It might sound overly ambitious for a superhero film to transport The Great War into blockbuster American pop culture, but Wonder Woman does it deftly and movingly. (And, to our national shame, what other form of mass entertainment has marked this momentous centennial?) The original Wonder Woman fought the Nazis, but it’s surprisingly pungent to depict her fighting “the war to end all wars.” Ending war is what she thinks she’s doing when she and Steve team up to stop the evil General Ludendorff (Danny Huston) from using a lethal gas devised by evil genius Dr. Maru aka “Dr. Poison” (Elena Anaya). Diana believes the general is Ares in disguise. Is she the one true heir of a special Olympian legacy? Does the God of War actually walk 20th-century Earth? Suspense and magic meld in Wonder Woman. Combining a superhero origin story with a combat film, an espionage caper, and an apocalyptic ultra-fighting championship (the weakest link), the director, Patty Jenkins, recaptures the scintillating looseness comic books once had, before they became “graphic novels.” Jenkins and screenwriter Allan Heinberg generally keep the tone supple and the narrative nimble, even while erecting a modern-day frame and navigating myths within myths—the movie is mostly one headlong flashback.
Wonder Woman moves with sumptuous confidence even before Steve punches a hole through Themyscira’s invisible shield and crash-lands in glittering virgin waters. Jenkins lets each scene play out to the end. She gives you time to savor the fine-grained beauties of Matthew Jensen’s supernal cinematography (this movie exploits the depth and range of actual film). And Aline Bonetto’s swirling storybook production design, which includes harmonious Art Deco swirls and a woman-made rendition of Lake Powell’s Rainbow Arch, is in turn glorious, poignant, and inspiring. Everything seems fresh, not over-calculated or worried into emotional oblivion. It’s even kind of fun that Wright sounds more Scandinavian than Nielsen, who is Danish-born.
Gadot is mind-bendingly good—naturally supernatural. The key to her performance is playing Diana as the protagonist in a delayed coming-of-age story. On her island she’s constantly proving herself or discovering new and unexpected powers. In London, where she and Steve visit the War Office, or Belgium, where she blazes through the trenches and helps save a town from German terror, she keeps learning about human fashions, foibles, duplicities, and atrocities, without losing her belief in mankind’s potential redemption. Her tragic experiences strengthen her faith in the healing power of love. Gadot creates a Wonder Woman for all ages, infusing childlike earnestness and idealism with adolescent intensity and adult heft. She’s an acrobatic comedian when she tries on 1918 fashions and tests whether they allow her combat moves full sway. She’s an offhand drop-dead gorgeous model when she sports a modified Brit uniform with slouch hat and specs. And she’s a full-scale romantic heroine when she gives her all for love. At no point does Wonder Woman become a one-woman show. In London, Steve reconnects with his cheerful can-do secretary Etta Candy (the uproarious Lucy Davis) and enlists the support of two trusted special ops, the fast-talking French Moroccan con-man and ex-actor Sameer (the charming, effusive Saïd Taghmaoui) and the PTSD-afflicted Scottish sharpshooter Charlie (played by Ewen Bremner with his usual boisterous lyricism, especially when he sings Robert Burns’s “Green Grow the Rashes, O”). On the Continent, they join up with a Native American smuggler known as “Chief” (Eugene Brave Rock, a massive presence), while Steve reports back to his silent partner in the Imperial War Cabinet (the marvelously elusive David Thewlis).
Along with Anaya’s Dr. Poison, who draws out her best lines with sardonic menace, each gets a moment to shine in Bonetto’s glittering showcase. The woman who designed one of my favorite movies of this millennium, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s A Very Long Engagement, outdoes herself in Wonder Woman. Until the battering finale, she and Jenkins focus the action so that even in the ravages of no-man’s-land, the sound and fury signify something. When we respond to Wonder Woman drawing German fire with her shield, we’re reacting to the nobility behind the conception. When Steve and Diana dance in the snow at night outside a Belgian café, we feel their warmth slicing through the darkness. So it’s doubly deflating that the climactic confrontation between Wonder Woman and Ares plays like just one more cage match sadly plucked out of a cage. It’s a noisy synthesis of every head-pounding clash between Good and Evil we’ve seen in the past two decades. How often can we watch a super-antagonist mold asphalt and metal like Silly Putty and push the protagonist to the breaking point? It’s bizarre to think such a sight could be a bit ho-hum. After that gargantuan conflict, the denouement is blissfully quiet. Earlier, when Diana and Steve amble through the streets around Selfridge’s department store, they pass shop signs for “Bunbury of London.” It must be a reference to Oscar Wilde’s notion of “Bunburying” in The Importance of Being Earnest—using a fictional excuse to get out of doing something humdrum. Whether Bonetto, Jenkins, or a set decorator planted that homage, it speaks to this entire production’s resistance to anything tedious—except, that is, for the last-god-standing climax. Wonder Woman puts many of the comic book’s gimmicks on full display, from her Lasso of Truth to her bullet-deflecting bracelets. Mostly, though, the movie’s freshness derives from the purity of feeling that emanates from the core of its star. It has taken nearly eight decades for “America’s guardian angel” to swoop onto the big screen. Who knew DC Comics fans were really waiting for Gadot?
Michael Sragow is a contributing editor to Film Comment and writes its Deep Focus column. He is a member of the National Society of Film Critics and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. He also curates “The Moviegoer” at the Library of America website.
