Wonder Woman arrives with a burden no other hero in the DC film universe has carried: the weight of being first. Not first in a costume, but first as the lead of a big-budget superhero movie directed by a woman, Patty Jenkins. The film answers that pressure with something rare in the genre: genuine warmth.
Gal Gadot plays Diana Prince, an Amazon princess who has never seen a man. She grows up on Themyscira, an island of warrior women hidden from the world of men. Her mother, Queen Hippolyta, keeps her from training, fearing a prophecy that the war god Ares will return. Diana trains anyway, in secret, under her aunt Antiope, played with steel by Robin Wright.
The story snaps into motion when a pilot crashes into the sea off the island. His name is Steve Trevor, played by Chris Pine. He carries intelligence about a war that is consuming Europe. Diana believes the war is the work of Ares, and that she must stop him. She leaves her home with Trevor, carrying a sword, a shield, and a lasso that compels honesty. The film follows her into the trenches of World War I, where she learns that the enemy is not a single god but something more complicated.
Trailer, via Warner Bros..
Diana’s Arrival in London
The middle of the film is its best stretch. Diana lands in London with Trevor, and the movie gets a comic pulse it never loses. She walks through the city in full armor, baffled by corsets, confused by revolving doors, and openly unimpressed by the state of men’s fashion. Pine plays straight man to Gadot’s earnestness, and the two have a rhythm that carries the film through its slower patches.
The script, credited to Allan Heinberg, Zack Snyder, and Jason Fuchs, gives Diana a clear moral code. She does not understand why anyone would watch suffering and do nothing. When she reaches the Western Front, she walks across no man’s land under machine-gun fire, holding her shield up, and the scene lands because it is not played as a joke. It is played as the obvious thing to do.
The supporting cast is thin. The group Trevor assembles includes:
- A sniper
- A smuggler
- A chief
None of them becomes more than a type. The villain, Dr. Poison, is a German chemist who makes gas weapons, and she is given a single note: she likes to make things that kill. The real antagonist is Ares, revealed late in the film, and the reveal is the movie’s weakest turn.
The God of War Problem
The final act abandons the streets of war for a rooftop confrontation. Ares, played by David Thewlis, appears as a mild-mannered man who has been hiding in plain sight. He tells Diana that humanity does not need a god to make war; they do it themselves. His argument is the film’s thesis, and it is a good one. But the fight that follows is a blur of CGI lightning and floating rubble, the kind of climax that could belong to any superhero movie.
It is a letdown because the film had spent two hours building a different kind of hero. Diana’s power in the trenches comes from conviction, not from special effects. The rooftop battle trades that for spectacle. The emotional beat — Diana choosing to believe in love over vengeance — lands, but it is buried under the noise.
Themyscira, the island where the film opens, is the most beautiful part of the picture. Jenkins shoots it in golden light, with horses and cliffs and women in armor moving like athletes. The training sequences are better than most action scenes in the genre. The film’s best fight is early, when Diana and Antiope spar on the beach, and the camera holds on their footwork.
Gadot and Pine Carry It
Gadot is the reason the film works. She plays Diana as someone who has never learned to be cynical. When she sees a baby, she lights up. When she sees suffering, she moves toward it. She does not wink at the audience. The performance is sincere, and the film trusts that sincerity.
Pine does the opposite work. He plays Trevor as a man who has seen too much, a spy who lies for a living, and he is the film’s comic engine. But he also gives the movie its most human moment. When Diana tells him she will stay and fight, he does not argue. He tells her, “I can save today, you can save the world.” The line is simple, and Pine sells it.
The film’s politics are muddled. It is a movie about war made by people who clearly oppose it, and it shows a German general and a German chemist as the villains, while the British and Americans are mostly sympathetic. The film gestures at the idea that both sides are guilty, but it does not commit. It wants to have a message about the futility of war and a satisfying action movie, and those two things pull against each other.
What the Film Gets Right
The music, by Rupert Gregson-Williams, does heavy lifting. The main theme is a driving cello line that swells at exactly the right moments. It is the kind of score that makes a scene feel bigger than it is. The costume design, by Lindy Hemming, is careful. Diana’s armor is practical and striking, and her civilian clothes in London are a running joke that never gets old.
The film also handles its violence with more restraint than its DC siblings. The body count is lower, and the camera does not linger on gore. The war scenes are grim, but they are not gratuitous. Jenkins treats the soldiers as people, not targets. That choice gives the film a moral weight that the rooftop fight nearly undoes.
The movie is not perfect. The villain is weak. The final act is generic. The supporting characters are sketches. And the film’s message — that love can save the world — is delivered with a sincerity that some will find naive. But sincerity is also the film’s strength. It is a superhero movie that believes in its hero, and that belief is contagious.
The Numbers
Critical reception was strong. The film holds a score that sits above most of the DC extended universe, and audiences responded. The film made money, and it launched Gadot into the front rank of movie stars. It also proved that a female-led superhero film could open wide and perform. That is a fact with consequences beyond the film itself.
Wonder Woman is not the best superhero movie ever made. It is not even the best DC movie. But it is the most likable one. It has a hero worth rooting for, a director with a clear eye, and a sense of humor that does not undercut its stakes. It stumbles at the end, and it does not have the depth of the best of the genre, but it has something rarer: a heart.
The film is a success on its own terms. It tells a story about a woman who leaves paradise to fight a war she does not understand, learns that the world is more complicated than she was taught, and chooses to fight anyway. That is a good story, told well for most of its running time.
Wonder Woman scores 7.2 of 10.
