Wonder Women

The loveable, trashy Wonder Women exists in two versions; the 90-minute export cut demonstrates that longer doesn’t always mean better. Without adding anything significant, it pays for its extended length with a more languid pace and in some places the wheels come off the film. That is a great pity, as the extended runtime needlessly dilutes the movie’s already dramatically weak narrative, which, however, is absolutely impressive in its details. Wonder Women is a Reader’s Digest not only of the broadest range of trash clichés, but also of every possible kind of base attraction, all in a cute, over-the-top and haphazard presentation. In a single film, viewers get a commando squad of beautiful women, a female genius performing transplants of all kinds of body parts in an island fortress and a dauntless detective, as well as deformed creatures, the striking exoticism of the Orient, bombastic chase scenes, ridiculously hopeless attempts at martial arts, clumsy shootouts, futuristic costumes and a basic amount of nudity. And all of that in a film that utterly inexplicably managed to get a PG rating. With its unrestrained atmosphere blending excess and imaginative trashiness, as well as seriously stylised acting performances, it actually resembles the polished British cult classic The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), but the difference between the two films is that in Wonder Women everything is proportionately cheaper and more straightforward, the result being even more hopeless and straightforwardly ridiculous. (02/21/2021)