By Hera! Come anticipate the WONDER WOMAN movie with me!

There is a long, proud history of accented action heroes of dubious acting abilities. Wonder Woman ain't getting cast for her acting chops.

I feel like directors should remember these movies are supposed to be for kids but I guess my taste is for the campy 60's era

also it looks like there's a lot of snyder-esque slowing down and speeding up of the action sequences, boooooo

Oh brother, was there.

(And yes, consider the rest of this post a spoiler, you are warned, but I'll try and keep it vague enough.)

Anyway, saw it just now. I will say first that my partner loved it, with reservations, but was definitely appreciative of a full gender inversion flip in terms of hero's journey/Bond style plotting, if you like. She also appreciated the hard physical work Gadot clearly had to put into the role, CG assists notwithstanding, and was also down with Robin Wright, David Thewlis and Ewen Bremner in particular.

As for me, two things I'd fix -- first, WAY too long, plenty of scenes/sequences could have been chopped down some and conveyed the same point. Felt almost like a home-release extended cut. Second, some really bizarre as fuck tonal shifts throughout, which I honestly couldn't tell was due to uneven scripting or uneven acting or both. And honestly I wouldn't fault Gadot much for that, since I think she was stuck with some really strange shifts in particular. The humor was the humor, Chris Pine was kinda perfect for this as the brash/confused bro.

The larger problem there was the one noted by the Guardian -- it's *realllly* trying hard to have its cake and eat it too when it comes to the setting and the theme ("War, war is stupid and people are stupid," per Boy George, and yet love and tragic selflessness conquers all, conveniently). The history buff in me couldn't turn off my brain enough to let the riff on the WWI scenario be what it was, but hell, I bought weird-ass shiftings of history with Inglourious Basterds so maybe that's my own fault. The Germans might as well be cartoon Nazis for the most part (and the 'let's all be friends under a new dawn' ending felt really off as a result), and there's a couple of 'how quickly can we bend over backwards and acknowledge, say, that American history isn't a cakewalk either and then not talk about it again' bits, of course.

That all said: yeah, probably the best of the DC films in the current cycle if only by default, would be fine with seeing it again. Opening sequence was striking enough, big showdown ending was serviceable/typical -- lots of shit gets thrown around/blown up/etc -- but there's a sequence in the middle which, caveats aside (sooooooo much fast/slow/fast there, plus the trench warfare setting) that was kinda worth the price of admission. You want Wonder Woman as a one-woman hyperwarrior badass, that would be it in spades.

these movies are supposed to be for kids

they are not. kids don't have any money. these movies are for man-babies, because they have money.

that being said I'm considering taking my daughter to see this but idk

My friends who've seen it hae been unanimous: more good than bad, especiaally the Gadot-Pine chemistry, way too many action sequences.

should also note, though, this thing is over two and a half hours long, which, why.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, May 26, 2017

see THIS is why I'm hesitating (and why I couldn't be bothered to attend a critic's screening).

jfc really? ugh

i'm surprised when i see that one of these things runs under two hours, everyone wants to make these movies as long as Heat now.

That seems to be typical for the DC movies.

Man of Steel - 143 minutes
Batman vs. Superman - 151 minutes
Suicide Squad - 123 minutes

I don't get it. I'm usually checking the time around 90 minutes in even for movies I'm enjoying.

especiaally the Gadot-Pine chemistry

Yeah, they work well together.

The length of the film wouldn't have been improved by cutting out whole sequences, they just needed to trim some of those sequences down. (It's not a case of 'too many action sequences' as it is more 'didn't this bit already end?')

that being said I'm considering taking my daughter to see this but idk

So long as she's okay with a couple of sex and dick jokes in the opening third.

I feel it is necessary to make you all read this line from Edelstein's review (http://www.vulture.com/2017/06/movie-review-wonder-woman-is-a-star-turn-for-gal-gadot.html).

It was worth waiting for Gadot.

I just

"Well, shall we pun?"

So long as she's okay with a couple of sex and dick jokes in the opening third.

2 1/2 hrs, dick jokes, weird presentation of violent military conflict = y'know, for kids!

yeah I'm not seeing this

what about your daughter?

She has already booked several showings.

I'm not sure she is even aware this movie exists!

these movies are for man-babies, because they have money.

― Οὖτις, Friday, June 2, 2017 9:10 AM (thirty minutes ago)

wonder woman is for all the babies

hold up i'm a man-baby but I'm fuckin skint tbh #notallmanbabies

lol @ hashtag

saw a tweet from Joss Whedon saying its good! He's totally unbiased.

Joss Whedon Joins DC for a Batgirl Movie, and More News - Rotten ...
https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/.../joss-whedon-joins-dc-for-a-batgirl-movie-and-...
Mar 31, 2017 - WB wants Jordan Peele for Akira, Disney wants Beyonce for The Lion King, Aaron Sorkin wants to write superhero stories, and Fox still wants to remake Escape from New York. ... AVENGERS DIRECTOR JOSS WHEDON TO SWITCH TEAMS FOR DC’S BATGIRL. ... Obviously, WB/DC shouldn’t outright copy ...

DC Joss Whedon Replacing Zack Snyder as Justice ... - Comic Book
comicbook.com/dc/2017/05/22/joss-whedon-justice-league-zack-snyder/
May 22, 2017 - It's not a joke, The Avengers 1 & 2 director Joss Whedon will be replacing Zack Snyder on Justice League, after Snyder Announced he's leaving to deal with a family tragedy. The tragedy in question is a massive one: Snyder's daughter, Autumn, took her own life in March, at the age ...

At one point Whedon was going to direct this, years ago. He seemed like a perfect fit.

Spoiler heavy but some very good thoughts here in this discussion from the women writers at io9

http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-ultimate-wonder-woman-analysis-by-the-women-of-io9-1795760084

that idiot from the new york times liked this a lot.

yeah I don't trust a.o. scott

Haven't seen this, but feels like there's an understandable desire for this movie to be a success - to prove that female superhero movies can be good, and make a lot of money - if only to piss off those fanboys who've been moaning about female-only screenings. I thought people seriously overestimated Gal Gado's performance in Bat V Supe - possibly because she was one of the least worst things in it - and I'm not totally convinced that she's a commanding/charismatic enough presence to carry a film. But I will go see the movie, and see if a female (and almost certainly better) director than Snyder helps things.

Not at all invested in DC comics anyway, but DC's post-60s attempt to present WW as a great feminist icon, considering that the character's origins lie in a male bondage fantasy, and that the Wonder Woman comics have been largely written and drawn by men (and, on the whole, haven't been very good, bymmv), is v problematic, and compromised. Saying that, the character name is unimpeachable, the costume design is all-time, and for better or worse there's no arguing with the fact that Wonder Woman is by far the best-known female superhero (Supergirl second?), so it's about time there was a movie.

Marston's conceptions were utterly bizarre but he seemed pretty sincere about creating a sort of feminist hero. If I remember correctly, he was appalled there weren't any big female superheroes and his kinks were deeply tied into his philosophy of what society should ideally be like. He thought that eroticism was an ideal tool to get people to accept their proper roles in life.

and, on the whole, haven't been very good,

this is the sad truth re: the comics (I haven't read the latest GMoz one but am curious)

I think the "feminist icon" angle is more rooted in the 70s tv show

is there a Lynda Carter cameo?

Sadly no, but supposedly the theme music is referenced at one point (didn't hear it myself).

watching the trailers just made me want to go on a Xena binge.

also the world war one stuff makes me never want to see this. nothing more boring! if the sequel is wonder woman in space i will be first in line.

Took the kids to this yesterday, Ned otm -- some good stuff, Gadot is good, it's nice to have a legit woman-led superhero film, too long. You know the slowed-down action scenes are overdone when my 9-year-old comes out of the theater complaining about how they "always do that." Pretty entertaining overall, B-minus I guess.

lol 9yo otm

i'm going tonight, expect to be entertained enough, not expecting it to be Logan good but what is

I loved it. it's 80% a semi-realistic war film, for one thing; which not only makes it hearken back to golden age comics but also allows for the violence that is portrayed to have a more human dimension; contrast it with Guardians of the Galaxy which had that 'mowing everyone down with one arrow' scene that was played for laughs; there is nothing like that here. The dick joke is nothing that we haven't come to expect from a PG-13 movie by this point; this isn't Deadpool or something. Gal Godot is really good in the role. Obviously yes she is stunningly beautiful, but when she was originally cast I didn't know if she looked convincingly powerful; she is. Some have called this the best comic book movie ever; I'd still put Logan, the first Superman, the first Batman, and probalby the Dark Knight over this, but I liked it more than almost every Marvel movie, I think; so many of them are blurring together at this point.

(there wasn't a reference to the original theme song; the guitar/cello lick from the trailers I'd mistakenly though twas from the 70's TV series was written for Batman Vs. Superman which I still haven't bothered with and appeared there when she showed up, I guess. That recurs several times).

Complaining about Yondu's revenge on the mutineers in GotG and then repping Logan. Okay!

I wasn't complaining about it, I was just stating that it was gratuitous. it was. there is gratuitous violence in Logan too but Logan again has an added human dimension to it that balances that.

Semi-realistic war film kiiiiind of a stretch. It's a riff on an imaginative reduction of the war to a couple of trenches and a mysteriously mostly intact town. You have to suspend a lot of disbelief about a lot of things about the actual place/time, which, superhero movie, so very obviously so, but every few minutes was another stumbling block.

(My favorite moment in this regard: the refugee woman telling WW something like how they've enslaved the town for a year. You've been hanging out as a refugee in the trenches for a year?)

gal godot carries the movie just fine. of course she's kind of impossibly beautiful which helps a lot, but she conveys the strength, compassion, leadership, dignity, etc. - all the ideal traits of Wonder Woman - no one should take that for granted

i kinda wish that movie was less blue and grey for 2/3rds of it but that's cinematic lies of WWI/II that we can't shake culturally

Complaining about Yondu's revenge on the mutineers in GotG and then repping Logan. Okay!

Logan is literally about the price paid for leading a violent life. It's like "Unforgiven" or something, it's about violence, so of course it's violent. GotG is escapist pew pew fare that just happens to feature a winky sequence of violent onscreen mass murder set to some '70s pop song. All these comic book movies are innately violent, but the body count is typically off screen and amorphous. How many people die in Captain America? Iron Man? Who knows! I don't know if that's better or worse, but rarely is carnage played for laughs outside of Deadpool.

the trailers make WW look most similar to the first Captain America, with its pseudo-retro elements. Is this accurate?

Yes and no. It's the most obvious point of comparison (and would have been even more so if they'd stuck with the WWII origin story), but in terms of the actual 'look' as such, it's very much a DC/Snyderverse film in many ways. Oddly enough the film I kinda most compared it to in my head when it came to how it looked was Guy Ritchie's second Sherlock Holmes one.

If anything, the more I think about it, the flashback setup of the film manages a really neat trick in that it feels less heavily 'wow wasn't the past weird' as it is someone with memories in the moment turning them over again.

All these comic book movies are innately violent, but the body count is typically off screen and amorphous. How many people die in Captain America?

Civilian body count is the plot driver for Cap 3/Avengers 2.5.

the second Cappy has quite a few deaths too.

Highly recommend talking about marvel movies on the MCU thread, I could argue about body counts all day but this is ostensibly a place to discuss Wonder Woman, a film set during the Great War

fair enuff

the first 10 minutes of this movie was sparse-dialogued, dispassionate, tension-building, but largely mayhem-free war pieces that made me think "oh shiiit we're in for possibly the tonally weirdest wonder woman movie ever" but it turned out to be an unannounced preview for dunkirk.