Wonder Woman - so not the 1970s!

[amberdreams]

This feels like too many posts in a day but never mind.

Let me talk about Wonder Woman.

I went to see it today and loved it – of course I did. It was a good story, well told – great characters, lots of action, visually exciting and beautiful. And I nearly cried during the battlefield scene – the one where Diana mounts the ladder and sets out to cross No Man’s Land, stopping in the middle of the wasteland under a barrage of machine gun fire from the German trenches.

Was I upset because (as this article postulates) women are getting all emotional because finally we are getting a kickass heroine? I don’t think so. To be honest, I’m cheering that, not crying over it.

While I was watching that scene, all I could think was – if only it was this easy. Some superhero turns the tide of that terrible war (which was ending anyway, it the armistice succeeded) and a load of trench-footed, starving German troops get slaughtered as the Brits leave their trench and cross in her wake. I don’t know. I think it was maybe because they chose to set the story during that war, where there were no obvious bad guys apart from the top brass on both sides, where so many young men died for so little (a few feet of land over so many years), and maybe I’m just taking that part too seriously. Maybe I’m remembering reading All Quiet on the Western Front.  Whatever it was, those scenes left me choked and sorrowful, and now I’ve read that article, I feel I’m a bit of a weirdo and not a very good WOMAN.

So that reaction aside, I loved the message of the film that love conquers all; I loved that Diana was a powerful woman and didn’t have to prove it (as such), that there was a cute and funny woman (I loved Etta and wanted more of her) who wasn’t glamorous or powerful but who metaphorically kicked ass too; I loved that Ares was Lupin from Harry Potter and not a hunky muscle bound Adonis. I didn’t love that they made Wonder Woman wear chunky high heels on the battlefield. WTF? Flat shoes, please! I was kind of bummed she turned out to be a goddess, I’m not sure why. (I don’t remember Wonder Woman in Linda Carter’s day being a goddess, but I’ve not read the comics so don’t know what happens in those). I liked that they didn’t cop out and have Diana somehow use her powers to bring Steve back. And I loved watching Gal Gadot – she’s so beautiful!

So yeah. I’ll hopefully be going to see it again in a couple of weeks when my movie buddy is free. It’ll be interesting to see if I have the same reaction seeing it a second time.