Wonder Woman

Love at all sights. Wonder Woman is the best DC movie since Man of Steel, with its wonderfully depicted clash between the fantasy world of a hidden island with its pure values and idealistic notions and the real world in the darkest time of our history. And those worlds are represented by two cleverly written and precisely directed characters and their deepening mutual understanding and inevitable attraction. Has any other comic book-based movie with such a strong fantasy background worked as such a faithful reflection of our society? Wonder Woman has heart, honors the original comic books, is witty and sexy, and none of its jokes fall flat. Four and half stars. (06/06/2017)

The beginning is pure comic book delight. It's wholesomely mythical, visually captivating, and the world of the Amazons is fleshed out to a tee (the scarred Robin Wright, yum!). After arriving in London, the atmosphere is logically gone, but they manage to evoke the feeling of the 1920s quite well, not only thanks to the generous budget, but also thanks to the costumes and the period banter between Chris Pine and Gal Gadot. The imaginary highlight is the gorgeously shot opening trench scene, which I think Zack Snyder took credit for because it just couldn't be shot by a woman. From then on, it goes downhill dramatically in both the tightness of the plot and the supporting storyline. Unfortunately, the finale is the traditional DC CGI mess, like in Batman vs Superman. It's a terrible shame, because Snyder, paradoxically, can shoot action wonderfully, but he can't let himself off the hook, and unfortunately film finales don't work well for him either as a director or as a producer. But that doesn't change the fact that Gal Gadot was good and Wonder Woman is a very likeable character who can be femininely fragile, funny and strong. Switch the director and screenwriter for the sequel, avoid the grand finale, and you're home. It most closely resembles the first Captain America – especially in the characterization of the main character, its retro-futuristic war atmosphere, and the setting of the story in history. (06/02/2017)

In the recent years it is fashionable to shoot action or fantasy movies with female leads, so we have a chance to see or discover a whole range of new and beautiful actresses with great skill. In this case Gal Galdot did not disappoint at all. Her beauty is probably visible all the way from the Moon and even Martians would know who to pay attention to on planet Earth, if they decided to conquer it. However, I've had some issues with the screenplay as that is much worse. The Americans appear to think that we Europeans are completely dumb, so they’ve mixed the visualization of the First and Second World War and created something that may be nice to look at, but otherwise it is completely stupid. Luckily, there is Chris Pine alongside Gal Galdot and he was probably even better than her. His role was once again amazing, which I cannot say about the antagonist, portrayed by David Thewlis. His acting was good, but as an enemy he qualifies at a similar level as a nice uncle with moustache and candy. The film radiates personality and also quality, but I think it is still not enough to place DC on the same level with movies like Thor or The Guardians of the Galaxy that brought a new level of quality and fun into movies based on comic books. (07/16/2018)

I don't know. It didn’t bother me, but if I could sleep two hours longer instead of Wonder Woman, I'd probably consider it time better spent. The opening on the island of the Amazons is a feast for the eyes, the action sequences are fine until the Snyder-like CGI-mess kicks in, where everything bangs, lights up, slows down and looks like it's from a stupid video game. And Gal Gadot nails it, she's not a very good actress, but luckily Chris Pine is always next to her and is cool and funny enough to somehow pull it off. Unfortunately, the whole thing is at least half an hour longer than it should have been, the middle section with the shenanigans in London isn't nearly as funny as the filmmakers might have liked, and the messed-up finale sadly shows that Warner still hasn’t learned from the mistakes that plagued their previous films. And I honestly don't know if I'll be in the mood for it next time. (05/31/2017)

It is indisputable that Gal Gadot is bad at acting but... She has a Schwarzenegger-like Conan drive, when she transforms her non-acting and striking accent into kind of strength, when Diana's naivety (not to be confused with stupidity) seems authentic and cute. Yes, the opening part on the Amazon´s island could (and should) have been shorter. And the only thing that is really good about the digital mess ending is unlike today's standards at least short, coherent and does not last dozens of minutes. Nevertheless, not at all does it fit into the rest of the movie, it is purely Snyder style and unnecessarily devalues the otherwise well-conceived villain "It wasn´t me, I am only whining". That´s for the strengths and weaknesses. The rest is basically Doner's first Superman in the Xena fan version (why Lucy Lawless doesn´t play Diana's mother?); that is, unexpectedly conservative, perfectly balancing on the edge of relaxed squabble, Shestakov time and serious tone. With a minimum of action (which is a plus, but at least the one from the battlefront is amazing), thanks to that everything is focused on the characters and the soundtrack is simply excellent. That's why it's a surprisingly nice movie among all those mainstream popcorn comics movie. (06/17/2017)