocent people harm to gain ground.  In fact this is something that keeps happening, and the couple of times it doesn't things go terribly.

But surprisingly the movie isn't pro war in any sense of the statement, in fact its about as anti-war as these movies can be, and to further that the movie boldly presents the reality that women are powerful and independent and should not be held back.  In fact its not Just Diana that shows this, but one of the antagonists who goes by the name Doctor Poison too.  The fact that both these characters are self motivated/empowered is huge.  Diana even goes so far as to give Etta Candy inspiration that she can be more than just an assistant, she can be strong and brave too.  Something else that I felt spoke very loudly in the movie is that Themyscira, the home of the Amazons, isn't just one race, it has women of all different races and skin tones in all different rolls on the island, saying proudly that "All women are brave, powerful, and independent" which is huge.  The citizens there are diverse, like when they were finding people for the movie they didn't look at anyone and say "well you can't be an Amazon because you're too short/big/tall/strong/weak".



Finally the last thing I really wanted to get out there was the cinematic choices in the movie.  Don't get me wrong, everything else was beautiful, the music, the cast, the script, the action, and the comedy.  No, the reason I want to talk about this is because the way that slowdowns, and camera shots are used to focus on how truly spectacular and central Diana is makes this movie truly step into the next level, and takes it beyond just great.  What I'm talking about is during the fight scenes not only Diana, but all of the major players (almost exclusively Amazons I believe) are slowed down to "bullet time" speeds to showcase their impressive reactions dominating presence on the battlefield.  And these aren't doctored to make the women "ideal" or to have them "look hot", they done and focused in a manner in which to show that the are truly powerful women who can not only hold their own but also dominate the field.  Specifically there is a scene where Diana lands after being in the air and in a very visible moment her thigh jiggles, its not just a small thing either, we're talking whole screen jiggly thigh for all to see, something that never would have happened with almost any other director.

Needless to say this is a powerful and wonderful movie, and while I really don't like the idea of a perfect score because I feel everything can be improved on in some way I just don't see it here.  Wonder Woman gets 5 female empowering Amazons, out of 5.

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