The Best Wonder Woman Film (That Exists So Far)

If you’re already on the edge of your seat about Diana’s appearance in the upcoming Superman/Batman film, calm down. It’ll be okay. Probably. In the meantime, go grab your favorite snack and (re)watch the 2009 Wonder Woman by Warner Bros. Animation. It’s yet another origin story of Diana of Themyscira, but it’s refreshingly likable. It’s full of action and humor, and the animation is in a clean, strongly lined style that meshes well with that of the Young Justice series (2010-2013).

It has to be said that all the female characters are definitely way more attractive and interesting than any of the male ones—although I’m not sure if that was part of the designers’ plan or not. Perhaps it was, given some of the brains behind the operation. The film was directed by Lauren Montgomery, who has worked on a lot of other great WB animated films, one of my fave superhero series, The Legion of Superheroes (2006-2007), and more recently on Super Best Friends Forever for DC Nation. Gail Simone, the very awesome comics writer, also had a hand in creating the film.

I’m not going to completely ruin the plot so I’ll just give you some reasons to check it out for yourself.

Highlights of the film:

• The very cool Keri Russell voices Diana, while Nathan Fillion plays the perfect flyboy as Steve Trevor. Alfred Molina does a great job voicing a fierce Ares and Rosario Dawson provides the voice of tough Artemis.
• There is a good balance between Diana putting down the patriarchy and Steve being an essentially good-hearted man. At the same time his womanizing is never excused.
• The fight scenes are actually well choreographed.
• Diana being able to out drink Steve?.
• The character design for Hades is as creepy as, well, hell.
• Diana fighting a monster in a shopping mall and stabbing its eyes with high heel shoes.

Best quote: Ares: “Darn.”

Yes, that’s right, the powerful god of war just said “darn.”  This, however, explains why the Amazons were frowning so intently at Steve for using the word “crap.”  Evidently nobody even remotely related to the Greek pantheon ever swears.

 

Things that will make you scratch your head:

• Steve checking out Amazons. Dude, do you have no self-preservation instincts?
• The mystery of the invisible jet remains a mystery. We have literally no idea where it comes from.
• ?At one point people sail up the Potomac to Washington D.C. Is that even possible?! How shallow does that river get?
• Somehow a country launching a nuclear missile gives Ares a power-up boost that changes the nationality of his armor: he goes from wearing Roman-style duds to looking like a Japanese demon in a horned helmet. I have no idea why.
• Spoiler alert: Amazon zombies.
• The way Ares is finally immobilized is a bit hilarious to me. Let’s just say that the way he creates lightening strikes is a bit like setting a bomb in the same room as where you’re fighting someone in the hopes that it will happen to go off on your opponent and not you.
• The secretary to the president did not just call the Amazons “armored supermodels”… oh, yep, she just did.

My one nerdy complaint:  Why didn’t the Justice League show up in the end for cameos? None of the other characters had competing movies released at the same time. And if they had that would have made it an even better idea to overlap characters from one movie to the next.

Okay, admittedly I really just wanted to see Batman be really begrudging and suspicious of Diana but also secretly super impressed. Now, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for good interaction between these characters in the yet-to-exist film. And maybe Gal Gadot can do an even better job than her 2D counterpart.

 

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